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[In 'one of those blighted tea-and-bun shops you see dotted about all over London':]
Before I had time to say a word we were wedged in at a table, on the brink of a silent pool of coffee left there by an early luncher. Bingo studied the menu devoutly. 'I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you?'
A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them.
1923 P. G. Wodehouse, The inimitable Jeeves, 'Jeeves exerts the old cerebellum'
'Score a couple of fresh eggs, a pennyworth of butter, and half a pint of mountain ... and stop credit till the bill is paid.'
1753 Tobias Smollett, Ferdinand Count Fathom chapter 39
[Breakfast, Calcutta, 1858:]
This was rather an elaborate meal consisting of fish, mutton chops, cutlets or other dishes of meat, curry and rice, bread and jam and lots of fruit -- oranges, plantains, lichis, pineapples, papitas, or pummelos -- according to season.
Some drank tea but most of us had iced claret and water.
1896 John Beames, Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian chapter 6
[Food and wine at Lijiang:]
Then there was the plum wine, reddish and rather thick, which reminded me of Balkan sliwowitz. It was quite potent and I could not stand much of it.
Peter Goullart, A Forgotten Kingdom p. 34
Notre régaleuse but comme un Allemand. Deux bouteilles de bourgogne, deux de champagne, et, finalement, l'insidieux malaga, tout fut sablé jusqu'à la dernière goutte.
1776 Andréa de Nerciat, Le diable au corps [p. 413, 10/18 edition]
We shall have butter, cheese and venison,
And yesterday I brought for Margret
A lustie bottle of neat clarret wine:
Thus can we feast and entertaine your grace.
1594 Robert Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
Two hazel-nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name:
This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
That in a flame of brightest colour blazed;
As blazed the nut, so may thy passion grow,
For 'twas thy nut that did so brightly glow!
John Gay, 'The Spell' [quotation borrowed from World Wide Words, issue 465 (Saturday 29 October 2005). World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2005. All rights reserved.]
What money ha' you about you, Mr. Matthew?
Faith, I ha' not past a two shillings, or so.
Come. We will have a bunch of
redish, and salt, to taste our
wine; and a pipe of tobacco, to close the orifice of the stomach.
1616 Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour act 1 scene 5
[François Villon's bequest to the mendicant orders:]
Item je laisse aux Mendiants,
Aux Filles Dieu et aux Béguines,
Savoureux morceaux et friands,
Flans, chapons
et grasses gelines,
Et puis prêcher les Quinze Signes,
Et abattre pain a deux mains.
Carmes chevauchent nos voisines,
Mais cela, ce n'est que du mains!
1462 François Villon, 'Le lais' 32
[The frankincense harvest:]
The trees from which this ancient harvest are collected are ... Boswellia Carteri and Boswellia Bhuadajiana,
and the Arabs divide them into four kinds, of which Hoja'i produces the best gum, and
Shehri, Samhali and Rasmi the inferior qualities.
1936 Freya Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia chapter 1
'Est-ce vous qui préparez cet excellent chocolat? Que je voudrais bien être à sa place; comme je mousserais bien sous vos mains.'
'Comment cela se peut-il?'
'Tu vas le voir. Suppose que ceci est le manche du moussoir ...'
1798 Mirabeau, Hic-et-Haec [p. 147, 10/18 edition]
[The Trouville restaurant, in London, where Uncle Giles used to dine:]
At the door hung a
table d'hôte menu, slipped into a brass frame that advertised
Schweppes' mineral waters[:] -- Blanchailles --
Potage Solferino -- Sole Bercy --
Côtelettes d'Agneau Reform --
Glace Néapolitaine -- Café.
1951 Anthony Powell, A Question of Upbringing [p. 222 Fontana edition]
[A picnic somewhere near Conques. Click here for a translation:]
Après quelques verres de fel,
un bout de saucisse sèche, un morceau de
cabécou et un moment de rêverie au bord du Dourdou, tout est redevenu limpide.
