This is a special Christmas dinner prepared by the late Sir Henry Thompson, whose views on food and feeding are well known. It is most certainly a very happy combination of the necessities and the delicacies of the season, and as such needs no further recommendation. It is perhaps especially applicable to country-house parties, where both sexes are wont to have a pretty appetite.

“Science can analyse a pork chop, and say how much of it is phosphorus and how much is protein, but science cannot analyse any man’s wish for a pork chop, and say how much of it is hunger, how much nervous fancy, how much a haunting love of the beautiful. The man’s desire for the pork chop remains literally as mystical and ethereal as his desire for heaven.” Now, who wrote that ingenuous passage? Je vous le donne en trois. Charles Lamb? No. G. A. Sala? No. Mr. Lecky? Certainly not! It is by that inimitable humorist, G. K. Chesterton. And it’s quite true.

There is a most delectable little part of the turkey which the French euphoniously call le sot l’y laisse. Grimod de la Reynière, the celebrated gourmet, was wont to say that it was the most exquisite morsel of flesh in the world.

Travelling one day some miles from his country-seat, he pulled up at a roadside inn for dinner. The host regretted that he had nothing to offer the stranger. “But,” said the latter, “I see five turkeys hanging up there. Why not give me one of them?” The innkeeper was sorry, but they were all ordered by a gentleman staying in the house. “Surely he cannot want them all himself. Ask him to permit me to share his meal.” Again the innkeeper had to refuse. The gentleman in question was very particular. He only ate one tiny little piece from each bird—le sot l’y laisse, in fact. More anxious than ever to know who this rival gourmet was who had the same tastes as himself, de la Reynière insisted on making his acquaintance. He found it was his own son.

This is the menu of the Queen’s Guard Dinner, St. James’s Palace, for Friday, 23 March, 1855. Considering that it is only fifty years old, and therefore well within the memory of many living men, it makes curiously quaint reading.

MENU
Les Huîtres.
Potage à la Crécy aux croûtons.
Potage de Macaroni au consommé.
La Merluche sauce aux œufs.
Les truites grillées à la Tartare.
Saddle of Mutton.
Les Poulets garnis d’une langue.
Les Côtelettes de mouton à la Soubise.
Le vol au vent aux écrévisses.
Les Kromeskys de ris de veau.
Les filets de bœuf piqués sauce poivrade.
Les pigeons and la pintade piquée.
Les Pommes au riz.
Les fondus en caisses.
La gelée au noyeau.
Les meringues à la Chantilly.
Les Epinards au jus.
La moëlle aux croûtons.

Such a deal of fine, confused feeding would be deemed vulgar and ostentatious to-day. The dinner could not have been served and eaten in less than a couple of hours, and there is an appalling ponderosity of substantials which must have tried the mid-Victorian digestion to the uttermost.

In pleasing contrast to the foregoing, I will quote a charming little dinner given in Paris by a hostess who understands the art of menu-fashioning in the highest degree.

MENU
Huîtres de Marennes.
Potage Bonne Femme.
Filets de Soles Joinville.
Selle d’agneau bouquetière.
Salmis de bécasses aux truffes.
Foie gras à la Souwaroff.
Poulardes à la Parisienne.
Cœurs de laitues à la Russe.
Pointes d’asperges à la crème.
Glace Lavallière.
Gauffrettes.