The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-09-29
DINNERS IN LONDON.
What Men Ate and Drank Hun
 dred Years Ago.

What Men Ate and Drank a Hun-
 dred Years Ago.
 Social life in London has changed very much in the last hundred years but in nothing is the alteration more visible than In the character of the buildings with which the comparatively small area called "the City is filled Its population has become almost en- tirely migratory. The value of land within certain space for offices has become so great that there is no longer room for a merchants family to live over his counting house, as was once the fashion and innumerable restau- rants for the supply of luncheon to bus mess men have in consequence come into fiourishing existence. How com paratiyely recent is the change from days when business men had midday dinner in their own homes may be seen from an advertisement which appeared in the Times of September, 1905, setting forth that "a gentleman Is desirous of partaking daily of a plain dinner about two or three o'clock at family table in the neighborhood of Rood Lane A line addressed to 4, K, No, l4 Nicholas EIlane will receive attentionn Now Nicholas Lane crosses King William street, and connects Lombard street with Cannon street. Though a few trees from the old churchyard of St. Nicholas Aeon destroyed in the Great Fire) still remain, it is the three gold en balls of the patron saint of mer- chants that have evidently exercised the greatest influence on the spot, for the place is now quite full of business premises, Rood Lane, in the neighbpr- hood of which "A. K" preferred to dine, was so called from the crucifix which was placed there in 15s0 while the old church of St Margaret Pattens was being rebuilt. It connects East cheap with Fenehurch street. and is lcompletely filled with merchants off, 1 fees It would be extremely difficult nowadays for any gentleman to find a "plain dinner" there lat family ta- ble." But 1t may be of interest to re- call what he did find in 1905.
 | Men and women drank and ate a great deal more, to begin with, than they do now William Pitt, Fox, sher- dan, Eldon, Stowell and many others drank their six bottles of claret II would be difficult to find any contem- porary acquaintance of anything like equal celebrity in 1905 who can hold even three bottles of port at once The drinking of the eighteenth century went far beyond anything ever record ed; all classes alike drank; they began to drink hard somewhere about 1790 and they kept It up with great spirlt for about a hundred years, with re- suits which their grandchildren have Illustrated, and which have made us sober men. A profusion of food was placed on the table at once at midday dinner In the city of London, where ev' cry one was getting rich during the heyday of the merchants prosperity al the beginning of the nineteenth centu. ry A good deal of useless and un- meaning ceremony clogged the repast The hostess pressed her guests to foot which 1t was bad manners to refuse and it was good manners to pay hel compliments about them all in detail One compensation was the complete sl lence of all children and young per
 sons, The meats were full of season
 ings and stuffings, and the Englisl still loved sweet things It had only lately become the fashion to put wint on the table during meal times, and fl many households man called foi what he wanted, and cup of drinl was brought him, which, when emp tied, was replaced in the cupboard ready for another call. The two
 pronged fork was of little use for greer peas, so knife was used to shove them into the mouth. Bones were openly gnawed and sucked. Certain dishes belonged to certain days. Yea and a gammon of bacon, with tansV pudding on Easter day; red herring, and salt fish, with leeks, parsnips anC peas in Lent salt beef at Marttmas
 roast beef with butter and beans g.
 midsummer; pork and souse, or "spat' and spurling," at All Saints Hasty pudding was made of flour and watei boiled together, to which dabs of butte and spoonfuls of really brown Yves Indian sugar were added when it wa, Ipoured out of the pot. A bean tans, was once universally beloved Afte, bruising your beans you put them in dish with pepper, salt. cloves, mace, tn
 yolks of six eggs. kuarter of a poun
 of butter, and some slices of bacon, ant lbakqed the whole; or you might mi, beans. biscuits sugar, sack ant cream, bakqe in dish and garnisl with candied orange peel. But no on
 who has read Mrs. Classes irnmorta volume can lightly approach the sa
 cred subject of Food at this period.
 few differences in national taste ma,
 be hinted at. In 1905 they stin serve,
 gooseberries with maekerel, and fenne
 with lobster or salmon. A public ben
 efactor of the name of Trotter had al
 ready introduced quinces into snnl
 pies. Men ate lettuce to induce slean
 after having partaken of entrants wit