1997 Fr. Graveline, L'invention du Massif Central p. 104 [a citation from Dictionnaire des régionalismes de France ed. Pierre Rézeau]
Mr. and Mrs. Custance and Mr. du Quesne dined and spent the afternoon with us and stayed till 8 o’clock in the evening. Mr. and Mrs. Custance were dressed very neat. We put their Coach in my Barn. I gave them for dinner, a Couple of Chicken boiled and a Tongue, a Leg of Mutton boiled and Capers and Batter Pudding for the first Course, Second, a couple of Ducks rosted and green Peas, some Artichokes, Tarts and Blancmange. After dinner, Almonds and Raisins, Oranges and Strawberries. Mountain and Port Wines. Peas and Strawberries the first gathered this year by me. We spent a very agreeable day, and all well pleased and merry.
1781 James Woodforde, Diary, 8 June [The Diary of a Country Parson, 1758–1802, Oxford 1978, p. 171]
Such a lunch at the Bush Inn, Morwenstow, for 1/3: cream, saffron buns and black-a-berrie jam.
1919 Carrington, letter to Lytton Strachey, 14 July [from Carrington: letters and extracts from her diaries (1970)]. See now my IFAQ about saffron buns!
[A snack for the Roman emperor Augustus. Click here for a translation:]
Dum lectica ex regia domum redeo, panis unciam cum paucis acinis uuae duracinae comedi.
Augustus, Letters [quoted by Suetonius, Life of Augustus 76]
The Pantagruelian breakfast was Ah Wing's regular notion of what an expatriate officer should eat ... Crabbe had consumed grapefruit, iced papaya, porridge, kippers, eggs and bacon with sausages and a mutton chop, and toast and honey.
1958 Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket chapter 6
When we regained our rooms we found our breakfast consisting of tea or coffee, excellent bread-and-butter, and on the tongs, artfully stuck in between the bars of the grate to keep it hot, a mutton-chop or a curried sole or something of the kind. Breakfast parties were a favourite thing, and at these there were all sorts of luxuries provided by the students, and generally tankards of beer or claret.
1896 John Beames, Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian chapter 4
'There isn't any sang. Used to be a good market years ago ... But now there ain't no trade with China ... When I was a boy we used to go hunting it. Not easy to find, even then. But most days a man could locate a little of it.'
1963 Clifford D. Simak, Way Station
[An imagined spice orchard, a quotation borrowed from Dangerous Tastes. What exactly grew in this orchard? Click here for a full text and translation:]
Il ot ou vergier meint espice,
clos de girofle et ricalice,
graine de paradis novele,
citoaut,
anis et canele,
et maint espice delitable
que bon mangier fet aprés table.
c. 1230 Guillaume de Lorris, Roman de la Rose 1328-1358
[When the emperor Valens besieged Chalcedon in AD 365, the citizens insulted him from the walls:]
... e muris probra in eum iaciebantur et iniuriose conpellebatur ut sabaiarius: est autem sabaia ex ordeo uel frumento in liquorem conuersis paupertinus in Illyrico potus.
c. 400 Ammianus Marcellinus, History 26.8.2
The dinner made about a hundred dishes;
Lamb and pistachio nuts -- in short, all meats,
And saffron soups, and sweetbreads; and the fishes
Were of the finest that e'er flounced in nets,
Drest to a Sybarite's most pampered wishes;
The beverage was various sherbets
Of raisin, orange, and pomegranate juice,
Squeez'd through the rind, which makes it best for use.
These were ranged round, each in its crystal ewer,
And fruits, and date-bread loaves closed the repast.
And Mocha's berry, from Arabia pure,
In small fine China cups, came in at last;
Gold cups of filigree made to secure
The hand from burning underneath them placed;
Cloves, cinnamon, and saffron too were boil'd
Up with the coffee, which (I think) they spoil'd.
1819 Byron, Don Juan canto 3 62-63
Simple dishes, steak, a proper salad, were beyond her. Instead, she fed José and occasionally myself outré soups (brandied black terrapin poured into avocado shells), Nero-ish novelties (roasted pheasant stuffed with pomegranates and persimmons), and other dubious innovations (chicken and saffron rice served with a chocolate sauce: 'An East Indian classic, my dear.') Wartime sugar and cream rationing restricted her imagination when it came to sweets -- nevertheless she once managed something called Tobacco Tapioca: best not describe it.
Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's p. 75 Penguin ed.
When I came home I found a quantity of Chocolatte left for me, but I know not from whom.
1660 Samuel Pepys, Diary 19 June 1660
Standing at one end of the room was a marvellous buffet of cold dishes that included a big salmon encased in ice. There was a platter of Chicken Jeannette and another of some small birds that looked like quail in aspic ...
'What kind of champagne is it?'
'I'm afraid to look.'
'Suffering Pete: Bollinger 1911 ... I think the stuff in those crocks the waiters are passing is caviar.'
It was caviar -- the big grey kind that nowadays never gets farther than the tables of particular friends of the boys in the back-room at the Kremlin ...
Mrs Jefferson Perry was having a good time. 'I adore caviar,' she said. 'I've never had enough, but I'm making the most of my opportunity tonight. And this champagne is the last word.'
'I love the peeled hot-house peaches in the glasses,' chimed in her mother ...
Mrs Jefferson Perry downed a final glass of Bollinger and said if Eva was going she would go too.
'Oh, don't go yet,' protested Marion, 'I ordered Nesselrode pudding especially for you -- I know how fond you are of it.'
1954 P. G. Wodehouse, Bring on the Girls chapter 5
'I'm hungry, anyway. We never got past the braised endive, remember?' They microwaved a couple of hot dogs, laughing over the oven's obligatory warning about pacemakers.
1978 Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City [Corgi edition p. 228]
[Recipe for hare. Click here for a translation:]
Leporis vero si novellae fuerint, et ipsi sumendi in dulci piper habentem, parum cariofilum et gingiber, costo et spicanardi vel folio.
MS A adds: Leporem licet comedere et bona est pro dissenteria.
c. 500 Anthimus, Letter on Diet no. 13
The flesh of pigs and of human beings must be similar, since people have eaten human flesh in place of pork without suspecting either the taste or the smell; the possibility has been discovered, before now, by unscrupulous innkeepers and others.
c. 180 Galen, On the Properties of Foods [vol. 6 p. 663 Kühn]
[Breakfast at Plumstead Episcopi:]
The tea consumed was the very best, the coffee the very blackest, the cream the very thickest; there was dry toast and buttered toast, muffins and crumpets,
hot bread and cold bread, white bread and brown bread, home-made bread and bakers' bread, wheaten bread and oaten bread, and if there be other breads than these, they were there; there were eggs in napkins, and crispy bits of bacon under silver covers;
and there were little fishes in a little box, and devilled kidneys frizzling on a hot-water dish; which, by the bye, were placed closely contiguous to the plate of the worthy archdeacon himself.
1855 Anthony Trollope, The Warden chapter 8
[A garden outside Constantinople:]
Destre part la citet, demie liue grant,
Trovent vergers plantez de pins, de lorers beaus:
La rose i est florie, li alburs e li glazaus.
c. 1140 Voyage de Charlemagne à Constantinople et à Jérusalem 264-266
'I admit,' said Raya, 'I obtained a helping of millet porridge by false pretences.'
1966 Michael Frayn, The Russian interpreter chapter 10
[The dinner that Septicius Clarus missed. But what did he miss, and what did he enjoy instead? Click here for a translation:]
C. Plinius Septicio Claro suo s.
Heus tu! promittis ad cenam, nec uenis? Dicitur ius: ad assem impendium reddes, nec id modicum. Paratae erant
lactucae singulae, cochleae ternae, oua bina, halica cum mulso
et niue (nam hanc quoque computabis, immo hanc in primis
quae perit in ferculo), oliuae betacei cucurbitae bulbi, alia
mille non minus lauta. Audisses comoedos uel lectorem uel lyristen uel (quae mea liberalitas) omnes. At tu apud nescio
quem ostrea uuluas echinos Gaditanas maluisti.
c. AD 96 Pliny the Younger, Letters 1.15
'Well, finish your whisky and sit at the table ... dinner is about to be served.'
