LUNCHEON
"'Tis a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance."
Why lunch?--Sir Henry Thompson on overdoing it--The
children's dinner--City lunches--Ye Olde Cheshyre
Cheese--Doctor Johnson--Ye pudding--A great fall in food--A
snipe pudding--Skirt, not rump steak--Lancashire hot pot--A
Cape "brady."
"'More honoured in the breach,' do you say, Mr. Author?" I fancy I
hear some reader inquire. "Are these your sentiments? Do you really
mean them?" Well, perhaps, they ought to be qualified. Unless a
man breakfast very early, and dine very late, he cannot do himself
much good by eating a square meal at 1.30 or 2.0 P.M. There can
be no question but that whilst thousands of the lieges--despite
soup-kitchens, workhouses, and gaols--perish of absolute starvation,
as many of their more fortunate brethren perish, in the course of
time, from gluttony, from falling down (sometimes literally) and
worshipping the Belly-god.
Years ago Sir Henry Thompson observed to a friend of the writer's:
"Most men who seek my advice are suffering under one of two great
evils--eating too much good food, or drinking too much bad liquor; and
occasionally they suffer under both evils."
"This luncheon," writes Oliver Wendell Holmes, "is a very convenient
affair; it does not require any special dress; it is informal; and can
be light or heavy as one chooses."
The American--the male American at all events--takes far more count of
luncheon than of breakfast.
But in many cases luncheon and early dinner are synonymous terms.
Take the family luncheon, for instance, of the middle classes, where
mother, governess, and little ones all assemble in front of the
roast and boiled, at the principal meal of the day, and the more or
less snowy tablecloth is duly anointed with gravy by "poor baby," in
her high chair, and the youngest but one is slapped at intervals by
his instructress, for using his knife for the peas--at the risk of
enlarging his mouth--or for swallowing the stones of the cherries
which have been dealt him, or her, from the tart. This is not the
sort of meal for the male friend of the family to "drop in" at, if
he value the lapels of his new frock-coat, and be given to blushing.
For children have not only an evil habit of "pawing" the visitor with
jammy fingers, but occasionally narrate somewhat "risky" anecdotes.
And a child's ideas of the Christian religion, nay, of the Creator
himself, are occasionally more quaint than reverent.
"Ma, dear," once lisped a sweet little thing of six, "what doth God
have for hith dinner?"
"S-sh-sh, my child!" replied the horrified mother, "you must not ask
such dreadful questions. God doesn't want any dinner, remember that."
"Oh-h-h!" continued the unabashed and dissatisfied _enfant terrible_.
And, after a pause, "then I thuppose he hath an egg with hith tea."
In a country-house, of course, but few of the male guests turn
up at the domestic luncheon, being otherwise engaged in killing
something, or in trying to kill something, or in that sport which
is but partially understood out of Great Britain--the pursuit of an
evil-savoured animal who is practically worthless to civilisation
after his capture and death.
It is in "the City" that vile man, perhaps, puts in his best work
as an eater of luncheons. Some city men there be, of course--poor,
wretched, half-starved clerks, whose state nobody ever seems to
attempt to ameliorate--whose midday refections are not such as would
have earned a meed of commendation from the late Vitellius, or from
the late Colonel North. For said refections but seldom consist of
more important items than a thick slice of bread and a stale bloater;
or possibly a home-made sandwich of bread and Dutch cheese--the
whole washed down with a tumbler of milk, or more often a tumbler
of the fluid supplied by the New River Company. During the winter
months a pennyworth of roasted chestnuts supplies a filling, though
indigestible meal to many a man whose employer is swilling turtle
at Birch's or at the big house in Leadenhall Street, and who is
compelled, by the exigencies of custom, to wear a decent black coat
and some sort of tall hat when on his way to and from "business."
