Hints for the table: or, the economy of good living / [Anon].

  • John Timbs
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints for the table: or, the economy of good living / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    176/188 page 160
    uso ner is Sometimes served here to 300 persons of all ranks, from sovereign princes to ordinary bourgeois. On Sunday, the Duke of Nassau, to whom the Kur-Saal belongs, com- monly dines at the table. It was Count Charles de Mornay's practice, whenever he dined at a table-d'liotc, to instruct his valet to come in and sit down with the company, place himself at the bottom or top of the table, treat his master as a perfect stranger, and help him to the best of every thing.—Quarterly Review. On the 24th of August, a festival is held at Stralow, on the banks of the Spree, in Prussia, when the river is thrice dragged with nets, and the Berliners proceed thither to dine on the fish. The wine and beer-houses of Berlin, in splendour, may vie with the gin-palaces of London, and are nearly as injuri- ous to public health and morals. A dinner at Langenschwalbach, in Nassau, according to Sir Francis Head, is an odd affair. “ After soup, which all the world over is the alpha of the gourmand’s alphabet, the barren meat from which the said soup has been ex- tracted, is produced: of course, it is dry, tasteless, withered looking stuff, which a Grosvenor-square cat would not touch with his whiskers ; but this dish is always attended by a couple of satellites—the one a quantity of cucumbers stewed in vinegar, the other a black, greasy sauce; and, if you dare to accept a piece of this flaccid beef, and decline the indigestible cucumber, souse comes into your plate a deluge of the sickening grease. After the company have eaten heavily of messes which it would be impossible to describe, in comes some nice salmon—then fowls—then puddings—then meat again—then stewed fruit—and, after the English stranger has fallen back in his chair, quite beaten, a leg of mutton majestically makes its appearance. In Nassau, a dinner of fifteen dishes is sometimes given for fifteen pence!—such as could not be had in England for as many shillings. Captain Basil Hall thus describes the dinner of a Hun- garian magnate. “ We had first of all coldish, dirty-
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