It was a good dinner, too. Rebus insisted on making three toasts: one to the couple's happiness, one to their new home, and one to Holmes' promotion. By then, they were on to their second bottle of wine and the evening's main course -- roast beef.
After that there was cheese, and after the cheese, crannachan.
And after all that there was coffee and Laphroaig and drowsiness ...
1992 Ian Rankin, Strip Jack chapter 2
'We have a fish soup; guarracini and scorfani and aguglie and toteri.' Take breath, while I explain to the patient reader the ingredients of the diabolical preparation known as zuppa di pesce. The guarracino is a pitch-black marine monstrosity, one to two inches long, with an Old Red Sandstone profile and insufferable manners. As to the scorfano, its name is undoubtedly onomatopoetic, to suggest the spitting-out of bones. The aguglia is all tail and proboscis; the very nightmare of a fish -- as thin as a lead-pencil. A certain tract of sea was known as the 'aguglie water'. Everybody knows the totero or squid, an animated ink-bag of perverse leanings whose india-rubber flesh might be useful for deluding hunger on desert islands.
1911 Norman Douglas, Siren Land p. 133 [Penguin edition] abridged
[Ancient and modern names, especially in Izmir, Lesbos, Marseille and Crete, of the Mediterranean barracuda:]
Le poisson que les anciens nommoient sphyraena, & lequel les habitants de Smyrne et Metelin nomment sphyrna, & à Marseille, pource qu'il est semblable à une cheville d'aviron, pescecomé,
est nommé en Crete de nom vulgaire grec qui tient de l'italien luczo marino, qui est à dire brochet de mer.
1553 Pierre Belon du Mans, Observations book 1 chapter 3
[A Chinese waiter lays out American breakfasts and calls orders into the kitchen:] 'You hammaneck over ease, sticky potatoes ... Beckon anna scramboo, ricee no grave ... Pork chop, poachecks, Frenchie fries, you.'
1991 Frank Chin, Donald Duk p. 147
[There are now two kinds of cheese that compete for the first place in Italy. One is the Marzolino, so called by the Tuscans because it is made in March in Tuscany. The other is the Parmesan of the Po valley, which may also be called maiale after the month of May:]
Duo sunt hodie casei genera in Italia quae de principatu contendunt, ut marceolinus (ita enim Hetrusci vocant quod mense Martii factus sit in Hetruria) et parmensis in cisalpinis, quem eundem maialem a mense maio licet appellare.
1475 Platina, On Right Pleasure and Good Health
[Praise for the cheese of Brie:]
Sus! qu'à plein gosier on s'écrie:
Béni soit le terroir de Brie!
Pont-l'Evêque, arrière de nous!
Auvergne et Milan, cachez-vous!
C'est lui seulement qui mérite
Qu'en or sa gloire soit écrite.
1654 Marc-Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant, 'Le Brie'
[Recipe for pigeon the way Italians like it, from a Papal cook. Click here for a translation:]
Sic prepara pipiones: recipe eos et mitte eos in patella in pinguedine cum lardone et cooperi bene et verte eos aliquando quod non ardent. post hoc recipe amigdolas pistas et ova cruda temperata cum agresto,
et tunc eice pinguedinem et mitte intus aquam rosaceam ita quod temperatura fiet aliqualis spissa, et mitte totum super pipiones. et erit pro Italicis.
c. 1430 Johann von Bockenheim, Registrum Coquine no. 17 in Laurioux's edition
[Peaceful retirement for a rat:]
Un certain rat, las des soins d'ici-bas,
Dans un fromage d'Hollande
Se retira loin du tracas.
