a FOOD WORD weblog

The worst traits of English cooking: Saturday's food quotation

The meal was already on the table when they entered the room. A dish of mince with tomato sauce spread over the top seemed to be the main dish; boiled potatoes and ‘greens’ were on the trolley. Mrs Sedge, who had come to England twenty years ago from Vienna, had apparently retained little knowledge of her country’s cuisine, if she had ever possessed it; Dulcie was always surprised at the thoroughness with which she had acquired all the worst traits of English cooking … The second course was stewed apple and semolina pudding, dishes which Mrs Sedge had mastered to perfection.

1961 Barbara Pym, No fond return of love [Grafton Books, 1987, pp. 107-109]

Ideal and real nutrition: Friday's food quotation

I can take Katherine Whitehorn's remark a stage further: foods are fattening because they are nice. If one ate exclusively things one didn't like, one would be as thin as a rake. I have demonstrated this to my own satisfaction time and time again: were I to start the day with unfrozen pineapple juice, crispy ricicles, cod steaks and malted bread and margarine, together with very strong cheap Indian tea, and carry on the day in the same fashion, I should have no weight problems at all. Unfortunately the flesh is weak. Don't you find this?

1972 Philip Larkin, Letter to Charles Monteith, 13 January 1972 [ Selected letters of Philip Larkin 1940-1985, edited by Anthony Thwaite. Faber and Faber, 1992, p. 452]

Junk = salt meat: Monday's food quotation

Just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was ready, and we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried junk.

1883 R. L. Stevenson, Treasure Island ch. 31

An Englishman fait chabrot: Sunday's food quotation

For the first time I was asked to have lunch with M. et Mme Vinges, our nearest neighbours and closest friends in the village. M. Vinges is a retired roadman of about my age, living on his foreman's pension.
Menu
Bouillon de boeuf with vermicelli. Ending with the ceremony of the chabrot, i.e. pouring half a glass of red wine into the last few spoonfuls of soup, then tipping the soup-plate up and drinking it. Very good. Try it.
Hors d'oeuvres. Paté de Canard truffé (bought at vast expense)
Tomato salad, salami.
Green french beans boiled and fried in butter.
Boiled beef.
Roast poulet-de-grain with green olives in a delicious caper sauce.
Cheese. Cherry cake. Fruit salad of oranges and bananas. Coffee with brandy.

1967 David Garnett, Letter to Sylvia Townsend Warner, 24 October 1967 [ Sylvia and David: the Townsend Warner / Garnett letters. Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994, p. 127]

A classically simple supper: Saturday's food quotation

She set about preparing her supper. It would have to be one of those classically simple meals, the sort that French peasants are said to eat and that enlightened English people sometimes enjoy rather self-consciously – a crusty French loaf, cheese, and lettuce and tomatoes from the garden. Of course there should have been wine and a lovingly prepared dressing of oil and vinegar, but Dulcie drank orange squash and ate mayonnaise that came from a bottle.

1961 Barbara Pym, No fond return of love [Grafton Books, 1987, p. 56]

Visitor's tea: Thursday's food quotation

Downstairs, the table was laid with a 'visitor's tea'. There were the best tea things with a fat pink rose on the side of each cup; hearts of lettuce, thin bread and butter, and the crisp little cakes that had been baked in readiness that morning. Edmund and Laura sat very upright on their hard windsor chairs. Bread and butter first. Always bread and butter first; they had been told that so many times that it had the finality of a text of Scripture. But Mr Herring, who was the eldest present and ought to have set a good example, began with the little cakes, picking up and examining each one closely before disposing of it in two bites. However, while there were still a few left, Mrs Herring placed bread and butter on his plate and handed him the lettuce meaningly; and when he twisted the tender young hearts of lettuce into tight rolls and dipped them into the salt-cellar she took the spoon and put the salt on the side of his plate.
Mrs Herring ate very genteelly, crumbling her cake on her plate and picking out and putting aside the currants, because, she explained, they did not agree with her. She crooked the little finger of the hand which held her teacup and sipped its contents like a bird, with her eyes turned up to the ceiling.

Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford [Penguin modern classics, 1975, p. 296]

Frugal cruising: Saturday's food quotation

The eating regime on board went as follows: breakfast ... lunch ... happy hour ... and dinner (grilled red snapper with caramelised onions and Duchess potatoes , followed by glazed apple tartlets on vanilla cream).

2005 Travel puff in the Independent on Sunday [London], 16 December

Not-so-frugal breakfast: Wednesday's food quotation

There was a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was another of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a bottle of light wine ... 'This is my frugal breakfast ... Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, and my claret.'

1853 Charles Dickens, Bleak House ch. 19

Workers' supper: Tuesday's food quotation

Supper was at nine. There were cakes, buns, sandwiches, tea, and coffee, all free; but if you wanted mineral water you had to pay for it. Gallantry often led young men to offer the ladies ginger beer.

1915 W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage ch. 104

Breakfast in bed in San Francisco: Sunday's food quotation

Michael was serving Mona breakfast in bed: poached eggs, nine-grain toast, Italian roast coffee and French sausages from Marcel & Henri.

1978 Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City [Corgi ed. p. 147]

Fish and chips in Edinburgh: Saturday's food quotation

He stopped for fish and chips, which he ate at a formica-topped table in the chip shop. Lashings of salt, vinegar and brown sauce on the chips. Two slices of white pan bread thinly spread with margarine. And a cup of dark-brown tea.

1992 Ian Rankin, Strip Jack ch. 6

Victorian tea: Friday's food quotation

So Guster ... prepares the little drawing-room for tea ... There is excellent provision made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin slices of ham, tongue and German sausage, and delicate little rows of anchovies nestling in parsley; not to mention new-laid eggs, to be brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast.

1853 Charles Dickens, Bleak House ch. 19

A banquet for Queen Catherine: Monday's food quotation

There was v cours of fflesshe to every messe of mete, and at every cours vii disshes, and aftir that a cours of frute of v disshes, and than cam in wafers and ipocras. This banket began at vii of the clok and contynued two hourys.

1503 Receyt of the Lady Kateryne, 4, line 307

Chocolat Angélique and its preliminaries: Saturday's food quotation

Last night the Cronyns ... came to dinner. I gave them:
Soup. Bayonne ham and salad. Paella and red cabbage sweet and sour cooked in wine with apple and onions, Chocolat Angelique, cheese. Chocolat Angelique is made with 2 oz butter, 2 oz grated chocolate, 4 tablespoons of sugar, 3/4 pint of milk - boiled down to a thick cream - then 3 tablespoons of rum stirred in.

1973 Sylvia Townsend Warner, Letter to David Garnett, 21 February [ Sylvia and David: the Townsend Warner / Garnett letters (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994) p. 173]

Bingo's picnic: Friday's food quotation

'I've just been superintending the packing of the lunch-basket ... There's ham sandwiches ... and tongue sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and lobster and a cold chicken and sardines and a cake and a couple of bottles of Bollinger and some old brandy --'

1930 P. G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves! 'Jeeves and the old school chum'

Conservative propaganda: Tuesday's food quotation

My mother was a staunch supporter of Conservative Party activities. Although she was never particularly enthusiastic about our local Member of Parliament ("such a dull little creature," she would say sadly), Muv campaigned faithfully at each election. Crowds of placid villagers were assembled on the lawn at Swinbrook house to be harangued by our uncles on the merits of the Conservative Party, and later to be fed thick meat sandwiches, pound cake, and cups of nice strong tea. Our family always had its booth at the annual Oxfordshire Conservative Fête, where we sold eggs, vegetables from the kitchen garden, and quantities of cut flowers.

