Eating the World: London in 1851 Author(s): Thomas Prasch Source: Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2008), pp. 587-602 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40347206 . Accessed: 07/11/2014 14:40
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This content downloaded from 192.104.1.4 on Fri, 7 Nov 2014 14:40:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions VictorianLiterature and Culture(2008), 36, 587-602. Printedin theUnited States of America. Copyright© 2008 CambridgeUniversity Press. 1060-1503/08$15.00 doi:10.1017/S1060150308080352
EATINGTHE WORLD: LONDON IN 1851
By ThomasPrasch
"London, for some time previousto the openingof the Great Exhibition,has been a curious even to Londoners," declaredin 1851, or theAdventures of sight HenryMayhew " Mr.and Mrs. Sandboysand Family,Who Came Up to Londonto "Enjoy Themselves, and to See theGreat Exhibition, his comic instantnovel aboutthe transformation of London in the year of the GreatExhibition. Mayhew proceededto detail what had growncuriouser and curiouserabout the London scene in thatclimactic year: "New amusementswere daily springinginto existence,or old ones being revived.The Chinese Collection had returnedto the Metropolis,with a familyfrom Pekin, and a lady with feet two inches and a half long, as proofof the superiorstanding she had in society;Mr Calin [sic; he means Caitlin]had re-opened his Indian exhibit;Mr Wyle [sic\he means Wyld; instant novels apparentlydid not allow much timefor proofreading] had boughtup the interior - of Leicester Square, with a view of cramminginto it 'yeah, the greatglobe itself" (132). Elsewherein Mayhew'sparodic panorama1 of London's exhibitionmania, he offered a view of otherglobalized London scenes, focusingon celebratedchef Alexis Soyer's new restaurant,"where the universemight dine, fromsixpence to a hundredguineas, of cartes rangingfrom pickled whelks to nightingale'stongues . . . fromthe 'long sixes,' au naturalof the Russians,to the 'stewed Missionaryof the Marquesas,' or the 'cold roast Bishop' of New Zealand" (2). Mayhew's imaginarymenu, with its cannibalisticextremes, expressesa widerconcern about the deluging of London by foreignerscome to see theGreat - Exhibition(some 60000 "extra"foreigners - beyond, that is, standardvisiting numbers were estimatedto have actuallyvisited, mostly from the Continent,that year, roughly doubling theexisting foreign population of London; see Auerbach186), whichfound expression in an amused (when not moregenuinely terrified) xenophobia that often focused on foreign foodways. Mayhew's catalogs of entertainmentsavailable in London in the year of the Great Exhibitioncavalierly cross real and imaginedopportunities for touristic entertainment. The ChineseCollection (which, in fact,shared space witha showcaseof SouthAfrican artifacts, Cumming'sExhibition; see BritishMetropolis 267), Caitlin'sIndian show (600 oil paintings and assortedartifacts from Caitlin's travels among Native Americans; see Limbird79), and Wyld'sGlobe (a massivemetal sphere the inside walls ofwhich replicated the earth's surface and physicalfeatures in modeled plaster;for a fullerdescription, see BritishMetropolis xix-xx),were all real enough,all partof thegreat exhibitionary year, even if theirofferings could notquite match Mayhew's hyperbole.
587
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Indeed,in thecase of Soyer'srestaurant, Mayhew seems notto have exaggeratedat all. The hyperbolicmenu Mayhew offers borrows much of its detail- as well as itsbest joke - fromSoyer's own advance publicityfor the restaurant:"Cosmopolitan customs should demandcosmopolitan cookery; and it is by no meansan exaggeratedexpectation, we think, to imaginewithin the walls of theSymposium grave and livelyFrenchmen, expatiating over theirpotages and fricandeaux;phlegmatic Turks, discussing pillaf and hachis; mercurial Persians,enjoying their sherbet; sententious Spaniards, luxuriating over olla podrida;wide- awake Americans,consuming johnny-cakes and canvas-backedducks; pigtailedChinese, devouringtheir favourite stewed dog; metaphysicalGermans, washing down prodigious quantitiesof sauerkrautwith oceans of rhienwein[sic]; swarthyRussians, up to theireyes in caviar; Cossacks, callingfor more train oil; Tartars,swallowing quarts of mare's milk; and New Zealanders- no, notNew Zealanders,for who could formany idea of thehorror and dismaywhich would be caused by some ebony-skinnedand boomerangedchieftains demanding'baked young woman' for two, and a 'cold boiled missionary'to follow?" (Volantand Warren2200-01). Comparedto thepromiscuous prodigious international feast Soyer'sown publicitypromises, Mayhew's catalog seems quite tame. That all of London had become the fair duringthe great fair of the world's first internationalexhibition perfectly suited Mayhew's purposes. The Sandboys,the provincial familythat comes to Londonfor the Great Exhibition in Mayhew'snovel, because of a series ofmishaps and confusions,never quite manage to maketheir way through the entrance gates (althoughMayhew himself does; he interruptshis narrativeto entertainreaders with his own accountof theCrystal Palace's richofferings). That they never make it intoPaxton's palace, however,is finallybeside thepoint, since the cityitself has become an exhibition,packed withthe foreign. In theteeming boarding houses of thecity, the Sandboys encounter a wide rangeof foreignvisitors to London, mustachio'dFrenchmen being especiallyprominent. And Mayhew'ssomewhat more sly argumentis thatthe internationalism that characterized theGreat Exhibition was fullyon displayeven in themost dismal sectors of thecity, as in the second-handclothing stalls where Mr. Sandboysis forcedto go to recoverhis lost trousers (don't ask how he lost them;it is a verylong story):"The buyers,too, wereas picturesque and motleya groupalmost as thesellers - forthe purchasers were of all nations"(100). An exhibitionof all nationscould be foundin anystreet market of themetropolis, and, although Mayhewmakes little of theirfoodways, they brought their recipes with them. Mayhewspoofs, in hisexaggerated catalogs, the ways in whichthe metropolis of London capitalizedon thecoming of theGreat Exhibition, transforming large parts of thecity into extensionsof the global display containedunder the arches of Paxton's CrystalPalace. If, as PeterHoffenburg has argued,in the GreatExhibition and its successorinternational showcases,"Nation and empirewere introducedas spectacle,but became personaland accessible... by means of such participatoryforms of public cultureand entertainment" (245), it is also the case thatsuch public cultureextended beyond the limitsof exhibition buildings.Mayhew's spoofing has a rootin fact:in theactual expansion of internationalized exhibitionarydisplay throughthe city in 1851, and in the penetrationof the foreign- includingforeign foodways - intothe heart of thecity. Both trends,exhibitionary and gastronomical,had deepersources, reflecting long-term shiftsin the patternsof British,and especiallyLondon, life and culture.First of all, the culturalprocesses set in motionby Britishimperialism ensured the arrival on Britishshores ofboth imperial food products and foreign foodways.3 This is mostabundantly evident in the
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penetrationof Indian cookery into British consumer markets and cookbooks, a processSusan Zlotnickhas aptlydescribed, in herdiscussion of JosephSedley's curryfeasts in William Makepeace Thackeray'sVanity Fair (1848),4 as, borrowingher language from her source, a "metaphorof incorporation,of delightfulgobbling" (Zlotnick 55). WhatBritain conquers, it also eats. Second, an internationalizationof Britishcookery was a directconsequence of the consolidationof industrialism,and with it the shiftof Britain froma self-sustaining agriculturalproducer to a consumerdependent upon an increasinglyglobalized marketplace.5 Derek Oddy,addressing shifting British dietary habits, notes that "Change was at its most extremewhere industrial development . . . createdan urbansociety dependent almost entirely uponthe marketplace [as opposedto local production]for food supplies," and further observes that"The GreatExhibition of 1851 began an age of commercialentertainment. With this came an unprecedentedgrowth of cateringfor business travellers and touristsalike" (1,9). RichardTames similarlysees in the"second half of thenineteenth century," in consequence of changingmarkets, "a significanttrend towards the systematiccommercialization of the cateringbusiness" (31). That commercialization,dependent on global markets,results in changedpatterns of consumptionand moreopenness to foreignfoods, trends most evident at Britain'scommercial heart, in themarkets and restaurantsof London. Third,and linkedto bothof theseother trends, the Victorian age witnesseda dramatic growthof immigrantpopulations: from the continent (people seekingrefuge from political instabilityin France,the Germanies,and Italy,or fleeingpogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe),from the empire (another part of that two-way dynamic of imperial interaction), and fromthe broader world (linked by globalizingmarket trends to London). Such immigrants, predictably,brought their foodways with them(see, for example,Tames's treatmentof "ForeignFlavors" in London restaurants,100-23). And fourth,on the otherside of the travelingcoin, from the eighteenth century onward, the Grand Tour tradition brought British elites(and, as commercialtravel extended its reachin theVictorian era, broaderranges of the populationas well) into contactwith foreign cuisines, leading to a demandfor chefs (especially Frenchand Italian) who could recreatein London dishes firsttasted abroad (Black 149-65). Indeed, manyof the chefs in London at midcenturywere firmlyin the employof Britishelites, as Volantand Warrennote, mentioning "Bony, who was thirteen yearsat thelate Duke ofWellington's, and twelveyears at theDuke of Buccleuch's;Aberlin, fromLord Sefton'sof old, and fromthe Duke of Devonshire;Perron, from the Marquis of Londonderry's;Loyer, from Lord Chesterfield's;Deloy, fromBaron Brunow's;Surville, fromLord Wharncliffe's;Crepin, from the Duke of Sutherland's"(Volant and Warrenviii). - The problemwas notso muchone of bringingforeign cooking to Britain thathad already been done - butof gettingit to a widerurban audience. All of these trends,well establisheda centuryand morebefore the GreatExhibition openedits doors and continuingafter the Crystal Palace was dismantled,mean that in some waysthe year 1851 changesnothing. Internationalization ofLondoners' palates was already happeningand wouldcontinue unabated with or withoutthe exhibition. What does changeis attitude:where, before 1851, foreignness was enclavedand shunnedby mainstreamEnglish opinion,in 1851 theforeign becomes a sourceof celebration,and thatshift (albeit somewhat resisted)becomes a permanentfixture, a new formationof London identity. Andnowhere is thatshift in attitudemore apparent than in AlexisSoyer's new restaurant, its openingplanned to coincidewith the exhibition and its location(at Gore House, where
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theAlbert Hall now stands)aimed to takeadvantage of exhibitionvisitors. The French-born Soyer (afterwhom William Thackeray modeled his Frenchcook Mirobolantin Historyof Pendennis[1849]) was, by 1851, withoutdoubt the most famous chef in London,the city to whichhe had fledafter the revolution of 1830. Indeed,Michael Garvalconvincingly argues that,in thefull range of exploitationof his publicimage, from graphic art to cookbooksto mass-marketedsauces and kitchenwares,Soyer can be takenas the first"celebrity chef." He had establisheda namefor himself as chefof theReform Club, 1837-50, where,among othernotable feasts, he had servedup a breakfastfor 2000 on theday of Queen Victoria's coronationand a meal for 150 on theoccasion of the visitto London of Egyptiangeneral IbrahimPasha, with a wide-rangingmenu including French, Italian, Russian, Indian, German, Macedonian,and Egyptianfoods (the fullmenu appears in Volantand Warren88-89, and as an appendixin Morris);in 1847, he receiveda royalcommission to open an economy kitchenin Dublin,aiming to amelioratethe Irish famine. He also penned(or dictated,or had ghostedon his behalf)a rangeof books on food,including the hugely popular Gastronomic Regenerator:A Simplifiedand New Systemof Cookery(1846); Soyer'sCharitable Cookery, or thePoor Man's Regenerator(1847, publishedwhile he was workingin Ireland,and with a portionof theproceeds dedicated to Irishcharity); and, a fewyears after opening his new restaurant,The Pantropheon;or, History of food, and itspreparation, from the Earliest Ages of theWorld (1853).6 Soyerwould later travel at his own expenseto EasternEurope, where he wouldcook for theEnglish army during the Crimean War and befriendFlorence Nightingale, with whom he teamedup to remakemilitary hospital kitchens.7 It is not onlyMayhew who tendsto wax hyperbolicwhen it comes to Soyer.The Globe declared:"The impressiongrows on us that theman of his age is neitherSir RobertPeel, norLord JohnRussell, or evenIbrahim Pasha, butAlexis Soyer."8In theanonymous 1858 pamphletLondon at Dinner,or Whereto Dine, Soyer'sterm at theReform Club was recalledin glowingterms: "It was theclever Alexis who reformedthe antiquated excrescences and abuses of thekitchen. Can anypatriot burn with moredevoted and intensezeal forthe public good thandoes Soyer?"