1678 Jean de la Fontaine, Fables 7.3
[15th century French recipe for small birds such as larks, quails, thrushes. Click here for a translation:]
Menuz oyseaulx comme allouetes, cailles, mauvilz et autres: soient plumez a sec sans eaue, puis les boullez ung pou et les enhastez atout les testes et les pietz par de costé et non pas de long,
et mettés des lesches ou ribeletes de lart ou des tronsons de saulcisses entre deulx, et les mengiez au sel menu, et en pasté au fromage de gain mis ou ventre.
c. 1425 Le Viandier de Taillevent [ms. Vat. Regina 776] recipe no. 45 in Scully's edition
[Cure for a cough. Click here for a translation:]
Salis quantum intra palmam tenere potest qui tussiet in potionem cervisae aut curmi mittat et calidum bibat cum dormitum vadit, neque postea loquatur, sed tacitus somnum capiat; cito sanabitur, si hoc vel triduo fecerit.
c. 400 Marcellus of Bordeaux, De Medicamentis 16.33
[The entrées at Nana's grand dinner:]
Après les relevés, les entrées venaient de paraître: des poulardes à la maréchale, des filets de sole sauce ravigote et des escalopes de foies gras. Le maître d'hôtel offrait du Chambertin et du Léoville.
1880 Emile Zola, Nana
'What's that odd flower you're wearing?'
Hawthorne had quite forgotten it. He put his hand up to his lapel.
'It looks as though it had once been an orchid,' the Chief said with disapproval.
'Pan American gave it us with our dinner ... I only put it in my button-hole so as to clear the dinner-tray. There was so little room, what with the hot-cakes and champagne and the sweet salad and the tomato soup and the chicken Maryland and ice-cream --'
'What a terrible mixture. You should travel B.O.A.C.'
1958 Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana [p. 77 Penguin edition]
[An epic feast:]
Al mestre deis sunt al menger asiz.
Acés i ot e pain e charn e vins,
besquid e simenals e pouns rostiz;
des autre mes ne sai conte tenir.
c. 1225 Les Narbonnais [assonanced version] lines 51-54
[Packed lunch during a train journey:]
Je sors de mon petit sac un gros morceau de saucisson à l'ail et une petite bouteille de vin rouge. Mon saucisson parfume tout le wagon.
1929 Kiki, Souvenirs p. 68 Klüver and Martin
'He doth learne to make strange sauces, to eat aenchovies, maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli, and caviare, because hee loves 'hem.'
1601 Ben Jonson, Cynthia's Revels act 2 scene 3
He opened a bottle of black wine, a heady, molten wine that situated us immediately in the centre of the universe with a few olives, some ham and cheese ... I believe the wine was called mavrodaphne. If not it should have been.
1941 Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi p. 165 [Penguin edition]
[The ramier-pigeons of Martinique:]
Les ramiers étaient fort gras et avaient un goût de girofle et de muscade très agréable.
On me dit que, comme nous étions dans la saison des graines de bois d'Inde, ces oiseaux s'en nourrissaient et en contractaient l'odeur.
1720 Jean-Baptiste Labat, Voyage aux Iles Caraïbes p. 43 Le Bris
... my dainty wild dell, with whom I'll tumble this next darkmans in the strommel, and drink ben bouse, and eat a fat gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat.
1611 Thomas Middleton, The Roaring Girl act 5 scene 1
'A very small tournedos, underdone, with sauce Béarnaise and a coeur d'artichaut. While Mademoiselle is enjoying the strawberries, I will have half an avocado pear with a little French dressing. Do you approve?' The maître d'hôtel bowed.
1953 Ian Fleming, Casino Royale p. 60 [Triad edition]
'Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale: for who knowes, when hee openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? hath not a snaile, a spider, yea, a neuft bin found there?'
1631 Ben Jonson, Bartholmew Fair act 2 scene 6
[The difficulty of getting good food in France:]
'Here is no solid belly timber in this country: one can't have a slice of a delicate sirloin, or nice buttock of beef ...
I could get no eatables upon the ruoad, but what they call Bully ... and then their peajohn, peajohn, rabbet them!'
1753 Tobias Smollett, Ferdinand Count Fathom chapter 24
'Tis pity wine should be so deleterious,
For tea and coffee leave us much more serious,
Unless when qualified with thee, Cogniac!
Sweet Naiad of the Phlegethontic rill!
Ah! why the liver wilt thou thus attack,
And make, like other nymphs, thy lovers ill?
1819 Byron, Don Juan canto 4 verses 52-53
[A bar on the French Riviera:]
Outside all was bleak and unpromising, but deep within him stirred something unexpected, something noble. He considered the rows of coloured bottles -- Cassis, Mandarinette, Cordial Médoc.
1936 Cyril Connolly, The Rock Pool p. 157 [Penguin edition]
I swear by muscadell
That I do love thee well
And more than I can tell.
By the white, claret and sack
I do love thy black, black, black.
c. 1650 'I swear by muscadell' (Wardroper p. 56)
CLICK HERE TO BUY JOHN WARDROPER'S LOVERS, RAKES AND ROGUES: Amatory, Merry and Bawdy Verse from 1580 to 1830 FROM AMAZON.CO.UK
Gozo, my child, is the isle of Calypso
That naughty young woman who made egg flip so
And all day long with a spoon did sip so
And every morn in the sea did dip so
Whereon Ulysses seeing her strip so
And all her beautiful ringlets drip so
From her beautiful head to her beautiful hipso
Because her curls she never would clip so,
-- Took to staying away from his ship so,
And she his mariners all did tip so
And fed them with chickens that had the pip so
For fear he should ever give her the slip so
And over the ocean start for a trip so
Singing (with peculiar sweetness) 'This is
I who have wheedled the wily Ulysses
With kurls and kobwebs and kustards and kisses!' ...
1866 Edward Lear, 'Gozo my child is the isle of Calypso'
CLICK HERE TO BUY EDWARD LEAR'S COMPLETE VERSE AND OTHER NONSENSE FROM AMAZON.COM
'Why don't ye eat? odd, an ye don't eat -- here, child, here's some ringoes, help, help your neighbour a little; odd, they are very good, very comfortable, very cordial.'
1681 Thomas Otway, The Soldier's Fortune act 5 scene 5
[The use of human blood in medicine and the taste of human flesh. Click here for a partial translation and here for my IFAQ on this subject:]
Sanguinem quoque gladiatorum bibunt ut viventibus poculis comitiales,
quod spectare facientes in eadem harena feras quoque horror est. at, Hercule, illi ex homine ipso sorbere efficacissimum
putant calidum spirantemque et vivam ipsam animam ex osculo vulnerum, cum plagis omnino ne ferarum quidem admoveri ora
mos sit humanus. alii medullas crurum quaerunt et cerebrum infantium. nec pauci apud Graecos singulorum viscerum membrorumque etiam sapores dixere.
c. 70 Pliny the Elder, Natural History 28.4
[Snack provided by a reprobate friar:]
Entre la poire et le fromage, le frère Alexis tira de sa besace un saucisson de Boulogne et un flacon de ratafiat, que des filles de bien, qui avaient passé la nuit en débauche à Neuilly, lui avaient donné.
1748 Fougeret de Montbron, Margot la ravaudeuse
[Tomatoes, whether golden or red, can be cooked and eaten like aubergines:]
Portasene a i tempi nostri un'altra spetie in Italia, le quali si chiamano pomi d'oro.
Sono queste, como sono mature, in alcune piante rosse come sangue & in altre di color d'oro. Si mangiano pur anch'esse nel medesimo modo.
1585 Matthioli, Commentary on Dioscorides p. 689
What a flame will it rekindle in the lamp, to snatch a blushing grape from the Hermitage and Côte Rôtie?
1765 Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy book 7 chapter 29
Fall to your cheese-cakes, curdes, and clawted creame,
Your fooles, your flaunes; and of ale a streame
To wash it from your livers: straine ewes milke
Into your cider sillabubs, and be drunke
To him whose fleece hath brought the earliest lambe.
1637 Ben Jonson, The Sad Shepherd act 1 scene 7
At five that afternoon, we found Brown in his rooms. His tea was pushed aside ...
'It's a bit early for sherry,' he said. 'I wonder if you feel like a glass of chablis? I opened it at lunch-time, and we thought it was rather special.'
1951 C. P. Snow, The Masters chapter 7
[The bodies of lords and ladies will rot, however fine the food they once ate:]
Or ils sont morts, Dieu ait leurs ames!
