Eating in Two or Three Languages | Page 6

the joint a slice about the size
and general dimensions of a horseshoer's apron. And if you cared for a
second slice, after finishing the first one, the carver felt complimented
and there was no extra charge for it. It was his delight to minister to
you.
But, alas, on this day when I came with my appetite whetted by my sea
voyage, and with an additional edge put upon it by the privations I had
undergone since landing, there was to be had no beef at all! Of a
sudden this establishment, lacking its roast beef, became to me as the
tragedy of Hamlet, the melancholy Dane, would be with Hamlet and
Ophelia and her pa and the ghost and the wicked queen, and both the
gravediggers, all left out.
When I had seated myself one of the carvers came to me and, with an
abased and apologetic air, very different from his jaunty manner of
yore, explained in a husky half whisper that I might have jugged hare
or I might have boiled codfish, or I might have one of the awful dishes.

Anyhow, that was what I understood him to say.
This last had an especially daunting sound, but I suppose I was in a
morbid state, anyhow, by now; and so I made further inquiry and
ascertained from him that the restrictions applying to the sale of meat
did not apply to the more intimate organs of the butchered animal, such
as the liver and the heart, and, in the case of a cow, the tripe. But the
English, with characteristic bluntness, choose to call one of these in its
cooked state an offal dish--pronounced as spelled and frequently tasting
as pronounced.
As one who had primed himself for a pound or so of the rib-roast
section of a grass-fed steer, I was not to be put off with one of the
critter's spare parts, as it were. Nor did the thought of codfish, and
especially boiled codfish, appeal to me greatly. I have no settled
antipathy to the desiccated tissues of this worthy deep-sea voyager
when made up into fish cakes. Moreover that young and adolescent
creature, commonly called a Boston scrod, which is a codfish whose
voice is just changing, is not without its attractions; but the full-grown
species is not a favourite of mine.
To me there has ever been something depressing about an adult codfish.
Any one who has ever had occasion to take cod-liver oil--as who,
unhappily, has not?--is bound to appreciate the true feelings that must
inevitably come to a codfish as he goes to and fro in the deep for years
on a stretch, carrying that kind of a liver about with him all the while.
As a last resort I took the jugged hare; but jugged hare was not what I
craved. At eventide, returning to the same restaurant, I was luckier. I
found mutton on the menu; but, even so, yet another hard blow awaited
me. By reason of the meat-rationing arrangements a single purchaser
was restricted to so many ounces a week, and no more. The portion I
received in exchange for a corner clipped off my meat card was but a
mere reminder of what a portion in that house would have been in the
old days.
There had been a time when a sincere but careless diner from up
Scotland way, down in London on a visit, would have carried away

more than that much on his necktie; which did not matter particularly
then, when food was plentiful; and, besides, usually he wore a pattern
of necktie which was improved by almost anything that was spilled
upon it. But it did matter to me that I had to dine on this hangnail pared
from a sheep.
A few days later I partook of a fast at what was supposed to be a
luncheon, which the Lord Mayor of London attended, in company with
sundry other notables. Earlier readings had led me to expect an endless
array of spicy and succulent viands at any table a Lord Mayor might
grace with his presence. Such, though, was not the case here. We had
eggs for an entrée; and after that we had plain boiled turbot, which to
my mind is no great shakes of a fish, even when tuckered up with
sauces; and after that we had coffee and cigars; and finally we had
several cracking good speeches by members of a race whose men are
erroneously believed by some Americans to be practically inarticulate
when they get up on their feet and try to talk.
There was a touch of tragedy mingled in with the comedy of the
situation in the spectacle of these Englishmen, belonging to a nation of
proverbially generous feeders, stinting themselves and cutting