(18). The juxtaposition in thispraise of foreigncooking styles and Englishpatriotism is especiallystriking. Soyer'snew restaurant in 1851 - withinwalking distance from the Crystal Palace - was specificallydesigned to play on thepromise of the Great Exhibition: on theflood of foreigners to thecity, on theirfood tastes. That broad audience is suggestedin therange of guestsfor Soyer's openingbanquet on May 15: "The visitorscame fromevery corner of theworld - Paris,Dresden, Hanover, Leipsic, St. Petersberg,Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Dublin - and the band played the Marseilleise,Yankee Doodle Dandy,God Save the Queen, and any other nationalanthem they knew" (quoted in Humble 111). Thackeray,writing pseudonymously forPunch as "Gobemouche,Man ofLetters," in advanceof the restaurant's opening, styled it a "FrenchConspiration" and "invasion":"yet a fewweeks and thepalace of SOYER will be opened.This, Milord, is theConspiracy by whichFrance hopes to conqueryou" (Thackeray 63). For Thackeray,this was thefinal outcome of a processlong in themaking: "My Lord - thereis a conspiracy,but it is patent- a foreigninvasion, but it is here. . . Our legions are encampedin Regents'Quadrant and LeicesterSquare The insularhabits are rapidly passingaway. The Parisiancivilization has invadedand conqueredthe white cliffs" (59-60). And whobetter as conquerorthan the chef Soyer: "Whose name, whose good thingsare in so manypeoples' mouthsas thename, as thegood things,of ALEXIS SOYER? Yes, ALEXIS is a greatpacific conqueror" (61). On his restaurant'sopening, Soyer's own speechechoed
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thetheme of conquest:"now thatI have engagedin moreextended operations - now that, likeCaesar, I have crossedthe Rubicon and unfurledthe banner of gastronomy"(Volant and Warren218). Such languageunderlines the self-consciousness about a shiftin dininghabits, bothin termsof ethnicityand spectacle,accompanying the Great Exhibition. In a second Punch piece as "Gobemouche," "AuthenticAccount of the Grand Exhibition,"the presumedFrenchman hails a cabrioletto take him to the exhibition,and indeedthinks, from what he sees,that he has arrivedthere: "What do I see aroundme? The citiesof theworld are givingeach otherthe hand - theTower of Pisa nods friendlyto the Wall of China - the Pont Neuf and the Bridge of Sighs meet and minglearches - Saint Paul, of London,is of accordwith his brotherSaint Peter, of Rome - and theParthenon is unitedwith the Luqsor Obelisk" (71). Nothing,as Gobemouchecontinues his tour,disabuses him of his beliefthat he wondersat the InternationalExhibition: "The chambersof this marvellouspalace are decoratedin variousstyles, each dedicatedto a nation.One room flamesin crimsonand yellow,surmounted by a vastgolden sun ... it mustbe thechamber of theEast. Another,decorated with stalactites and piled withlooking-glass and eternalsnow, at once suggestsKamschatka and theNorth Pole. In a thirdapartment, the Chinese dragons and lanternsdisplay their fantastic blazons; while in a fourth,under a canopyof midnight stars,surrounded by wavingpalm-trees, we feelourselves at once to be in a primevalforest of Brazil" (Thackeray71-72). Arrivingat last to thefinal chamber, Gobemouche wonders: "And thatvast building on theeastern side ... is themuch- vaunted Palace of Crystal?Yes, theroof is of crystal,and thedimensions are vast"(72-73). But whena gentlemantells him "Thatis theBaronial Hall of All Nations,"and thatit is notopen yet,Gobemouche realizes - his mistake:"This is notthe Crystal Palace I see - thisis therival wonder yes,this is the Symposiumof all Nations,and yonderis ALEXIS SOYER" (73). Thackeray'strope, with its confusionover whether the exhibition is in factcontained within the Crystal Palace's walls, could fitright into Mayhew's novel. The spectacleon offerin Soyer's restaurantdoes indeed seem astounding.Limbird's Guide (1851) describesthe Symposiumin only slightlyless wild words than Mayhew employed:"The roomsare decoratedin thestyle of all nations,and in stylesthat no nation would acknowledgeas its own. The gardensare laid out withgreat novelty of design- Thereare innumberablequantity of statues,vases, and grottoes,grass-plots, gravel-walks, illuminatedflower-beds, and variegatedlandscapes, with many otherattractions - The Baronial BanquetingHall is 100 feetlong ... thewalls coveredwith rich crimson drapery, relievedby the interpositionof Corinthianpilasters. The spaces betweenthe columnsare filledalternately with richly-framed oil-paintings by Madame Soyer,and club trophiesof the insigniaof all nations There is also the BanquetingBridge, the Flora Retreat,the GipsyDell, theDungeon of Mystery,and theAvenue of Love, thefrequenters of which,we sincerelytrust, will neverbe chilledby theicicles in theGrotto of EternalSnow" (Limbird 141-42). Volantand Warrendescribe one of its morefabulous banquet halls: "U Atelierde Michel Angelo, or Hall ofArchitectural Wonders, offered ... a strikingand splendid homage to thearchitectural genius of all nations... in picturesqueconfusion we saw St. Peter's,the LeaningTower of Pisa, theDuomo ofMilan, the Louvre, the lions and portionsof the Piazza ofSt. Mark,the Mosque ofSt. Sophia,the Pyramids of Ghizeh, Pompey 's Pillar,the Porcelain Towerof Nankin,the Bridge of Sighs,the Sphinx, the Walhalla of Munich,the Eddystone Lighthouse,the Colosseum To come nearerhome, we had St. Paul's, themonument, the new Parliamentof Westminster,and the latesttriumph of combinedengineering skill and
