“The man to whom the order for the oysters had been sent had not been told to open them; it is a very difficult thing to open an oyster with a limp knife or a two-pronged fork; and very little was done in this way. Very little of the beef was done either; and the ham (which was from the German-sausage shop round the corner) was in a similar predicament. However, there was plenty of porter in a tin can; and the cheese went a great way, for it was very strong.”
Probably the oysters had not been paid for in advance, and the man imagined that they would be returned upon his hands none the worse. For at that time—as has been remarked before, in this volume on gastronomy—the knowledge that an oyster baked in his own shells, in the middle of a clear fire, is an appetising dish, does not appear to have been universal.
It is questionable if a supper consisting of a boiled leg of mutton “with the usual trimmings” would have satisfied the taste of the “gentleman’s gentleman” of to-day, who is a hypercritic, if anything; but let that supper be taken as read. Also let it be noted that the appetite of the redoubtable Pickwick never seems to have failed him, even in the sponging-house—five to one can be betted that those chops were fried—or in the Fleet Prison itself. And mention of this establishment recalls the extravagant folly of Job Trotter (who of all men ought to have known better) in purchasing “a small piece of raw loin of mutton” for the refection of himself and ruined master; when for the same money he could surely have obtained a sufficiency of bullock’s cheek or liver, potatoes, and onions, to provide dinner for three days. Vide the “Kent Road Cookery,” in one of my earlier chapters. The description of the journeys from Bristol to Birmingham, and back to London, absolutely reeks with food and alcohol; and it has always smacked of the mysterious to myself how Sam Weller, a pure Cockney, could have known so much of the capacities of the various hostelries on the road. Evidently his knowledge of other places besides London was “peculiar.” Last scene of all in Pickwick requiring mention here, is the refection given to Mr. Solomon Pell in honour of the proving of the late Dame Weller’s last will and testament. “Porter, cold beef, and oysters,” were some of the incidents of that meal, and we read that “the coachman with the hoarse voice took an imperial pint of vinegar with his oysters, without betraying the least emotion.”
It is also set down that brandy and water, as usual in this history, followed the oysters; but we are not told if any of those coachmen ever handled the ribbons again, or if Mr. Solomon Pell spent his declining days in the infirmary.
In fact, there are not many chapters in Charles Dickens’ works in which the knife and fork do not play prominent parts. The food is, for the most part, simple and homely; the seed sown in England by the fairy Ala had hardly begun to germinate at the time the novels were written. Still there is, naturally, a suspicion of Ala at the very commencement of Little Dorrit, the scene being laid in the Marseilles prison, where Monsieur Rigaud feasts off Lyons sausage, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, and good claret, the while his humble companion, Signor John Baptist, has to content himself with stale bread, through reverses at gambling with his fellow prisoner. After that, there is no mention of a “square meal” until we get to Mr. Casby’s, the “Patriarch.” “Everything about the patriarchal household,” we are told, “promoted quiet digestion”; and the dinner mentioned began with “some soup, some fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes.” Rare old Casby! “Mutton, a steak, and an apple pie”—and presumably cheese—furnished the more solid portion of the banquet, which appears to have been washed down with porter and sherry wine, and enlivened by the inconsequent remarks of “Mr. F.’s Aunt.”
In Great Expectations occurs the celebrated banquet at the Chateau Gargery on Christmas Day, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens, a pair of roast stuffed fowls, a handsome mince pie, and a plum-pudding. The absence of the savoury pork-pie, and the presence of tar-water in the brandy are incidents at that banquet familiar enough to Sir Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., and other close students of Dickens, whose favourite dinner-dish would appear to have been a fowl, stuffed or otherwise, roast or boiled.
In Oliver Twist we get casual mention of oysters, sheep’s heads, and a rabbit pie, with plenty of alcohol; but the bill of fare, on the whole, is not an appetising one. The meat and drink at the Maypole Hotel, in Barnaby Rudge, would appear to have been deservedly popular; and the description of Gabriel Varden’s breakfast is calculated to bring water to the most callous mouth:
“Over and above the ordinary tea equipage the board creaked beneath the weight of a jolly round of beef, a ham of the first magnitude, and sundry towers of buttered Yorkshire cake, piled slice upon slice in most alluring order. There was also a goodly jug of well-browned clay, fashioned into the form of an old gentleman not by any means unlike the locksmith, atop of whose bald head was a fine white froth answering to his wig, indicative, beyond dispute, of sparkling home brewed ale. But better than fair home-brewed, or Yorkshire cake, or ham, or beef, or anything to eat or drink that earth or air or water can supply, there sat, presiding over all, the locksmith’s rosy daughter, before whose dark eyes even beef grew insignificant, and malt became as nothing.”
Ah-h-h!
There is not much eating in A Tale of Two Cities; but an intolerable amount of assorted “sack.” In Sketches by Boz we learn that Dickens had no great opinion of public dinners, and that oysters were, at that period, occasionally opened by the fair sex. There is a nice flavour of fowl and old Madeira about Dombey and Son, and the description of the dinner at Doctor Blimber’s establishment for young gentlemen is worth requoting: