Food in Literature

— “Algernon,” said Mrs. Cœlebs (née Lucilla Stanley of Stanley Hall) to her eldest son, at home from Cambridge on the long vacation, “ I should be very pleased to have your conversation less devoted to eating and drinking. The sustenance of our system is a necessary consequence of our mortal nature, but it is hardly the topic to engross our immortal nature. And moreover, my son, it is not quite befitting the elevated tone which a man of education and refinement should strive to cultivate to give his entire thought to the pampering of these vile bodies of ours.”

Perhaps the good lady was right. It is an open question whether the interests of a true gastronomy are advanced by much talk about eating at the time of eating. There are certain dishes of which the praise is best mused by expressive silence.

Hood in his matchless Ode to Rae Wilson says : —

But is it not true that all real readers are pleased with a good description of eatables ? If not, why is the description so common in authorship ? I put this point to a friend, the other day, and his reply was, “ You won’t meet with a first-class novel, certainly not a first-class novelist, without finding gustatory enjoyment making part of the work.”

This set me to thinking over the matter. I began, of course, with Scott. Waverley gave me the dinner at Tully Veolan, where the Blessed Bear of Bradwardine figures, the grand banquet of Fergus Maclvor, and Waverley’s supper in the cave of Donald Bean Lean. Guy Mannering followed with the hearty feasting at Charlie’s-Hope farm, Counsellor Pleydell’s “High Jinks,” and the famous supper at Colonel Mannering’s, ere which the learned advocate “gave his poor thoughts to the housekeeper” in regard to the wild ducks ; and, more famous still, Dominie Sampson’s experience of the cookery of Meg Merrilies in the ruins of Derncleugh. For The Antiquary, it is enough to mention Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck ; for The Legend of Montrose, Dugald Dalgetty, Rittmeister, who regards “ provant ” as of the principia of the military art. Then, in The Bride of Lammermoor, one has but to name Caleb Balderstone to bring up the Barmecidal banquets he prepares, and the actual wedding feast of which so large a part goes to Wolf’s Crag through his agency.

En passant, the word “ Barmecidal ” suggests at once the 'unrivaled fictions of the Arabian Nights in which is displayed all the wealth of Oriental cookery. Who has not dreamt of “ lamb and pistachio nuts,” and “ cream tarts with pepper ” ?

To return to Sir Walter. The Monastery is redolent of good cheer, and The Abbot is not destitute of it, as witness the tavern meal of Roland Avenel and Adam Woodcock, at which the ballad of the latter was so unceremoniously interrupted. We cannot name Ivanhoe without recalling the hearty appetite of Athelstane, and the jovial supper of Richard and Friar Tuck. Nor can we forget, in The Pirate, the feasting of Magnus Troil, and the fasting of Triptolemus Yellowley as the foil to it. Poveril of the Peak introduces us to Chiffinch and his matchless supper to which Julian is beguiled. The Fortunes of Nigel contains Glenvarloch’s experience at the ordinary, and the stately meal given by George Heriot. St. Ronan’s Well turns partly upon the cookery of Meg Dods, and Redgauntlet contains at least four special mentions of meals with the materials thereof.

I omit the other novels of the series designedly, for the purpose of setting the reader of these lines to fill the void, and thus become better acquainted with fictions which “ no gentleman’s memory ” any more than his library “should be without.”

Togo back of Sir Walter to “ those brave men who lived before Agamemnon,” it is only needful to mention Daniel Defoe and John Bunyan. Robinson Crusoe may have had special reasons for describing his meals, and how he caught, killed, and cooked the same ; but unquestionably no small part of the interest with which one reads the story of shipwreck turns upon the delight of men in peril of starvation coming upon a supply of food. The Pilgrim’s Progress may seem very far away from such mundane ideas, but no matter what the allegory may aim at, there is the menu of the dinner in the House Beautiful, in proof of my position.