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artisticbeauty, the Tubular Bridge. Geography, time, place, and localityhad certainlybeen set at defiancein thisextraordinary pele-mele of edifices"(205).9 Anotherguidebook notes thatthe words on thesign "are at nightilluminated, and makea mostbrilliant appearance," and adds to the catalog otherrooms, including "the 'Pavilion Monstred'AmphytrionS or the "Encampmentof All Nations,"specifically tailored, in Soyer's words,"for those who 'preferthe promiscuous refectation of a publicbanquet to theless joyous societyof a private room'" (BritishMetropolis xviii). Promiscuous interactions with the foreign were very much on offerin Soyer's saloons. The menu,as muchas thesurroundings, displayed an internationalflair. Thackeray (as Gobemouche)detailed the variety of bothits decor and its menu:"A palace of airieshe is makingit - trulya Symposiumof all nations,as SIR SOYER (faithfulto his Bacchanalian tradition,and proudof the religionof his apron) has styledit. Halls are herefilled in the mannersof all nations The Saloon of Italy,the Saloon of Turkey,the Saloon of Spain; the Hall of France,the Hall of Olde England.You may consumehere the cockaliquetof themountains of Scotland,the garbana of Castille,the shamrocks of Ireland,the maccaroni [sic] of Vesuvius,the kari of the Ganges, and the cabab of the Bosphorus"(62). Beyond the site itselfand the food served,spectacle found a place in the entertainmentsoffered, including"Various bands of musicalperformers, singers, black or Ethiopianserenaders (of the mostcomic power),theatricals, balloons, [and] games of differentkinds" (Volant and Warren215). Soyer'sSymposium was a uniqueembodiment of boththe spectacular and the cosmopolitanreconfiguration of Londondining. It also failed,closing a merefive months after its opening. Sarah Freeman writes of the closing: "To some extent,the lack of impactwas due to theunprecedented and altogether extraordinarynature of theoverall enterprise: restaurants in themodern sense . . . werealso virtuallyunknown, far less those servingethnic food, as Soyer soughtto do" (287). But Freemanis wrongon all countshere. The closing,in fact,had to do withSoyer's problematic financialpartnerships, exacerbated by disputesover the liquor license, in thewake of large- scale diningevents held on thesite (see Volantand Warren232-34). Far frombeing without impact,the restaurant'sbrief life accentuatedSoyer's public image. And Freeman'sown account makes clear that Soyer's enterprisebuilt upon a growingpresence of foreign foodwaysin London,dominated by Franco-Italianfare (285-287; see also Tames 100-23). That spreadof foreignrestaurants reflected the growth of ethnicpopulations in thecity and thedevelopment of foreigncuisine as an outletfor those foreign populations. Enclaves (of foreignersand foreignfoods) had been long establishedin Britain,which should come as no greatsurprise. London had alreadybeen for some time a "world city,"to borrow Celina Fox's term,10its foreignpopulation built above all else throughthe course of the expansionof tradeand empirein the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturies, and reflecting thegeography of thatexpansion. Thus, Colonel Hughes,estimating the numbers of lascars (whomhe categorizedas includingIndian, Malay, and Chinesedockworkers and shiphands, withsprinklings of WestAfricans and SouthSea islanders)in 1855, suggestedthat 5-6,000 wereresident in Britain(most in London),which closely corresponds to thenumber James Saltertallied (7815) in 1874 (Visram52-53). Continuedempire-building, the shaping of the empireon whichthe sun would neverset and all that,would acceleratethe processesby whichgrowing numbers of colonials came to be and eat in the metropolethroughout the nineteenthcentury, while the nostalgia of a retired-homeimperial officialdom would ensure cuisinesof East India findinga place on themenus of thecity's clubs.
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But otherforces at work in the mid-nineteenthcentury massively expanded these populations,above all else the continentalrevolutions (especially 1848 - but recall that Soyercame to London on theheels of 1830)11and theIrish Famine. Thus, 1851 comes in themiddle of a periodof massivegrowth and shiftin thepopulation of centralLondon, with significantlevels of immigrationcontributing to thetransformation of London's population and self-image.The cityhad 330,000 immigrantsin thedecade precedingthe opening of the CrystalPalace, and another286,000 in the decade thatfollowed it (Porter205). The mid- nineteenthcentury is focal forthe establishmentof Arab,Chinese, German, Irish, Italian, Jewish,Polish, and Spanishcommunities in London,with smaller numbers of Africansand African-Americans present as well (Merriman). ShirleyBrooks, looking in 1849 at thisdiversity, and at whathe perceivedto be the evidentbreakdown of nationalboundaries brought about by new technologiesof travel, suggested"One ofthese days there will be no foreigners."He meantthat national differences werebound to disappear,not that visitors would be restrictedat theshore: "Time is already no more,and we haveonly to abolishspace" (Brooks 175). Meanwhile,however, foreignness was altogetherevident in London streets,and his essay on "ForeignGentlemen in London" offeredguides forrecognizing the visitorfrom America, Spain, Italy,or France. In fact, farfrom disappearing, foreignness would consolidatein London,in the shapingof readily identifiableethnic enclaves and occupations,already clear to commentatorson theLondon scene at mid-century. Thus, AugustusHare wrote of Soho that "The whole districtof Soho ... has now a Frenchaspect There are Frenchschools, Frenchnames over many of the shops, Frenchrestaurants . . . and theorgan-grinders of Soho findthat the Marseillaise is themost lucrativetune to play" (2: 130). They sharedSoho's territory,Adolphe Smithadds, with "Mazzinians"exiled fromItaly, each withtheir own hotels,pubs, and restaurants(Adolphe Smith399-404). In Dickens's Household Words,Sala's 1851 essay "Down Whitechapel Way" offereda perambulationthrough enclaves of alien culturein London: at one stage on thejourney, "We are in Vaterlandat once There are littleGerman public-houses, and Germanbakers, and littleshops, where you can getsauer-kruat and potato-salad,just as thoughyou were in Frankfort" (rpt. in Gaslight266); a littlefurther on, "The childrenof Jewry beginto encompassus ... almostall thelow coffee-shopsyou pass are crowdedwith young Jews"{Gaslight 267). An 1862 guidebook,published to lead touristsvisiting the second London internationalexhibition, although it favoredin its restaurantlistings steakhouses withtraditional British fare, also listedWest End ethnicoptions like Bertolini's,Rouget's, Simpson'sDivan, Jacquet's,and theHotel de l'Europe supperhouse in the Haymarket,as well as theOriental among the city's clubs (Cruchley'sNew Guide 34-35). For betteror worse, dependingon the commentator,Leicester Square teemed with foreignersand foreign shops. As AdolpheSmith put it: "the caricaturists inevitably associated the foreignwith Leicester Square, and it is in thisneighborhood that are stillto be found the greatestnumber of foreignshops, restaurants, cafes, and hotels"(399). Describingthe area in 1861,George Augustus Sala saw theresults less positively:"It is astonishingto find how muchforeign riff-raff and alien scoundrellywill turnup at a masquerade.Leicester Square and PantonStreet, the cloaques of the Haymarketand Soho, disgorgethe bearded and pomatumedscum of theirstale pot-a-feu-smelling purlieus on thisdancing floor" (Sala, Twice 415). While providinga centerfor the foreign,it should be recalled as well that LeicesterSquare simultaneouslyanchored much of thenew exhibitionarytechnology of the
