Читать книгу Cakes and Ale - Edward Spencer Mott - Страница 48

With the addition of cutlets from the best end of a neck of mutton, the same recipe as the above will serve for this dish, which it must be remembered should be more of a “stodge” than a broth.

There are more ways than one of making a “hot-pot.” The recipe given above would hardly suit the views of any caterer who wishes to make a living for himself; but it can be done on the cheap. The old lady whose dying husband was ordered by the doctor oysters and champagne, procured whelks and ginger beer for the patient, instead, on the score of economy. Then why not make your hot-pot with mussels instead of oysters? Or why add any sort of mollusc? In the certain knowledge that these be invaluable hints to race-course caterers, I offer them with all consideration and respect.

The writer well remembers the time when the refreshments on Newmarket Heath at race-time were dispensed from a booth, which stood almost adjoining the “Birdcage.” Said refreshments were rough, but satisfying, and consisted of thick sandwiches, cheese, and bread, with “thumb-pieces” (or “thumbers”) of beef, mutton, and pork, which the luncher was privileged to cut with his own clasp-knife. Said “thumbers” seem to have gone out of favour with the aristocracy of the Turf; but the true racing or coursing sandwich still forms part of the impedimenta of many a cash-bookmaker, of his clerk, and of many a “little” backer. ’Tis a solid, satisfying sandwich, and is just the sort of nourishment for a hard worker on a bitter November day. Let your steak be grilling, whilst you are enjoying your breakfast—some prefer the ox-portion fried, for these simple speculators have strange tastes—then take the steak off the fire and place it, all hot, between two thick slices of bread. The sandwich will require several paper wrappings, if you value the purity of your pocket-linings. And when eaten cold, the juices of the meat will be found to have irrigated the bread, with more or less “delicious gravy.” And, as Sam Weller ought to have said, “it’s the gravy as does it.”

“But what about the swells?” I fancy I hear somebody asking, “Is my Lord Tomnoddy, or the Duke of Earlswood to be compelled to satisfy his hunger, on a race-course, with tripe and fat bacon? Are you really advising those dapper-looking, tailor-made ladies on yonder drag to insert their delicate teeth in a sandwich which would have puzzled Gargantua to masticate?” Not at all, my good sir, or madam. The well-appointed coach should be well-appointed within and without. Of course the luncheon it contains will differ materially according to the season of the year. This is the sort of meal I will provide, an you will deign to visit the Arabian tent behind my coach, at Ascot:

Lobster mayonnaise, salmon cutlets with Tartar sauce (iced), curried prawns (iced), lobster cutlets, chaud-froid of quails, foie gras in aspic, prawns in ditto, plovers’ eggs in ditto, galantine of chicken, York ham, sweets various, including iced gooseberry fool; and, as the pièce de résistance, an