Quant est des corps, ils sont pourris,
Aient été seigneurs ou dames,
Souef et tendrement nourris
De crème, fromentee ou riz.
1462 François Villon, Le Testament 164
[Late night drinking in 18th century Paris:]
À une heure du matin ... l'eau-de-vie ... coule à grands flots dans les tavernes ... mélangée d'eau, mais fortement aiguisée par du poivre long.
Les forts de la Halle et les paysans s'abreuvent de cette liqueur; les plus sobres boivent du vin.
1788 Louis Sébastien Mercier, Portrait de Paris chapter 330
[Seventeenth century flavourings for chocolate:]
Sur un cent de chocolat on mêle deux grains chile ou poivre de Mexique, ou en la place du poivre des Indes, une poignée d'anis, de ces fleurs qu'on appelle petites oreilles ou dans le pays vinacaxtiles,
et deux autres qu'on nomme mecachusies, ou au lieu de celles-ci la poudre de six roses d'Alexandrie, appelées roses pâles, une gousse de campesche, deux drachmes de canelle, une douzaine d'amandes et autant de noisettes d'Inde, et la quantité d'achiotte qu'il faudra pour lui donner couleur.
1690 Furetière, Dictionnaire Universelle
[Chester and its dairy products:]
Cestra legionum civitas dicitur ... Regio farris et maxime tritici ... ieiuna et inops, pecorum et piscium ferax.
Incolae lac et butirum delitias habent; qui ditiores sunt carnibus vivunt, panem ordeitium et siligineum pro magno amplectuntur.
1140 William of Malmesbury, History of the Bishops of England p. 308 Hamilton
'Potato chips and ice-cream, that was all he wanted, but he sure ate a lot of them. I wonder it didn't make him sick.'
1966 Truman Capote, In Cold Blood chapter 3
'What have we here?' I asked, inspecting the tray.
'Kippered herrings, sir.'
'And I shouldn't wonder,' I said, for I was in thoughtful mood, 'if even herrings haven't troubles of their own ... I mean, apart from getting kippered.'
1930 P. G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves! 'Jeeves and the song of songs'
When you go to a store in Ascutney
There is no use to ask them for chutney.
You may plea, you may tease,
You may go on your knees:
It will do you no good, they ain't got any.
Richard H. Field
We saw hill and dales, cork trees, and azinheiras, on the last of which trees grows that kind of sweet acorn called bolotas, which is as pleasant as a chestnut.
1843 George Borrow, The Bible in Spain vol. 1 chapter 2
[The Parmesan mountain:]
Et eravi una montagna tutta di formaggio parmigiano grattugiato, sopra la quale stavan genti che niuna altra cosa facevan che far maccheroni e raviuoli, e cuocergli in brodo di capponi.
Boccaccio, Decamerone book 8 chapter 3
And she, -- she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'T is mine, -- can I let it fall?
1845 Robert Browning, Dramatic romances 'A light woman'
There was shish-kabob for lunch, huge, savory hunks of spitted meat sizzling like the devil over charcoal after marinating seventy-two hours in a secret mixture Milo had stolen from a crooked trader in the Levant.
Joseph Heller, Catch-22 chapter 2
[Tiefis (Vorarlberg, Austria):]
The delicacies of the village were only three: sugar-candy in crystals, dried figs strung together, and black sticks of liquorice (vulgo "Bährendreck").
1923 Norman Douglas, Together ch. 6
[Paris in 1775:]
Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomies in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.
1859 Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities book 1 chapter 5
Scrub-hens, Paddy Biran explained, are too lazy to sit on their eggs as do other birds. Instead, they lay their eggs in a mound they build of earth and leaves. The heat ... incubates them, and when the chicks hatch, they dig their way out. When wild tamarind fruit, nyuga, was ripe it was a sign that scrub-hen eggs would be ready to harvest. People would search out the mounds, dig into them to get the eggs, and then cook them in their shells. Each egg is as big as six hen's eggs.
