The gourmet's guide to London / by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis.

  • Newnham-Davis, Lieut.-Col. (Nathaniel), 1854-1917.
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The gourmet's guide to London / by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    brother of George the Fourth, was entertained in princely fashion at Belvoir, and was shown the menu of a dinner on which a great French chef had ex- hausted all his inventiveness, and was asked if there were any dishes not included in the feast for which he had a fancy, answered that he would like some roast pig and an apple dumpling, both good British dishes. His son, the Commander-in-Chief of our days, also had a liking for pork, and, at one time, word went round the British army that at inspection lunches it was wise to give his Royal Highness pork chops. Of course, the British army overdid it, and the old Duke had so many pork chops put before him in the course of a year that at last their presence on the menu was far more likely to assist in the securing of an unfavourable report on a regiment than was their absence. Gravy soup, a grilled sole, a boiled hen pheasant stuffed with oysters, and an open tart formed the favourite dinner of a renowned gourmet of my acquaintance. Of the made dishes that belong to British cookery, jugged hare, I think, has the leading place. York- shire pudding is as British as Stonehenge is, and mince pies can claim to be to-day exactly what they were when the Puritans used to preach against them. Marrow bones and Welsh rarebits, buck rarebits, and stewed tripe and onions are old British supper dishes, but the early closing laws have killed the old-fashioned British supper in eating-houses. Good British cookery in London has not fared well in its battle against the invasion of good French cookery, and the number of houses which made a speciality of British fare has decreased woefully in the last twenty years. The old Blanchard’s and its half- a-crown British dinner is a memory of the past (for the new Blanchard’s turned towards the goddess A la), and the “ Blue Posts ” in Cork Street has been