One may object to the mention of Fielding and Smollett, as being confessedly coarse and sensual, but no one can challenge Joseph Addison and Dr. Oliver Goldsmith. I would call Samuel Johnson into court, but I do not remember anything in Rasselas to sustain me ; in fact, do not remember any other part of that little volume. Dr. Jonathan Swift has not left us in doubt as to what was eaten at the courts of Brobdingnag and Lilliput, nor of the gustatory experiences of Lemuel Gulliver, Mariner. These writers may be challenged on the plea of prescription, as belonging to an age before literature had reached its present stage of delicacy, or fiction attained the place of a recognized department.

I request the court to save the point of my demurrer to this ruling, and will call the next witness. Place aux dames ! Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronté. Can we forget “ the nice bowl of gruel ” which Emma’s father proposes, the little suppers of Cranford, the frank bits of youthful gourmandise which appear in the juvenile tales of Parent’s Assistant and Frank, the indubitable enjoyment by Jane Eyre and Lucy Snow of feminine cates ? There is hardly a more æsthetic story in the English language than Miss Sheppard’s Charles Auchester. The very day I write these lines, one said to me, “ Don’t you remember the strawberries and white bread of Seraphael ? ” which I did, of course.

Next to ladies come peers. My Lord Lytton and the Earl of Beaconsfield will testify on their honor as noblemen. It is some time since I read Pelham and Paul Clifford, but I have a distinct recollection of passages of dietetic interest in both of these. As for Disraeli, who can forget the many bits in Vivian Grey, the epicureanism of Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred ?

Let us pass to commoners —Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, Charles Lever, Charles and Henry Kingsley, and Thomas Hughes. Does the opposite counsel wish to cross-examine any of these gentlemen ? I rather think not. Shall we take general literature ? Perhaps John W ilson may be ruled out on the ground that the Noctes Ambrosianæ are professedly and extravagantly convivial. But there are plenty of passages of description in the best of Christopher North’s essays, and there are bits of the Noetes which no one with a decent digestion can read after ten o’clock at night without an immediate and wild desire for a raid upon the domestic pantry.

I reserve my best witness for the last. Is not Charles Lamb a classic, and is not his Essay on Roast Pig known to and loved by every student of English literature ?

It is objected that these are Britons, — beef-eating, beer-drinking islanders. Let us cross the Atlantic, by all means, even at the risk of that state of mind when the mention of food becomes a torture worse than any known to the circles of Dante. The name of Washington Irving comes at once to the thought. Then follows James Fenimore Cooper, whoso pen could make a ship Sail and could detail a dinner with equal felicity. A more refined and delicate artist in words than Nathaniel Hawthorne it is hard to find, and what could be more charming than the touches scattered through the Twice-Told Tales and in The House of the Seven Gables ? As this is the Atlantic Monthly, it would be presuming to appeal to The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, but it is enough to cite two of his obiter dicta, “ Cream is thicker than water”and “Large heart never loved little cream pitcher,” and to call up the unrivaled description of the Sprowles’ party in Elsie Venuer, to satisfy any unprejudiced mind where he stands.

Of course it is not contended that there is no good writing in which mention of eating and drinking is wanting. The third book of Euclid has no distinct reference to gastronomy, and the same may be said of Fearne on Contingent Remainders.

But the poets have not been neglectful of the topic. Begin with the oldest. Homer, even in Mr. Pope’s mistranslation of him, has almost as much feasting as fighting. Likewise, Anacreon, Vergil, Horace, as even Macaulay’s fourth-form schoolboy knows, compel the reader to look out in the dictionary the meaning of deipnon, oinos, and epulœ. To come down to modern times, Chaucer and the Ballads are frankly full of the joys of the table, and even a bishop sang of “jolly good ale and old.” Shakespeare and the Elizabethans need not be more than alluded to ; but to come down to the sad and serious days of the Commonwealth, is there not in Milton’s L’Allegro fond mention of

“ country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses,” and does not Eve provide an elegant fiveo’clock tea for Raphael when that angel “ drops in ” upon Adam ?

I have trifled with the patience of the court too long. As was said on another occasion by a forbearing chief justice, “ Mr. Contributor, there are some things this court may be presumed to know.” I have only to cite the poetically ever-living laureate. He who wrote of Will Waterproof and Arthur’s Round Table, of Audley Court and the Princess, is a good witness at the point where I rest my case.