Jessica Mitford, Hons and rebels (Quartet Books, 1978) p. 19

The Divers dined on bouillabaisse: Sunday's food quotation

The Divers went to Nice and dined on a bouillabaisse, which is a stew of rock fish and small lobsters, highly seasoned with saffron, and a bottle of cold Chablis.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the night (Penguin classics, 2000, p. 287)

Christmas sandwiches: Thursday's food quotation

29 December. Snow in the night and when we stop for our sandwiches on the road to Garsdale Head Dentdale is in immaculate relief with the Howgills ghostly beyond. They're Christmas sandwiches (cold pheasant, apple sauce, Cumberland sauce and lettuce, followed by mince pies) then we go on down to Mallerstang.

2002 Alan Bennett, Diary [Untold stories p. 303]

Swiss rarebit: Monday's food quotation

Their destination was a hotel with an old-fashioned Swiss tap-room, wooden and resounding , a room of clocks, kegs, steins, and antlers. Many parties at long tables blurred into one great party and ate fondue -- a peculiarly indigestible form of Welsh rarebit, mitigated by hot spiced wine.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the night [Penguin classics, 2000, p. 191]

Supper at Haileybury college in 1856: Thursday's food quotation

Elliot would make us a little supper of delicacies which his mother used to send him from Trinidad, namely chocolate, cassava cakes, and a peculiarly delicious jam known as 'Governor's plum' jam.

1896 John Beames, Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian chapter 4

Nesquik, preferably strawberry: Monday's food quotation

[Tracey Emin] memorably records that her mother worked at a club in Ramsgate called Gay Nights, and that at one time her diet consisted only of fish fingers and Nesquik ('preferably strawberry').

2005 Henry Hitchings, review of Tracey Emin's Strangeland in the Times Literary Supplement (23 December 2005) p. 9

Chiscakes for Christmas: Thursday's food quotation

There was hardly any snow in the valley — all green with the yew-berries still sprinkling the causeway. At Ambergate my sister had sent a motor car for us — so we were at Ripley in time for turkey and Christmas pudding. — My God, what masses of food here, turkey, large tongues, long wall of roast loin of pork, pork-pies, sausages, mince pies, dark cakes covered with almonds, chiscakes, lemon-tarts, jellies, endless masses of food, with whiskey, gin, port-wine, burgundy, muscatel. It seems incredible. We played charades — the old people of 67 playing away harder than the young ones —and lit the christmas tree, and drank healths, and sang, and roared — Lord above. If only one hadn’t all the while a sense that next week would be the same dreariness as before. — What a good party we might have had, had we felt really free of the world.

1918 D. H. Lawrence, Letter to Katherine Mansfield, 27 December (Letters of D. H. Lawrence vol. 3 p. 313)

Note: Lawrence and Frieda were staying with his sister, Ada Clarke, at Ripley near Derby, from where this was written. According to the editors, the "chiscakes" were a Nottingham version of "cheesecakes" or "chiskets".

Modest sustenance: Monday's food quotation

I love no rost but a nut-browne toste
And a crab laid in the fyre;
A little breade shall do me stead,
Much breade I not desyre.

c. 1560 Gammer Gurton's Needle

Sunday dinner for D. H. Lawrence: Sunday's food quotation

Did I tell you we’ve got such a good oven in our kitchen. Being Sunday, roast beef, baked potatoes, spinach, apple pie. Also I made heavenly chocolate cakes and dropped them, burning my finger — also exquisite rock cakes, and forgot to put the fat in!! And we are in for 3 tea-parties this week. But I shall call the pseudo-rock-cakes currant bread — quite good, oppure.

1920 D. H. Lawrence, Letter to Mary Cannon [Letters, vol. 3 p. 637]

Dharma Bums: Saturday's food quotation

"Now as for food, I went down to Market Street to the Crystal Palace market and bought my favorite dry cereal, bulgur, which is a kind of Bulgarian cracked rough wheat and I'm going to stick pieces of bacon in it, little square chunks, that'll make a fine supper for all three of us, Morley and us. And I'm bringing tea, you always want a good cup of hot tea under those cold stars. And I'm bringing real chocolate pudding, not that instant phony stuff but good chocolate pudding that I'll bring to a boil and stir over the fire and then let cool ice cold in the snow."
"Oh boy!"
"So insteada rice this time, which I usually bring, I thought I'd make a nice delicacy for you, R-a-a-y, and in the bulgur too I'm going to throw in all kinds of dried diced vegetables I bought at the Ski Shop. We'll have our supper and breakfast outa this, and for energy food this big bag of peanuts and raisins and another bag with dried apricot and dried prunes oughta fix us for the rest."
And he showed me the very tiny bag in which all this important food for three grown men for twenty-four hours or more climbing at high altitudes was stored.

