Читать книгу Cakes & Ale - Spencer Edward - Страница 6

of west country pears. There was hot bread, too, and sundry ‘cates’ which would now be strange to our eyes. But to wash down these substantial viands there was little save ale. The most delicate lady could procure no more suitable beverage than the blood of John Barleycorn. The most fretful invalid had to be content with a mug of small beer, stirred up with a sprig of rosemary. Wine, hippocras, and metheglin were potations for supper-time, not for breakfast, and beer reigned supreme. None but home productions figured on the board of our ancestors. Not for them were seas traversed, or tropical shores visited, as for us. Yemen and Ceylon, Assam and Cathay, Cuba and Peru, did not send daily tribute to their tables, and the very names of tea and coffee, of cocoa and chocolate, were to them unknown. The dethronement of ale, subsequent on the introduction of these eastern products, is one of the most marked events which have severed the social life of the present day from that of the past.”

With the exception of the Wardon pie and the “cates,” the above bill-of-fare would probably satisfy the cravings of the ordinary “Johnny” of to-day, who has heard the chimes at midnight, and would sooner face a charging tiger than drink tea or coffee with his first meal, which, alas! but too often consists of a hot-pickle sandwich and a “brandy and soda,” with not quite all the soda in. But just imagine the fine lady of to-day with a large tankard of Burton ale facing her at the breakfast-table.