But how has it come about that the fairy “Ala” has gained such headway in this island of ours? The answer must commence another chapter.
[CHAPTER VII]
DINNER (continued)
“It is the cause!”
Imitation—Dear Lady Thistlebrain—Try it on the dog—Criminality of the English Caterer—The stove, the stink, the steamer—Roasting v. Baking—False Economy—Dirty ovens—Frills and fingers—Time over Dinner—A long-winded Bishop—Corned beef.
Now for the cause, alluded to at the end of the last chapter.
Imprimis, the French invasion is due to the universal craze for imitation, which may be the sincerest form of flattery, but which frequently leads to bad results. For years past the fair sex of Great Britain have been looking to Paris for fashion in dress, as well as in cookery; whilst the other sex have long held the mistaken notion that “they manage things better in France.” The idea that France is the only country capable of clothing the outer and the inner man, artistically, has taken deep root. Thus, if the Duchess of Dulverton import, regardless of expense, a divine creation in bonnets from the Rue de Castiglione, and air the same in church, it is good odds that little Mrs. Stokes, of the Talbot Road, Bayswater, will have had the chapeau copied, at about one-twentieth of the original cost, by the next Sabbath day. Dear Lady Thistlebrain, who has such taste (since she quitted the family mangle in Little Toke Street, Lambeth, for two mansions, a castle, and a deer park), and with whom money is no object, pays her chef the wages of an ambassador, and everybody raves over her dinners. Mrs. Potter of Maida Vale sets her “gal” (who studied higher gastronomy, together with the piano, and flower-painting on satin, at the Board School) to work on similar menus—with, on the whole, disastrous results. The London society and fashion journals encourage this snobbish idea by quoting menus, most of them ridiculous. Amongst the middle classes the custom of giving dinner parties at hotels has for some time past been spreading, partly to save trouble, and partly to save the brain of the domestic cook; so that instead of sitting down to a plain dinner, with, maybe, an entrée or two sent in by the local confectioner—around the family mahogany tree, all may be fanciful decoration, and not half enough to eat, electric light, and à la with attendance charged in the bill.
The only way to stop this sort of thing is to bring the system into ridicule, to try it on the groundlings. A fair leader of ton, late in the sixties, appeared one morning in the haunts of fashion, her shapely shoulders covered with a cape of finest Russian sables, to the general admiration and envy of all her compeers. Thereupon, what did her dearest friend and (of course) most deadly rival do? Get a similar cape, or one of finer quality? Not a bit of it. She drove off, then and there, to her furriers, and had her coachman and footman fitted with similar capes, in (of course) cheaper material; and, when next afternoon she took the air in the park, in her perfectly appointed landau, her fur-clad menials created something like a panic in the camp of her enemy, whilst fur capes for fair leaders of “ton,” were, like hashed venison at a City luncheon, very soon “hoff.”