Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/421

 414 sauces, and brown bread and butter on the jaded or virgin palate? Epicures would smile at my attempt, hunger would despise my finesse. I will, therefore, let the delicate subject alone, and ask you merely to digest with me some of the reflections which occur to philosophers like ourselves in connection with a dinner at Greenwich. In the first place I remark that the prevailing object of the town is to put the satisfaction of even the humblest appetite in as pleasant a light as possible. Do you wish to luxuriate on copper? Walk from the water-side to the park, and listen to the invitations which greet you at every door:

“Tea, sir; nice tea and a summer-house. Walk in, sir; private apartment—beautiful view!”

The mistresses of these establishments stand at their thresholds, the tea-things are exhibited in the windows over head, hanging like the signs of old London at right angles to your path. On the house-fronts—like more modern advertisements—cunning placards offer silently to the eye what the hostesses pour into the ear. The fare is cheap: you may bring your own tea screwed up in a page of “London Journal,” and combine it with “hot water and a cool garden, at twopence per head.”

Between this and a dinner at the Ship what room for the imaginative palate to wander!—what variety of meals! Some incapable of classification under any title in use between breakfast and supper, others scientifically distinctive. Some men dine flying—“snatch a mouthful”—we,we [sic] suppose, as the travelling post-office does a bag at a small station, full speed; others, having no occupation, dawdle on slowly, spreading the sensation over as much time and palate as they can. Dinners! Think of the omnibus man’s, who drives fourteen hours a-day—Sundays included—and, when all goes right, gets twenty minutes for that meal; but when all goes wrong barely ten. Ten minutes for dinner in a period of fourteen hours!—the hinge is too weak—the pivot is too small for such machinery to revolve on. He gets down, though, no inconsiderable bulk of meat and potatoes. Give a cabman ten minutes, elbow room, and a leg of mutton, and you will have a fresh illustration of the value of time.

Critics in eating have remarked, disparagingly, on the sameness of English dinners, as compared, for instance, with French. Their strictures, however, apply only to the feeding of certain classes,—the entertainments which are given in certain society, where the grand set the pattern and the mean hobble after it. Beyond the stereotyped conventional “dinner,” the soups, fish, flesh, fowl, &c., there is perhaps a greater variety of meals consumed under that title in England than in France. There the poor man’s meal is made to resemble the rich man’s in some degree by a change, if not variety of dishes, say by a little meagre soup. They are also related through the accompanying “wine.” There is a common ideal to them both.

Take any promiscuous hundred Frenchmen, and their notions of dinner would show much more uniformity than those of a hundred Englishmen.

I was led into this train of thought one day last summer at Greenwich. A friend carried me down there to dine. Where we dined—below, not many yards off—visible from the open window of our room, was a man “getting his dinner” in a coal-barge. His fingers showed black upon the victuals he tore. When he wiped his mouth with his sleeve he partially cleansed the lower part of his face. He was very hot. He drank out of a battered tin can which had been standing in the sun. After that he sighed deeply, and shouldered a sack of coals. Not that he sighed from sorrow, it was from satisfaction; a rude unspoken grace was offered to the lord of work, who had now satisfied his appetite for a time. He shouldered a sack. My friend suggested cigars on the balcony, and waiter set out some chairs for us.

Now, methought, what a variety of dinners there are between ours and the bargee’s. Dinner filled my mind—Greenwich put it into my mouth—so pray forgive a ruminative chat. Dinners: let us see—these are hot and cold; they are always hot on board steamers. I suppose there is necessarily something more grateful to the palate in a hot joint. The food is tasted without an effort. On this account a bad hot dinner is abominable, and thus packet-dinners are most offensive. The reeking heap of greens and the large, boiled, underdone leg of mutton, which are always prominent on these occasions, have a reeking intensity of flavour such as no two other dishes ever combined. The cold dinner has a character which it does not deserve; being socially despised, it is often served without care.

Such, however, is the way of the world. The man who has little but plain sense to recommend him is made the worst of; he is used—not welcomed, like cold boiled mutton, without pickles or grace, while the sappy joint gathers around it all the care of cookery and support of sauces. Help to the strong; and as for the weak, you may kick him securely—he has got no friends.

Second-rate cookshops have a wonderful power of developing greasiness; every item shines. The very hungry, however, who go there generally need greasy food—I mean physically; fat makes fat and warmth. I confess, though, that on hearing a wise man the other day remark how Greenlanders ate blubber to produce “carbon,” I could not help saying (to myself, of course, for he was a great medical authority) that they probably ate it because they could not get anything else. I am a great believer, nevertheless, in nature as guide and caterer in eating. She not only provides oil and fat for the inhabitant of the Polar regions, but takes away from him the extreme disgust we should feel at such food. Indeed, I believe that the palate is the truest regulator of our diet. What we like best agrees with us best—in moderation—there is the rub. Dainty dishes are sometimes abused, because they tempt us to eat too much. Their daintiness is not their defect. The same bulk of nasty food would disagree with us much more than the same bulk of nice food. Some people, indeed, profess that they don’t care what they eat. They are generally mistaken; but if not, all I can say is, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. To affect superiority to one of the senses God has given us is questionable,