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city:the displayswhose featuresMayhew exaggerated, and whichSala summarizedwith wordsthat suggest continuing awe a decade on (see especiallySala, Gaslight173-84; Timbs 513-15). JohnGalsworthy described Soho as "full of Greeks,Ishmaelites, cats, Italians,"and othersorts with "queer names" (quoted in Tames 157). Sala's Gaslightand Daylight(1859) dubsthe territory of LeicesterSquare and Soho "perfidiousPatmos." There, after cataloging foreignersof a wide variety,he notes withsomewhat more sympathythe politicalexiles' plight:"Years ago, Doctor Johnsoncalled London 'the common sewer of Paris and of Rome;' butat thepresent day it is a reservoir,a giantvat, into which flow countless streams ofcontinental immigration" (165). Sala includesa descriptionof theirdining: "Towards four or fivethe foreign eating-houses, of whichthere are manyin Patmosof a fifthor sixthorder of excellence,are resortedto by thosewho yetadhere to thegastronomic traditions of the landthey have been drivenfrom; and therethey vainly attempt to deludethemselves into the beliefthat they are consumingthe fricassees and ragouts,the suet puddings and sauerkraut, themaccaroni, risotto, and stuffato of Franceor Germanyor Italy- all thedelightful messes on whichforeigners feed with such extremegusto and satisfaction.But, alas! thesedishes, thoughcompounded from foreign recipes and cooked by foreignhands, are not,or, at least, do nottaste like foreigndishes. Cookery, like theamor patriae, is indigenous.It cannotbe transplanted.It cannotflourish on a foreignsoil" (169-70). But flourish,of course,it does, howeverbitter the bread of theexile. Beyond the specificenclaves are the intersticesof urban life, servedby the street- vendorswho are so centrala focus of Mayhew's most famouswork (no, not 1851), the vastprotosociological compendium of LondonLabour and theLondon Poor (1862, butsee n.l). Ethnicityis a distinctivemarker in Mayhew'smammoth catalog, defining the genuine Englishnessof thecostermonger against the intruding otherness of theoutsider (especially theIrish and Jew), but using a broaderarray of ethnic identifiers to cement the case.12 And the foreignerswho had come to dominatestreet-trades13 figure not only in thewide assortment of streetentertainments - Italian acrobats, Indian jugglers, African drummers, and therest - but in basic food provisionas well.14These includeat least some importationof foreign foodways:thus Arab Jewsfrom Morocco dominatethe streettrade in rhubarb,spices, and tortoises(1: 452-54; 2: 80), and turbanedDoctor Bokavy survivedas a streetherbalist vendingEast Indiangoods (1: 197). Mayhew'sdiscussion of working-classdiets, while not focusedon ethnicity,hints at it strongly:"The relishfor onions by the poorerclasses is not difficultto explain. Onions are stronglystimulating substances ... forthe uneducated palates of the poor. . . requirea morepungent kind of diet" (1: 119).15 Mayhew attributes theimpoverished classes' love forsprats and herringto thelevels of oil in suchfish (1:118), butforeign-influenced foodways provide an obviousalternative explanation. Nor is Mayhew alone in underliningthe intersectionof streetfood tradersand ethnicity.Lucia Spona, for example,has criticallyanalyzed the Italian domination of thepenny-ice trade in theperiod. The influenceof Jewishcuisine is especiallyclear in Mayhew'saccount: "The callings of whichthe Jew boys have the monopolyare notconnected with the sale of any especial article,but rather with such thingsas presenta varietyfrom those ordinarily offered in the streets,such as cakes,sweetmeats, fried fish, and (in thewinter) elder wine. The cakes known as 'boolers' - a mixtureof egg, flour,and candiedorange or lemonpeel, cut verythin, and witha slightcolouring from saffron or somethingsimilar - are now sold principally,and used to be sold exclusively,by theJew boys. Almondcakes (littleround cakes of crushed
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almonds)are at presentvended by theJew boys, and theirsponge biscuits are in demand. All thesedainties are boughtby the street-ladsof theJew pastry-cooks. The differencein thesecakes, in theirsweetmeats, and theirelder wine, is thatthere is a dash of spice about themnot ordinarily met with. It is thesame withthe fried fish, a littlespice or pepperbeing blendedwith the oil. In thestreet-sale of picklesthe Jews have also themonopoly" (2: 124). That"variety," that "difference," that "dash of spice" is, precisely,ethnicity. Markets,too, reflectedthis internationalizing process. In 1862, theyear of the second London InternationalExhibition, a visitors'guidebook insisted that the food marketsof Londonoffered "all thathe [theLondoner] requires from the uttermost corners of the earth: - turtleand pine apples fromthe West Indies; canvas-backedducks, packed in ice; ice itself; flour;preserved meats; cheese, and grainof everykind, from America; ortolans from Egypt; Januarypeas fromAlgeria; caviare and sturgeonfrom Russia; freshfish from Scandinavia; 16 and vegetablesfrom France, earlier and betterthan they are receivedin Paris" (Kelly 44). Home consumption,as well as diningout, came increasinglywith foreign flavors. The problemin mid- Victorian Britain is howto translate that difference from the marginal and enclavedto a wider(and implicitlyhigher) audience. Even beforethe Great Exhibition, sometendencies in thisdirection were clear. As earlyas 1842,Punch was makingnote of the internationalizationof London's publicspaces, in an accountof Gliddon'sDivan, an Arabic restaurantwhere "The waitersare warrantedreal Musselmans,and are of coursehabited in orientalcostume A real Arab has been importedat vast expense,and tells tales to the curiousfrom eight to ten" ("Gliddon's Divan"). Such processeswould accelerateover the nextdecade. But 1851, by reformulatingforeignness in the city,will fundamentallychange the dynamicof it. This work of transformationbegins in the CrystalPalace itself,with its emphaticinternationalism, and indeedin theCrystal Palace refreshmentrooms, where, if the dominantofferings were squarelyEnglish (33,456 poundsof savorypies; 73,280 Victoria biscuits;1092337 bottlesof gingerbeer), there were at leasttraces of a worldbeyond, in the 2000 pineapples,1 1797 "Italiancakes," and the7617 "Frenchrolls," and of coursein those staplesof imperial trade, tea (1015 lbs.,at least some of it served up inthe Ceylonese tearoom), coffee(14299 lbs.), and chocolate(4836 lbs.) ("Food Sold at theCrystal Palace"). The work of theCrystal Palace was extendedby thesurge of guidebooksto London,a boomingtrade - - in 1851 (when,by a quick countof holdingsat theBritish Library www.bl.uk at least a dozen new guidebooksto London,many explicitly aimed at foreigntravelers, and at least twoin French,appeared in print).Guidebooks offered predictable sketches of British history, and largelypredictable tours of majormonuments, but also focusedon themore immediate needs (food,housing) of foreignguests. Even theEnglish grocer, one guidesuggests, could meetthe need of theinternationalist. In G. Dodd's paean to the"very cyclopedia of instruction"offered by theshops of London in 1851, exoticismis trumpeted:"We thereplace ourselvesin communionwith artificers and producersfrom all cornersof theearth: the bowls of 'souchang' and 'twankay'in the windowof thegrocer introduce us to themillions of theCelestial Empire; the spices in the same windowcarry us in imaginationto Ceylon,to theMoluccas, and to thetropical regions generally;the 'Italian warehouse,' with its thousand and one seductionsfor the palate, shows us what sunnyItaly, and Greece, and the Levant can do forus" (qtd. in Knight5: 385). These are thethings, not the people, of course,and it may well be easier to appreciatethe - goods at a removefrom their producers, but contemporaryaccounts even of the lower
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echelonsof foreignlife, as in Sala's tripto Whitechapelfor Household Words that same year (Gaslight263-69) - tendto be moreenchanted than appalled by thepresence of theforeign in theirmidst. And London's commercialspaces reflectedthe impact of new exhibitionary technologiesas well as of new internationalgoods, above all else withthe use of plateglass, openeddisplay spaces, and new arrangementsof goods. As G. Dodd noted:"By whatsteps theshops of themetropolis have arrivedat theirpresent position - how theheavy shapeless windowyielded to thelight bow window,and thelath to thewooden flat; how smallsquares of glass have given way to largerones, crownglass to plate glass, clumsywooden sash- bars to lightbrass ones . . . musthave been noticedby all who are familiarwith the huge metropolis"(qtd. in Knight5:389). The modelof themuseum display case, beingperfected on thegrounds of SouthKensington, was beingechoed as well in the storesof thecity, at thesame timeas theproducts displayed reflected a new celebratoryinternationalism. The lessons of the exhibitionyear would prove lasting."London at Dinner" (1858) explicitlyconnected expanding dining possibilities to thelegacy of theCrystal Palace: "We expectedto derivemany lessons, and thereforebenefits, from the Great Exhibition of 1851, andwe werenot deceived in theresults But letus notforget certain little practical lessons givento us at the same time,one of themhaving an intimateconnection with the workin hand.We had herea mass of strangerswho, to theanxious query (which at a particularhour of the day will occur to Britonsequally withforeigners), 'Where shall we dine?' had no replybut Echo" (5-6). But thathad changed.The anonymouswriter of the pamphlethad not quite fullyaccepted the fullrange of foreignfeasts available in the capital; he writes dismissivelythat "Leicester Square is thehaunt of foreigners, and as theycontinue to frequent itsrestaurants, we mustpresume they are contentwith the fare provided for them. To English tastesthey might not seem so satisfactory."But his verynext sentences suggest how changed Englishtastes had become: "In Castle Street,Leicester Square, a veryunpretending little house, 'Rouget's,' gives Englishand Frenchdishes capitally done. The soup Julienneis as good as is to be had in London" (12). In as staidlyEnglish-sounding a site as the Ascot dinnerin St. George's Hall - on the ceiling"are emblazonedthe armorialbearings of the Knightsof thenoble Orderof the Garter"(20), forexample - thepamphleteer praises the "homeand foreignluxuries," the "truffle pies," the"Russian tongues, caviare, sardines, &c. (22-23). Elsewhere,the pamphlet highlights the Oriental Club in HanoverSquare, "famed" forits Easterncondiments and wines" (18); notesin a summaryof dinnersduring season in "theaverage of thebest mountedhouses" (25) menusthat offer "Dutch sauces," French entreesand pates(with French mustard as well as English),ices (forthe most part an Italian import),and "pine-applecream" (26); and includessample menus for the Wellington's set dinnersthat feature Indian soups, German potatoes, Italian-style salmon, Russian salads, and lots and lots of French(appendix 6). London's dinersmay not go to LeicesterSquare, but thatis in partbecause LeicesterSquare had come to them. Cookbooks,too, were by the 1860s increasinglyinfiltrated by foreignrecipes, reflecting in partthe impactof London restaurantson broaderconsuming patterns. Nicola Humble, in her studyof Victoriancookbooks, notes that even Mrs. Beeton's ever-taken-as-staidly- English classic, Book of Household Management(1861), was, despite its reputation, "strikinglyinnovatory, introducing the ever-growingand self-consciouslyrespectable Victorianmiddle class to a wide rangeof foreignrecipes" (10); in Beeton's pages, "we find innumerableFrench dishes Therewas littleradical in the inclusionof such dishes,but Beetonalso givesdishes from less familiarcuisines, notably Italian, German, Belgian, Dutch,
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and Portuguese Anothersignificant body of recipes comes fromIndia: mulligatawny, variouscurries, kedgerees and a numberof chutneysare all included. . . thereare roughlyas 17 manyrecipes in thebook fromIndia as thereare fromWales, Scotland,and Ireland"(19). Humble arguesthat this trend toward inclusion of foreignfoods continuedin cookbooks laterin the century,and she suggeststhat it was directlya consequenceof the influence of restaurantsin her discussionof Mrs. Marshall's 1888 work: "The food tastesof Mrs. Marshall'sprimary readership were increasinglyshaped by the restaurantculture that had sprungup in theyears since 1867, whenthe Cafe Royal opened its doors" (21). The Cafe Royal,operated by theParisian ex-wine merchant Daniel NicholasThevenon, certainly had an impact,leading Herbert Beerbohm Tree to observe,"if you wantto see theEnglish people at theirmost English, go to theCafe Royal wherethey are tryingtheir hardest to be French" (quotedin Tames 149), but the pattern was wellestablished already by