“There is just one man still among us who renders these details of the Cockney's daily day in more perfect fashion than any of his peers. He is of the old school, I admit, but he is nevertheless right on the spot with his points and his psychology. His name is Harry Champion. Perhaps you have seen him and been disgusted with what you would call the vulgarity of his songs. But what you call his vulgarity, my dears, is just everyday life; and everyday life is always disgusting to the funny little Bayswaterats, who are compact of timidity and pudibonderie. The elderly adolescent has no business at the music-hall; his place is the Baptist Chapel or some other place remote from all connection with this splendid world of London, tragic with suffering and song, high endeavour and defeat. It is people of this kidney who find Harry Champion vulgar. His is the robust, Falstaffian humour of old England, which, I am glad to think, still exists in London and still pleases Londoners, in spite of efforts to Gallicize our entertainments and substitute obscenity and the salacious leer for honest fun and the frank roar of laughter. If you want to hear the joy of living interpreted in song and dance, then go to the first hall where the name of Harry Champion is billed, and hear him sing "Boiled Beef and Carrots," "Baked Sheep's Heart stuffed with Sage and Onions," "Whatcher, me Old Brown Son!" "With me old Hambone," "William the Conqueror," "Standard Bread." If you are sad, you will feel better. If you are suicidal, you will throw the poison away, and you will not be the first man whose life has been saved by a low comedian. You may wonder why this eulogy of food in all these songs. The explanation is simple. In the old days, the music-hall was just a drinking den, and all the jolly songs were in praise of drink. Now that all modern halls are unlicensed, and are, more or less, family affairs to which Mr. Jenkinson may bring the wife and the children, and where you can get nothing stronger than non-alcoholic beers, or dry ginger, the Bacchanalian song is out of place. Next to drinking, of course, the Londoner loves eating. Mr. Harry Champion, with the insight of genius, has divined this, and therefore he sings about food, winning much applause, personal popularity, and, I hope, much money.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
to a boil in three different waters; soak eight ounces of stale bread in tepid water, and wring it dry in a towel; scald ten sage leaves; when the onions are tender, which will be in about half an hour, chop them with the sage leaves, add them to the bread, with one ounce of butter, the yolks of two raw eggs, one level teaspoonful of salt, and half a saltspoonful of pepper; mix and use. 108. =Onion Sauce.=--Prepare six ounces of onions as in receipt No. 107; chop them fine, pass them through a sieve with a wooden spoon, and put them into half a pint of boiling milk, with one ounce of butter, one saltspoonful of salt, and one quarter of a saltspoonful of pepper. 109. =Roast Wild Duck.=--Prepare a pair of ducks as directed in receipt No. 99; do not stuff them, but tie over the breasts slices of pork or bacon; roast fifteen minutes to the pound; serve with gravy in a boat and quarters of lemon on the same dish. 110.
Sources: The passage is from Thomas Burke, Nights in London, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Corson, The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical of 1877, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — oxblood cloth, sheaf stamp.