“Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we can eat and we hae meat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.”
Origin—Early dinners—The noble Romans—“Vitellius the Glutton”—Origin of haggis—The Saxons—Highland hospitality—The French invasion—Waterloo avenged—The bad fairy “Ala”—Comparisons—The English cook or the foreign food torturer?—Plain or flowery—Fresh fish and the flavour wrapped up—George Augustus Sala—Doctor Johnson again.
It is somewhat humiliating to reflect that we Britons owe the art of dining to our first conquerors the Romans—a smooth-faced race of voluptuaries whose idea of a bonne bouche took the form of a dormouse stewed in honey and sprinkled with poppy-seed. But it was not until the Normans had fairly established themselves and their cookery, that the sturdy Saxon submitted himself to be educated by the foreign food-spoiler; and at a later period the frequent invasions of France by Britain—when money was “tight” in the little island—were undoubtedly responsible for the commencement of the system of “decorating” food which so largely obtains to-day.
The name “dinner” is said—although it seems incredible that words should have become so corrupted—to be a corruption of dix heures, the time at which (A.M.), in the old Norman days, the meal was usually partaken of; and the time at which (P.M.), in later years, when none of the guests ever knew the hour, in that loose-and-careless period, the meal was occasionally partaken of at Limmer’s and at Lane’s, in London town. Froissart, in one of his works, mentions having waited upon the Duke of Lancaster at 5 P.M., “after his Grace had supped”; and it is certain that during the reigns of Francis I. and Louis XII. of France, the world of fashion was accustomed to dine long before the sun had arrived at the meridian, and to sup at what we now call “afternoon tea time.” Louis XIV. did not dine till twelve; and his contemporaries, Oliver Cromwell and the Merry Monarch, sat down to the principal meal at one. In 1700, two was the fashionable time; and in 1751 we read that the Duchess of Somerset’s hour for dinner was three. The hour for putting the soup on the table kept on advancing, until, after Waterloo, it became almost a penal offence to dine before six; and so to the end of the century, when we sit down to a sumptuous repast at a time when farm-labourers and artisans are either snug between the blankets, or engaged in their final wrangle at the “Blue Pig.”
The Romans in the time of Cicero had a light breakfast at 3.30 A.M., lunched at noon, and attacked the cœna at periods varying between 3 and 7 P.M.—according to the season of the year. They commenced the first course with eggs, and each noble Roman was supposed to clear his palate with an apple at the conclusion of the third course. “A banquet with Vitellius,” we read, “was no light and simple repast. Leagues of sea and miles of forest had been swept to furnish the mere groundwork of the entertainment. Hardy fishermen had spent their nights on the heaving wave, that the giant turbot might flap its snowy flakes on the Emperor’s table, broader than its broad dish of gold. Many a swelling hill, clad in the dark oak coppice, had echoed to ringing shout of hunter and deep-mouthed bay of hound, ere the wild boar yielded his grim life, by the morass, and the dark grisly carcase was drawn off to provide a standing dish that was only meant to gratify the eye. Even the peacock roasted in its feathers was too gross a dainty”—especially the feather part, we should think—“for epicures who studied the art of gastronomy under Caesar; and that taste would have been considered rustic in the extreme which could partake of more than the mere fumes and savour of so substantial a dish. A thousand nightingales had been trapped and killed, indeed, for this one supper, but brains and tongues were all they contributed to the banquet; while even the wing of a roasted hare would have been considered far too coarse and common food for the imperial table.” Talk about a bean-feast!
According to Suetonius (whose name suggests “duff”) the villain Nero was accustomed to dine in a superb apartment, surrounded with mechanical scenery, which could be “shifted” with every course. The suppers of “Vitellius the Glutton” cost, on the average, more than £4000 a-piece—which reads like a “Kaffir Circus” dinner at the Savoy—and the celebrated feast to which he invited his brother was down in the bill for £40,350. Now a-nights we don’t spend as much on a dinner, even when we invite other people’s wives. “It consisted”—I always think of Little Dombey and the dinner at Doctor Blimber’s, on reading these facts—“of two thousand different dishes of fish, and seven thousand of fowls, with other equally numerous meats.”
“Sharp-biting salads,” salted herrings, and pickled anchovies, were served, as hors d’œuvres during the first course of a Roman banquet, to stimulate the hunger which the rest of the meal would satisfy; but although Vitellius was, according to history, “a whale on” oysters, they do not appear to have been eaten as a whet to appetite. And it was the duty of one, or more, of the Emperor’s “freedmen” to taste every dish before his imperial master, in case poison might lurk therein. A garland of flowers around the brows was the regular wear for a guest at a “swagger” dinner party in ancient Rome, and, the eating part over, said garland was usually tilted back on the head, the while he who had dined disposed himself in an easy attitude on his ivory couch, and proffered his cup to be filled by the solicitous slave. Then commenced the “big drink.” But it must be remembered that although the subsequent display of fireworks was provided from lively Early Christians, in tar overcoats, these Romans drank the pure, unadulterated juice of the grape, freely mixed with water; so that headaches i’ th’ morn were not de rigueur, nor did the subsequent massacres and other diversions in the Amphitheatre cause any feelings of “jumpiness.”
The Roman bill-of-fare, however, does not commend itself to all British epicures, one of whom wrote, in a convivial song—
“Old Lucullus, they say,
Forty cooks had each day,
And Vitellius’s meals cost a million;
But I like what is good,
When or where be my food,
In a chop-house or royal pavilion.
At all feasts (if enough)
I most heartily stuff,
And a song at my heart alike rushes,
Though I’ve not fed my lungs
Upon nightingales’ tongues,
Nor the brains of goldfinches and thrushes.”