But the more fortunate citizens--how do they "do themselves"
at luncheon? For some there is the cheap soup-house, or the
chop-and-steak house reviled of Dickens, and but little changed since
the time of the great novelist. Then, for the "gilt-edged" division
there is
_Birch's_,
the little green house which, although now "run" by those eminent
caterers, Messrs. Ring and Brymer, is still known by the name of the
old Alderman who deserved so well of his fellow citizens, and who,
whilst a _cordon bleu_ of some celebrity, had also a pretty taste
as a playwright. The old house has not changed one jot, either in
appearance, customs, or fare. At the little counter on the ground
floor may be obtained the same cheesecakes, tartlets, baked custards,
and calf's-foot jellies which delighted our grandfathers, and the same
brand of Scottish whisky. Upstairs, in the soup-rooms, some of the
tables are covered with damask tablecloths, whilst at others a small
square of napery but partially obscures the view of the well-polished
mahogany.
_Turtle Soup_
is still served on silver plates, whilst the cheaper juices of the
bullock, the calf, and the pea, "with the usual trimmings," repose
temporarily on china or earthenware. _Pâtés_, whether of oyster,
lobster, chicken, or veal-and-ham, are still in favour with _habitué_
and chance customer alike, and no wonder, for these are something
like _pâtés_. The "filling" is kept hot like the soups, in huge
stewpans, on the range, and when required is ladled out into a plate,
and furnished with top and bottom crust--and such crust, flaky
and light to a degree; and how different to the confectioner's or
railway-refreshment _pâté_, which, when an orifice be made in the
covering with a pickaxe, reveals nothing more appetising than what
appear to be four small cubes of frost-bitten india-rubber, with a
portion or two of candle end.
A more advanced meal is served in Leadenhall Street, at
"_The Ship and Turtle_,"
said to be the oldest tavern in London, and which has been more
than once swept and garnished, and reformed altogether, since its
establishment during the reign of King Richard II. But they could have
known but little about the superior advantages offered by the turtle
as a life-sustainer, in those days; whereas at the present day some
hundreds of the succulent reptiles die the death on the premises,
within a month, in order that city companies, and stockbrokers, and
merchants of sorts, and mining millionaires, and bicycle makers, and
other estimable people, may dine and lunch.
Then there are the numerous clubs, not forgetting one almost at the
very door of "The House," where the 2000 odd (some of them _very_ odd)
members are regaled on the fat of the land in general, and of the
turtle in particular, day by day; and that mammoth underground palace
the "Palmerston," where any kind of banquet can be served up at a few
minutes' notice, and where "special Greek dishes" are provided for the
gamblers in wheat and other cereals, at the adjacent "Baltic." There
be also other eating-houses, far too numerous to mention, but most of
them worth a visit.
A "filling" sort of luncheon is a portion of a
_Cheshire Cheese Pudding_.
A little way up a gloomy court on the north side of Fleet Street--a
neighbourhood which reeks of printers' ink, bookmakers' "runners,"
tipsters, habitual borrowers of small pieces of silver, and that
"warm" smell of burning paste and molten lead which indicates the
"foundry" in a printing works--is situated this ancient hostelry. It
is claimed for the "Cheese" that it was the tavern most frequented
by Dr. Samuel Johnson. Mr. C. Redding, in his _Fifty Years'
Recollections, Literary and Personal_, published in 1858, says: "I
often dined at the
"_Cheshire Cheese_."
Johnson and his friends, I was informed, used to do the same, and I
was told I should see individuals who had met them there. This I
found to be correct. The company was more select than in later times,
but there are Fleet Street tradesmen who well remembered both Johnson
and Goldsmith in this place of entertainment."
Few Americans who visit our metropolis go away without making a
pilgrimage to this ancient hostelry, where, upstairs, "Doctor
Johnson's Chair" is on view; and many visitors carry away mementoes of
the house, in the shape of pewter measures, the oaken platters upon
which these are placed, and even samples of the long "churchwarden"
pipes, smoked by _habitués_ after their evening chops or steaks.