1984 R. M. W. Dixon, Searching for Aboriginal Languages p. 36
[The wealth of Ireland:]
Diues lactis ac mellis insula, nec uinearum expers, piscium uolucrumque sed et ceruorum caprearumque uenatu insignis.
Bede, Ecclesiastical History 1.1
[26 January 1660:]
Home from my office to my Lord's lodgings, where my wife had got ready a very fine dinner: viz. a dish of marrow-bones. A leg of mutton. A loin of veal. A dish of fowl, three pullets, and two dozen of larks, all in a dish.
A great tart. A neat's tongue. A dish of anchoves. A dish of prawns, and cheese. My company was my father, my uncle Fenner, his two sons, Mr Pierce, and all their wifes, and my brother Tom.
1660 Samuel Pepys, Diary
[The illusory cinnamon of eastern Ecuador:]
Llegaron a topar con los árboles que llamon canelos, que son a manera de grandes olivos, y de si echan unos capullos con su flor grande, que es la canela perfectísima e de mucha sustancia.
1550 Pedro de Cieza de Leon, Guerra de Chupas chapter 19
While Venus fills the heart (without heart really
Love, though good always, is not quite so good)
Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli, --
For love must be sustain'd like flesh and blood, --
While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly:
Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food;
But who is their purveyor from above
Heaven knows, -- it may be Neptune, Pan or Jove.
1819 Byron, Don Juan canto 2 verse 170
Nous bûmes tous dans le même bocal de terre d'une misérable boisson qu'on nomme graspia, et qu'on fait d'eau dans laquelle on fait bouillir des grappes de raisin dépouillées de leurs grains.
1826 Casanova, Mémoires book 1 chapter 2
'In my snuff-box I carry a piece of Parmesan cheese -- a cheese made in Italy, very nutritious.'
1883 R. L. Stevenson, Treasure Island chapter 19
Algernon: Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta.
Jack: Well, you have been eating them all the time.
Algernon: That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.
Jack: And very good bread and butter it is too.
Algernon: Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat it all. You behave as if you were married to her already.
1899 Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest act 1 scene 1
'You must come,' said Jean, speaking in her matter-of-fact tone, almost as if she were giving an order. 'There are all sorts of things I want to talk about.'
'Of course he'll come,' said Templer. 'But we might have the smallest spot of armagnac first.'
1955 Anthony Powell, The acceptance world p. 69 [Fontana edition]
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'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied, in an offended tone: 'so I can't take more.'
'You mean you can't take less,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to take more than nothing.'
1865 Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ch. 7
Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a 'T'. I don't know what a 'T' is (except a sixpenny one, which includes bread-and-butter and cake ad lib., and is cheap at the price, if you haven't had any dinner). It seems to suit everybody, however, which is greatly to its credit.
1889 Jerome K. Jerome, Three men in a boat ch. 1.
Pilon's eyes strayed through the thick brush to the picnic party, and particularly to that huge lunch basket from which came the penetrating odours of devilled eggs.
1935 John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat ch. 6.
He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
1879 Edward Lear, 'How pleasant to know Mr. Lear'.
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I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
... When in the last year of Shade's life I had the fortune of being his neighbour in the idyllic hills of New Wye (see Foreword), I often saw those particular birds most convivially feeding on the chalk-blue berries of junipers growing at the corner of his house.
1962 Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire lines 1-4 and 'Commentary'.
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"Mrs Hudson has risen to the occasion,"
said Holmes, uncovering a dish of curried chicken. "Her cuisine is a trifle limited, but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman. What have you there, Watson?" "Ham and eggs," I answered.1894 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, "The naval treaty".
'Kalau tuan mudek ka-hulu,
1958 Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket ch. 20.
'We do not have full menu tonight,' Eugenio apologized. 'I can bring you costoletta di vitello alla griglia or pollo al limone with maybe a little cappellini primavera or rigatoni con broccolo.' We said yes to all and added a bottle of Dolcetto D'Alba, which was a favorite of mine and difficult to find ... He peeled off foil and twisted in the corkscrew as he talked. 'See, 1979, very light. More like a Beaujolais.'
1995 Patricia Cornwell, From Potter's Field p. 83 [Warner edition].
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