1976 Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums (Penguin ed. p. 36)

Tiffin in colonial Malaya: Thursday's food quotation

Hood said it was time for tiffin and they sought the rest house. Hood ordered a portion of fried fish, a steak with onions and chipped potatoes, a dish of chopped pineapple and tinned cream.

1956 Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger chapter 1

Travel in the Basque country: Wednesday's food quotation

'Is the wine included?' 'Oh, yes.' ...
I went out and told the woman what a rum punch was and how to make it. In a few minutes a girl brought a stone pitcher, steaming, into the room. Bill came over from the piano and we drank the hot punch and listened to the wind.
'There isn't too much rum in that.'
I went over to the cupboard and brought the rum bottle and poured a half-tumblerful into the pitcher.
'Direct action,' said Bill. 'It beats legislation.'
The girl came in and laid the table for supper ... [she] brought in a big bowl of hot vegetable soup and the wine. We had fried trout afterward and some sort of a stew and a big bowl full of wild strawberries. We did not lose money on the wine, and the girl was shy but nice about bringing it. The old woman looked in once and counted the empty bottles.

1927 Ernest Hemingway, Fiesta chapter 11

A New York lunch: Tuesday's food quotation

I took Marino to lunch at Tatou ... 'What you got by the glass that's worth drinking?' he asked ... I suggested he try a Beringer reserve cabernet that I knew was good, and then we ordered cups of lentil soup and spaghetti bolognese.

1995 Patricia Cornwell, From Potter's Field chapter 6

Lunch for a captive Frenchman: Monday's food quotation

He could see it all laid out on the table beside his bed -- a good meal it looked -- cold ham and galantine, an omelette, a salad, cheese, and a small decanter of red wine.

1924 John Buchan, The Three Hostages

Christmas dinner on a camping trip in the Australian outback: Sunday's food quotation

She squatted there at the fire. She put on the rabbit pieces ... after smearing them with mustard and muttered to herself 'lapin moutarde'. She wrapped the rabbit in tin foil and wormed them down into the coals with a flat stick. She put the corn cobs on to boil, candied the carrots with sugar sachets from the motel, put on the beans, wrapped the potatoes in foil and placed them on the coals. She then heated the lobster bisque, throwing in a dash of her bloody mary ... She put the plum pudding on to be warmed and mixed a careful custard. He opened a bottle of 1968 Coonawarra Cabernet Shiraz.

1986 Frank Moorhouse, 'Bearing party objective' in London magazine (July 1986) p. 8.

Americans in Paris: Saturday's food quotation

We ate dinner at Madame Lecomte's restaurant on the far side of the [Ile Saint Louis]. It was crowded with Americans ... We had a good meal, a roast chicken, new green beans, mashed potatoes, a salad, and some apple-pie and cheese.

1927 Ernest Hemingway, Fiesta chapter 11

A Carthaginian feast: Friday's food quotation

First they were served birds in green sauce, on red earthenware plates decorated with black patterns, then all the kinds of shell-fish found on the Punic shores, wheaten porridge, beans and barley, and snails in cumin, on plates of golden amber.

Then the tables were covered with meat dishes: antelopes with their horns, peacocks with their feathers, whole sheep cooked in sweet wine, haunches of she-camels and buffaloes, hedgehogs in garum, fried grasshoppers and preserved dormice. In wooden bowls from Tamrapanni great lumps of fat floated in saffron. Everything overflowed with wine, truffles, and assa foetida. Pyramids of fruit tumbled over honey-cakes, and they had not forgotten a few little dogs with big bellies and pink bristles, fattened on olive-pulp, that Carthaginian delicacy which other people found revolting. The unexpected sight of novel food aroused their greed. Gauls, with long hair tied up on the top of their head, snatched watermelons and lemons, devouring them peel and all. The Negroes who had never seen lobsters tore their faces on the red claws. But shaven Greeks, whiter than marble, threw behind them the peelings from their plate, while shepherds from Bruttium, dressed in wolf skins, munched in silence, heads bent over their food.