_Ye Pudding_,
which is served on Wednesdays and Saturdays, at 1.30 and 6.0, is
a formidable-looking object, and its savour reaches even into the
uttermost parts of Great Grub Street. As large, more or less, as
the dome of St. Paul's, that pudding is stuffed with steak, kidney,
oysters, mushrooms, and larks. The irreverent call these last named
sparrows, but we know better. This pudding takes (_on dit_) 17½ hours
in the boiling, and the "bottom crust" would have delighted the
hearts of Johnson, Boswell, and Co., in whose days the savoury dish
was not. The writer once witnessed a catastrophe at the "Cheshire
Cheese," compared to which the burning of Moscow or the bombardment
of Alexandria were mere trifles. 1.30 on Saturday afternoon had
arrived, and the oaken benches in the refectory were filled to
repletion with expectant pudding-eaters. Burgesses of the City of
London were there--good, "warm," round-bellied men, with plough-boys'
appetites--and journalists, and advertising agents, and "resting"
actors, and magistrates' clerks, and barristers from the Temple,
and well-to-do tradesmen. Sherry and gin and bitters and other
adventitious aids (?) to appetite had been done justice to, and the
arrival of the "procession"--it takes three men and a boy to carry
the _pièce de résistance_ from the kitchen to the dining-room--was
anxiously awaited. And then, of a sudden we heard a loud crash!
followed by a feminine shriek, and an unwhispered Saxon oath. "Tom"
the waiter had slipped, released his hold, and the pudding had fallen
downstairs! It was a sight ever to be remembered--steak, larks,
oysters, "delicious gravy," running in a torrent into Wine Office
Court. The expectant diners (many of them lunchers) stood up and gazed
upon the wreck of their hopes, and then filed, silently and sadly,
outside. Such a catastrophe had not been known in Brainland since the
Great Fire.
Puddings of all sorts are, in fact, favourite autumn and winter
luncheon dishes in London, and the man who can "come twice" at such
a "dream" as the following, between the hours of one and three, can
hardly be in devouring trim for his evening meal till very late. It is
a
_Snipe Pudding_.
A _thin_ slice of beef-skirt,[2] seasoned with pepper and
salt, at the bottom of the basin; then three snipes beheaded
and befooted, and with gizzards extracted. Leave the liver and
heart in, an you value your life. Cover up with paste, and
boil (or steam) for two-and-a-half hours. For stockbrokers
and bookmakers, mushrooms and truffles are sometimes placed
within this pudding; but it is better without--according to the
writer's notion.
Most of the fowls of the air may be treated in the same way. And when
eating cold grouse for luncheon try (if you can get it) a fruit salad
therewith. You will find preserved peaches, apricots, and cherries in
syrup, harmonise well with cold _brown_ game.
_Lancashire Hot-Pot_
is a savoury dish indeed; but I know of but one eating-house in London
where you can get anything like it. Here is the recipe--
Place a layer of mutton cutlets, with most of the fat and
tails trimmed off, at the bottom of a deep earthenware stewpan.
Then a layer of chopped sheep's kidneys, an onion cut into
thin slices, half-a-dozen oysters, and some sliced potatoes.
Sprinkle over these a little salt and pepper and a teaspoonful
of curry powder. Then start again with cutlets, and keep on
adding layers of the different ingredients until the dish be
full. Whole potatoes atop of all, and pour in the oyster liquor
and some good gravy. More gravy just before the dish is ready
to serve. Not too fierce an oven, just fierce enough to brown
the top potatoes.
In making this succulent concoction you can add to, or substitute for,
the mutton cutlets pretty nearly any sort of flesh or fowl. I have
met rabbit, goose, larks, turkey, and (frequently) beef therein; but,
believe me, the simple, harmless, necessary, toothsome cutlet makes
the best lining.
In the Cape Colony, and even as high up as Rhodesia, I have met with
a dish called a _Brady_, which is worthy of mention here. It is made
in the same way as the familiar Irish stew; but instead of potatoes
tomatoes are used.