The déjeûner usually begins with a consommé, a thin, clear, soup, not quite adapted to stave off the pangs of hunger by itself, but grateful enough by way of a commencement. Then follows an array of dishes containing fish and fowl of sorts, with the inevitable côtelettes à la somebody-or-other, not forgetting an omelette—a mess which the French cook alone knows how to concoct to perfection. The meal is usually washed down with some sort of claret; and a subsequent café, with the accustomed chasse; whilst the welcome cigarette is not “defended,” even in the mansions of the great.
There is more than one way of making coffee, that of the lodging-house “general,” and of the street-stall dispenser, during the small hours, being amongst the least commendable. Without posing as an infallible manufacturer of the refreshing (though indigestible, to many people) beverage, I would urge that it be made from freshly-roasted seed, ground just before wanted. Then heat the ground coffee in the oven, and place upon the perforated bottom of the upper compartment of a cafetière, put the strainer on it, and pour in boiling water, gradually. “The Duke” in Geneviève de Brabant used to warble as part of a song in praise of tea—
And ’tis also most important
That you should not spare the tea.
So is it of equal importance that you should not spare the coffee. There are more elaborate ways of making coffee; but none that the writer has tried are in front of the old cafetière, if the simple directions given above be carried out in their entirety.
As in France, sojourners (for their sins) in the burning plains of Ind have their first breakfast, or chota hazri, at an early hour, whilst the breakfast proper—usually described in Lower Bengal, Madras, and Bombay as “tiffin”—comes later on. For
Chota Hazri
(literally “little breakfast”)—which is served either at the Mess-house, the public Bath, or in one’s own bungalow, beneath the verandah—poached eggs on toast are de rigueur, whilst I have met such additions as unda ishcamble (scrambled eggs), potato cake, and (naughty, naughty!) anchovy toast. Tea or coffee are always drunk with this meal. “Always,” have I written? Alas! In my mind’s eye I can see the poor Indian vainly trying to stop the too-free flow of the Belati pani (literally “Europe water”) by thrusting a dusky thumb into the neck of the just-opened bottle, and in my mind’s ear can I catch the blasphemous observation of the subaltern as he remarks to his slave that he does not require, in his morning’s “livener,” the additional flavour of Mahommedan flesh, and the “hubble-bubble” pipe, the tobacco in which may have been stirred by the same thumb that morning.
“Coffee shop” is a favourite function, during the march of a regiment in India, at least it used to be in the olden time, before troops were conveyed by railway. Dhoolies (roughly made palanquins) laden with meat and drink were sent on half way, overnight; and grateful indeed was the cup of tea, or coffee, or the “peg” which was poured forth for the weary warrior who had been “tramping it” or in the saddle since 2 A.M. or some such unearthly hour, in order that the column might reach the new camping-ground before the sun was high in the heavens. It was at “coffee-shop” that “chaff” reigned supreme, and speculations as to what the shooting would be like at the next place were indulged in. And when that shooting was likely to take the form of long men, armed with long guns, and long knives, the viands, which consisted for the most part of toast, biscuits, poached eggs, and unda bakum (eggs and bacon), were devoured with appetites all the keener for the prospect in view. It is in troublous times, be it further observed, that the Hindustan khit is seen at his best. On the field of battle itself I have known coffee and boiled eggs—or even a grilled fowl—produced by the fearless and devoted nokhur, from, apparently, nowhere at all.
At the Indian breakfast proper, all sorts of viands are consumed; from the curried prawns and Europe provisions (which arrive in an hermetically sealed condition per s.s. Nomattawot), to the rooster who heralds your arrival at the dak bungalow, with much crowing, and who within half an hour of your advent has been successively chased into a corner, beheaded, plucked, and served up for your refection in a scorched state. I have breakfasted off such assorted food as curried locusts, boiled leg of mutton, fried snipe, Europe sausages, Iron ishtoo (Irish stew), vilolif (veal olives, and more correctly a dinner dish), kidney toast—chopped sheep’s kidneys, highly seasoned with pepper, lime-juice, and Worcester sauce, very appetising—parrot pie, eggs and bacon, omelette (which might also have been used to patch ammunition boots with), sardines, fried fish (mind the bones of the Asiatic fish), bifishtake (beef steak), goat chops, curries of all sorts, hashed venison, and roast peafowl, ditto quail, ditto pretty nearly everything that flies, cold buffalo hump, grilled sheep’s tail (a bit bilious), hermetically-sealed herring, turtle fins, Guava jelly, preserved mango, home-made cake, and many other things which have escaped memory. I am coming to the “curry” part of the entertainment later on in the volume, but may remark that it is preferable when eaten in the middle of the day. My own experience was that few people touched curry when served in its normal place at dinner—as a course of itself—just before the sweets.
“Breakfast with my tutor!” What happy memories of boyhood do not the words conjure up, of the usually stern, unbending preceptor pouring out the coffee, and helping the sausages and mashed potatoes—we always had what is now known as “saus and mash” at my tutor’s—and the fatherly air with which he would remind the juvenile glutton, who had seated himself just opposite the apricot jam, and was improving the occasion, that eleven o’clock school would be in full swing in half an hour, and that the brain (and, by process of reasoning, the stomach) could not be in too good working-order for the fervid young student of Herodotus. The ordinary breakfast of the “lower boy” at Eton used to be of a very uncertain pattern. Indeed, what with “fagging,” the preparation of his lord-and-master’s breakfast, the preparation of “pupil-room” work, and agile and acute scouts ever on the alert to pilfer his roll and pat of butter, that boy was lucky if he got any breakfast at all. If he possessed capital, or credit, he might certainly stave off starvation at “Brown’s,” with buttered buns and pickled salmon; or at “Webber’s,” or “the Wall,” with three-cornered jam tarts, or a “strawberry mess”; but Smith minor, and Jones minimus as often as not, went breakfastless to second school.