1862 Flaubert, Salammbô chapter 1. Translation by A. J. Krailsheimer

For a longer extract, with the French text and another translation, click here

Chinese New Year in colonial Malaya: Tuesday's food quotation

He had been smothered with Chinese New Year hospitality. Bird's nest, shark's fin, sucking pig, boiled duck, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, huge staring fish, sweet-and-sour prawns, stuffed gourds, crisp fried rice and chicken-wings. And whisky.

1958 Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket chapter 1

Dinner at Triou, Deux-Sèvres: Monday's international quotation

Norine a trait la vache et on boit le lait frais avec délice. Certains, toutefois, préfère la soupe, une grande écuelle de soupe où l'on a taillé du pain. On mange aussi des restes de la veille, du lard, des grillons. Sidonie a fait rechauffer sa sauce à la couenne ou son reste de lapin. On leur fait honneur. Puis on s'attaque au fromage et aux noix. Et on avale de plus, pour accompagner, force tartines de pain. Le tout arrosé de larges rasades de piquette!

André Gaillard, Le siècle trioulais (Poitiers: Brissaud, 1978-80) vol. 1 p. 35.

Dinner at Squillace, birthplace of Cassiodorus: Thursday's food quotation

The meal came with no delay. First, a dish of great peperoni cut up in oil. This gorgeous fruit is never much to my taste, but I had as yet eaten no such peperoni as those of Squillace; an hour or two afterwards my mouth was still burning from the heat of a few morsels to which I was constrained by hunger. Next appeared a dish for which I had covenanted -- the only food, indeed, which the people had been able to offer at short notice -- a stew of pork and potatoes. Pork (maiale ) is the staple meat of all this region ... but the pork of Squillace defeated me; it smelt abominably, and it was as tough as leather. No eggs were to be had, no macaroni; cheese, yes -- the familiar caccio cavallo. And the drink! At least I might hope to solace myself with an honest draught of red wine. I poured from the thick decanter (dirtier vessel was never seen on table) and tasted. The stuff was poison. assuredly i am far from fastidious; this was the only occasion when wine has been offered me in italy which I could not drink.

1901 George Gissing, By the Ionian Sea chapter 14

Dinner in Soho (not SoHo): Wednesday's food quotation

They dined in Soho ... Philip sent the waiter for a bottle of Burgundy from the neighbouring tavern, and they had a potage aux herbes, a steak from the window aux pommes, and an omelette au kirsch .

1915 W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage chapter 60

Breakfast at Ville Platte, Louisiana: Saturday's food quotation

'You wan' some breakfast, sugah?'
'How about a couple of hard poached eggs, toast, and grits?'
'Wheat or white?'
'Wheat.' ...
When the waitress brought the food, I said, 'Mm-mm, that coffee's some kinda strong!'
She said, 'Uh-huh.'
I smushed the eggs into the grits and mixed in a little butter and ate it between bits of the toast. The grits were warm and smooth and made the awful coffee easier to drink.

1995 Robert Crais, Voodoo River chapter 6

Dinner at Great Bend: Wednesday's food quotation

The travellers stopped for dinner at a restaurant in Great Bend. Perry, down to his last fifteen dollars, was ready to settle for root beer and a sandwich, but Dick said no, they needed a solid 'tuck-in', and never mind the cost, the tab was his. They ordered two steaks medium rare, baked potatoes, French fries, fried onions, succotash, side dishes of macaroni and hominy, salad with Thousand Island dressing, cinnamon rolls, apple-pie and ice-cream, and coffee.

1966 Truman Capote, In Cold Blood p. 51 Penguin

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