then, in spectacularized ethnicdining options opened in thecity from the time of Soyer'sSymposium on. The processes at work from1851 are fullyconsolidated by century'send. By the last decade of the century,Lieutenant-Colonel Newnham-Davis's restaurant reviews for thePall Mall Gazetteregularly reflected both cosmopolitan company and strikinglymixed alternativesto Englishcuisine. Newnham-Davis could findhimself dining with an American womanhe had metin Suez on a menuthat includes "Oeufs a la Russe" in a vodka sauce and "Salade Venetienne"(52) as well as a greatdeal of French(52-56); could dropin on a Strandestablishment run by a proprietorknown as "theRoman" and staffedby Italians (23); could feaston Frenchand Russiandishes while listening to CentralEuropean waltzes (38-44); can contesta fellowdiner's view "thatcurry can onlybe made out of India in St. James'sSquare" since "I have eatengood curryat theCriterion, where a sable gentlemanis chargedwith its preparation, and I also rememberedthat at theCecil theymake a speciality of theircurries" (59); can,dining at Gatti's,remember how once "strange-lookingforeigners satat themarble topped little tables and madethe most of one portionof somedish piled high withmacaroni," and how at one suchlocale he met"an aide-de-campof Garibaldi"(68, 69); and can feaston FrenchifiedRussian and Polish food at theSavoy, where the chef had just returnedfrom Cannes and an "Africangentleman" served as doorman(73-76). The same Frenchand Italian restaurants that commentators were noting in Soho andLeicester Square at mid-centurywould be highlightedin Baedeker'sLondon guide at theturn of the century (16). By then,given London's positionas imperialcity, all thiswould seem perfectlynatural. It would be equally,indeed more natural in thepostcolonial metropole that would succeed it, its ethnicpopulation expanded enormously by the briefheyday of the Commonwealth passport.18Flash forwardabout a century,and we have, in MartinAmis's classic London novel,London Fields (1989), thatmost British of bad boysKeith Talent settling in for a dinner:
"He nowdoubleparked outside the Indian Mutiny on CathcartRoad. Seatedat hisusual table, Keith atepoppadams and bombay duck while the staff fondly prepared his muttonvindaloo. The napalm sauce,sir?' askedRashid. Keith was resolved,in thisas in all things.'Yeah. The napalmsauce.' In thekitchen they were busy responding to Keith'simperial challenge: to makea curryso hotthat he couldn'teat it.The meal arrived.Lively but silent faces stared through the serving-hatch. The first spoonfulswiped a mustacheof sweaton to Keith'supper lip, and drewexcited murmurs from the kitchen.'Bit mild,'said Keithwhen he couldtalk again" (56).
That thereare Indianrestaurants in London is less the surprisethan that Keith Talent, the most British(albeit lowlifeBritish) of Britishcharacters in the novel, an utterlyinsular
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islander,xenophobic to the pointof racism,would make the hottestof currieshis dietary staple,finding it everybit as Englishas his dartsor his pub-drawnbeer.19 The rootsof the metropolis'snew cosmopolitanism,its internationalizedpalate, came in the years around 1851. It was accomplishedthrough the fusionof new exhibitionary technologiesand a changedappreciation of internationalism,building on existingstructures and longstandingpopulations, but resituated from margin to centerin a processmagnified by thelong shadowsof theCrystal Palace. It made London a place where,of all theworld cuisineson offer,increasingly the hardest to findwas Englishcooking. And there'sno real loss in that.
WashburnUniversity
NOTES
1. 1851 illustrates,in fact,Mayhew's growing obsession with panoramic view and compulsivecatalog, whichwould be fullyembodied, had he everfinished it, in his GreatWorld of London, commenced in 1856 (nineserial numbers were published before it was discontinued),and intended to incorporate the reworkedmaterial of London Labour and the London Poor (rooted fromthe Morning Chronicle columnsof 1848^9, withadditions; published in serialformat in 1852, and in themore familiar boundvolumes, with finishing touches by JosephBinney and others,in 1862; fora fullerpublishing history,see Humpherys16-28) as well as his surveyCriminal Prisons of London (also 1862,again finishedup by Binney);indeed, the anomalous panorama sequence that opens Criminal Prisons is a traceof theby-then-dead larger project. Which has nothingto do withfood, of course,but it does situateMayhew, especially in relationto theGreat Exhibition's own compulsive categorization of the world. 2. Soyer'sposthumously published Memoirs (1859) constitutea third-person relation of thesignificant eventsin hislife, larded with extensive quotations from Soyer's papers (like this one). Thus,although AlexisSoyer appears as "author"on thetitle page, it is reallynot his work,and I havecredited it to the"compilers," Volant and Warren. 3. Not coincidentally,empire and imperialthemes also come to dominateinternational exhibitions themselves,especially in the last quarter of the nineteenth century (see Greenhalgh52-81 ; Hoffenberg passim).Indeed, Hoffenberg notes, in his discussionof the"political economy" of theexhibitionary tradition,that colonial participants (both exhibition visitors and thosesending displays) hoped for economicand trade benefits accruing from their involvement (see esp. 99-128). 4. Thackeray'snovel is, of course,set decades earlier, during the Napoleonic wars, but it is significant thata novelwritten at mid-centuryso stronglyunderlines the presence of empire in themetropole, as Zlotnick'sreading recognizes, and as Nair'srecent film adaptation (2004) interestinglyemphasizes. 5. Currentculinary arguments for "eating locally" can, in thiscontext, be seenas an attemptto reverse preciselythis long-term trend. Thus, when Barbara Kingsolver, after noting that the "drift away from ouragricultural roots is a naturalconsequence of migrationfrom the land to thefactory, which is as old as theIndustrial Revolution" (13), arguesfor a moreecologically sound and sustainableregime - "a genuinefood culture is an affinitybetween people and the land that feeds them. Step one, probably, is to liveon theland that feeds them, or at leaston thesame continent" (20) - she is arguingagainst a trendthat is firstidentifiable in nineteenth-centuryBritain, precisely because of Britain's primacy in industrialization. 6. It is, however,clear that Soyer did notactually write the book; thatcredit goes to AdolpheDuhart- Fauvet,paid by Soyerto composethe work, which was thentranslated into English (see Clement- Lorford).
