First, some good mock-turtle soup—no doubt about it being a jelly when cold—a sort of soup that, in the present day of beards and moustachios, would require some care in taking.
Next the cover is taken off a huge cod-fish, big enough to have swallowed Jonah himself when he was a little boy, handed round with which was some oyster sauce as it should be, containing oysters in numbers. Ah! the very memory of it makes us heave a deep sigh. Good oysters could then be obtained at four-pence a dozen, and now—three shillings a dozen.
The present Chancellor of the Exchequer might well bring in a poll-tax on the men who eat oysters.
Next the four entrées were uncovered, and the silver lids taken out of the room, for the handles to be unscrewed, the dishes wiped, rubbed with a leather for a minute, and then they made four new silver dishes for the sweets. The entrées were as follows:—Oyster patties, curried rabbit, stewed kidneys, and what used to be called a beef olive—which consisted of a steak rolled with veal stuffing, and some very thick brown gravy poured over it.
After all these had been partially consumed, the covers were taken off what is termed the pièce de résistance, which consisted of a huge sirloin of beef, looking somewhat like the host himself, fat and jolly, with scraped horseradish instead of grey hair; or perhaps a fine haunch of mutton, with a paper frill round its wrist, something like a lady’s cuff.
At the other end of the table were generally two large capons, with a boiled tongue between them; beside which, two side-dishes, the one a pigeon pie, and the other a small York ham.
We will not go on to describe the second course. As a rule, lady housekeepers have no difficulty in superintending this part of the dinner. There are hundreds and thousands of ladies who can make a splendid dish of trifle or a mould of jelly, who would not have the slightest idea of gravy. It was but yesterday I was dining out where the gravy was handed round, which looked and tasted like pale, weak beef-tea, which in truth it was.
At other places, too, cooks seem to think that when gravy is required, all they have to do is to put a little of the soup in the sauce-tureen, and send it up.
We would inform them that soup and gravy are two distinct things. Perhaps at some future period we may have a whole article on gravy, for gravy is a very weak point with inexperienced cooks.
But to return to the dinner above-mentioned. We do not for one moment wish it to be understood that we complain of it. It is a sort of dinner that makes people, when they come home late in the evening, at any rate feel they have dined, and do not, as is too often the case after some of those large dinners where fruit, flowers, and ice abound, on their arrival want a sandwich and glass of sherry or brandy and soda before going to bed. What we do maintain is that it is exceedingly expensive, and that a handsome little dinner à la Russe can be served up for less than half the money.