“I shall not enter into the details of the pugilistic dinner, but will introduce the reader into the banquet-hall at rather a late stage in the proceedings; in point of fact, just as the festival is about to break up. It is two o’clock in the morning; the table is strewn with the _débris_ of a dessert, in which figs, almonds and raisins, mixed biscuits, grape-stalks, and apple and orange-peel seem rather to predominate. The table is a very field of Cressy or Waterloo, as to dead men in the way of empty bottles; good execution having evidently been done upon Mr. Hemmar’s well-stocked cellar. From the tumblers and spoons before each guest, however, it is also evident that the festive throng has followed the example of Mr. Sala’s renowned hero, and after having tried a “variety of foreign drains,” has gone back to gin-and-water _pur et simple_. It is rather a peculiar and paradoxical quality of neat wines that they have, if anything, rather an untidy effect on those who drink them: certainly there is a looseness about the hair, a thickness and indecision in the speech, and an erratic and irrelevant energy and emphasis in the gestures of the friends of the Smasher, which is entirely at variance with our ordinary idea of the word “neat.” Yet, why should we quarrel with them on that account? They are harmless and they are happy. It is surely no crime to see two gas burners where, to the normal eye, there is only one; neither is it criminal to try five distinct times to enunciate the two words, “slightest misunderstanding,” and to fail ignominiously every time. If anything, that must be an amiable feeling which inspires a person with a sudden wild and almost pathetic friendship for a man he never saw before; such a friendship, in short, as pants to go to the block for him, or to become his surety to a loan-office for five pounds. Is it any such terrible offence against society to begin a speech of a patriotic nature, full of allusions to John Bull, Queen Victoria, Wooden Walls, and the Prize Ring, and to burst into tears in the middle thereof? Is there no benevolence in the wish to see your friend home, on account of your strong impression that he has taken a little too much, and that he will tumble against the railings and impale his chin upon the spikes; which, of course, _you_ are in no danger of doing? Are these things crimes? No! We answer boldly, No! Then, hurrah for neat wines and free trade! Open wide our harbours to the purple grapes that flourish in the vineyards of sunny Burgundy and Bordeaux; and welcome, thrice welcome, to the blushing tides which Horace sang so many hundred years ago, when our beautiful Earth was younger, and maybe fairer, and held its course, though it is hard to believe it, very well indeed, without the genius of modern civilization at the helm.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1605. These are usually served on glass dishes, the fruit piled high in the centre, and the almonds blanched, and strewn over. To blanch the almonds, put them into a small mug or teacup, pour over them boiling water, let them remain for 2 or 3 minutes, and the skins may then be easily removed. Figs, dates, French plums, &c., are all served on small glass plates or oval dishes, but without the almonds. _Seasonable_ at any time, but more suitable in winter, when fresh fruit is not obtainable. DATES.--Dates are imported into Britain, in a dried state, from Barbary and Egypt, and, when in good condition, they are much esteemed. An inferior kind has lately become common, which are dried hard, and have little or no flavour. They should be chosen large, softish, not much wrinkled, of a reddish-yellow colour on the outside, with a whitish membrane between the fruit and the stone. DISH OF STRAWBERRIES. 1606.
Sources: The passage is from M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon, The trail of the serpent, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — forest cloth, grapes stamp.