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7. Biographicaldetails on Soyerfrom the Dictionary of National Biography, where, I stronglysuspect, he maybe theonly foreign-born chef to meritan entry(at leastnone of theother obvious candidates - Ude,Careme, or Escoffier - getsin). See also Humble10, and Volant and Warren, Morris (although it largelyrecapitulates the materialin theMemoir), Mennel 151-53, or Garvalfor more detailed accounts. 8. Quoted at ruthbrandon.co.uk/menu.htm,where it is employedto promoteRuth Brandon's new biographyof Soyer,The People's Chef(2004). Brandondates the quotation to 1841,but that seems unlikely,given that the meal for Ibrahim Pasha was stillfive years away; 1851 and the occasion of the newrestaurant's opening seems a morelikely date. 9. Probably this fresco, and certainlythe decorationof "The Grand Macedoine, being a 'comigrotesquepanofanifoolishiorama,or such a gettingup stairsto theGreat Exhibition of 1851,' withits caricatures of famous politicians, foreign dignitaries, and literati placed amid a fancifulbestiary ("Hippogriffs,griffins, dragons, elephants, hippopotomi, rhinoceri, mastadon," etc.), were the work of GeorgeAugustus Sala (Volantand Warren208), whoseown guidebooks to London(some of which arediscussed below) would significantly contribute to theimage of London as a cosmopolitancenter, and one witha cosmopolitanpalate as well. His late Victoriancontribution to thecookbook genre, The ThoroughGood Cook (1896), compressing"a lifetime'sexperience of eatingfrom Andalucia to Australia"(Tames 66; in his Americandining, he showsa particularweakness for pies), is available onlineat http://www.eatdangerously.com/thorough_cook/index.html. 10. It is worthnoting that recent historians have shownfar more interest in thesedevelopments. For a veryuseful and insightfulsurvey of recenthistoriography concerning foreigners in London,see Burton1-24. Of particularimportance is hercontribution to postcolonialtheory: her insistence that theinteraction between colonizer and colonized never be seenas a one-waystreet. 11. AdolpheSmith's contribution to Besant is particularlygood at mappingthe political exiles to London in thisperiod. The mostfamous among them, of course,were Karl Marxand FriedrichEngels. For - Engels'sown account of working-classdiets focusedmore on theirpaucity than their particularity - see Conditionof the Working Class in England(1844) in Marx& Engels,Collected Works, vol. 4, 368-74. 12. Thisargument about Mayhew's London Labour and theLondon Poor is one I havedealt with in more detailelsewhere, and so will notre-rehearse in detailhere. See my"Ethnicity as Markerin Henry Mayhew'sLondon Labour ;" paperpresented at theNACBS nationalconference, October 1998, and Mayhew,London Labour, pretty much passim. 13. Norwas Mayhewalone in thisopinion. Charles Manley Smith concludes his owncatalog of street- traders:"With respect to thesesundries, one thingis remarkable:they are all, withthe exception of a smallsavour of Irishmen,foreigners" (17). Manyof Smith'scontemporaries would be less generous in makingthe Irish their own. - 14. It is a foundationalpremise of London Labour that the "nomads" of the modern city see theopening passageof volume1 - provideessential service by being the small-traders on thestreets who supply theneeds of the growing working class. 15. Whetherthe growing dependence of the working-class diet on thepotato also reflectsethnic pressures, specificallythe influence of the Irish influx, or merely represents a deterioration inworking-class diets, thepotato replacing tradition-honored meat, is an open question.Certainly it is thelatter argument - - thathas held amongcommentators from the time (Mayhew's statistics alwayssuspect assert: "Of vegetableswe haveseen that the greatest quantity consumed by the poor consists of potatoes, of - which60,500,000 lbs. are annuallysold in thestreet" [1: 119]; Engelssimilarly argued although at leastnoting an Irishconnection - "Wherewages are less, meatis used onlytwo or threetimes a week,and theproportion of breadand potatoesincreases. Descending gradually, we findthe animal foodreduced . . . untilon the lowestround of the ladder,among the Irish,potatoes form the sole food"[372]), and theview has beenechoed by commentatorssince (most notably E. P. Thompson, whouses theincrease of potatoconsumption as a clearindex of pauperizationof theworking class;
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314-16). Butsuch commentators do notseem to consider the possibility that potatoes might constitute a preference. 16. Interestingly,the listingof foreigngoods is imbeddedin an argumentfor free trade. Thus, the guide insists,British free-trade policies, where "the supplyof food is leftto individualinitiative and enterprise,"ensured "abundant and cheapsupplies," while "Monarchs, like Napoleon I, in their ignoranceof the simple laws of political economy," only interfered with supplies through attempts at subsidies(Kelly 44). 17. Zlotnick,too, notes that the three most influential nineteenth-century cookbooks, including Beeton's (and the muchearlier Maria Rundell[1807] and slightlyearlier Eliza Acton[1845]) "all contain chapterson curry,"but that each insistson naturalizing(and domesticating)the dish, asserting its Englishness.Zlotnick notes that Acton's curries do notappear in herchapter on "Foreignand Jewish Cookery,"and quotesfrom the anonymous Modern Domestic Cookery (1851), "Curry... is nowso completelynaturalized, that few dinners are thoughtto be completeunless one is on thetable," but * insiststhat such works "can claim curry as a naturalized'dish in partbecause it ignores the origins of curryin Indian- notAnglo-Indian - culture"(60). In contrast,Collingham asserts that British curry is essentiallya hybridmetropolitan production, not an Indianfoodway, to the extent that she titles her chapteron thesubject "The BritishInvention of Curry" (107; 145-52). 18. This condensesan enormousamount of furtherhistory into a sentence,but sufficeit to say that the peculiarBritish arrangements of the postwarCommonwealth, designed to maintainthe trade advantagesof empirewhile shucking off the onerous duties of imperialrule, opened the floodgates ofimmigration (especially from South Asia, but also fromJamaica and portions of West Africa) until renewedxenophobia, personified by "Riversof Blood" MP EnochPowell, closed offthe option in 1962.For a handysummary, see Cohen,esp. 37-98. 19. Andnever mind that the hot-food trope in thenovel does assortedother metaphoric work, playing out in essenceas theequivalent of thedark female character Nicola Six's penchantfor sodomy. We are justpaying attention to the food here. And never mind as wellthe whole question of whether that beer is a lager.
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Dictionaryof National Biography (DNB). Foundedby George Smith; edited by Leslie Stephenand Sidney Lee. Volume18, Shearman-Stovin. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1967 Engels,Friedrich. Condition of the Working Class in England(1844). In KarlMarx and FriedrichEngels, CollectedWorks, vol. 4. New York:International Publishers, 1975. "FoodSold at theCrystal Palace." 1stReport of the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 (1852): vol. 26, Appendix29. VictorianLondon. Ed. Lee Jackson.10 January2008.
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Oddy,Derek J. From Plain Fare to FusionFood: BritishDiet from the 1890s to the1990s. Woodbridge, Suffolk:Boydell, 2003. Porter,Roy. London: A Social History.Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995. Sala, George Augustus. Gaslight and Daylight with Some London Scenes They Shine Upon. VictorianLondon. Ed. Lee Jackson.10 January2008.
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