Date: Fri 19-Dec-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Oliver-Christmas-Victorian

Full Text:

Just What Were Those Victorians Drinking On Christmas Day???

(with graphics, recipes & 2 dropquotes)

City sophisticates were too hip for Christmas, out of fashion as it was in the

19th Century.

Management of firms like Scrooge and Marley, as well as the more humane,

frequently felt people would fare better in the drafty confines of their

offices that at home toasting the day.

BY JOHN OLIVER

People in Victorian England did not live as long as we do today, didn't surf

the Net, didn't have cell phones or microwave ovens. On the other hand, they

never had to spend a rainy December Saturday in the swirling vortex of the

Danbury Fair Mall with three toy-crazed kids, either. So we may be pretty much

even.

Early Victorians didn't do much Christmas shopping at all -- with or without

kids. As late as 1830, December 25 was not a major London holiday, unless it

happened to fall on Sunday. No wonder Charles Dickens has Cratchit ask for the

day off; even benevolent enployers would have expented staff to show up.

In addition, the "haves'" view that lower orders, or "have nots," spent

Christmas in distilled abandon weighed heavily in real life. Management of

firms like Scrooge and Marley, as well as the more humane, frequently felt

people would fare better in the drafty confines of their offices that at home

toasting the day.

There were, however, joyous celebrations and parties on Christmas Day,

characterized by an abundance (some would argue, an over abundance) of

covivial drinking. It is also true that behavior differed dramatically between

town and country.

City sophisticates were too hip for Christmas, out of fashion as it was in the

19th Century. Their entertaining may have been akin to a high-spirited

cocktail party (without cocktails as yet uninvented, they imbibed the

libations of the time, about which more in a minute).

People in rural England celebrated Christmas more in a way we would recognize:

lots of decorations, lavish dinners, and the like. They were regarded as quite

quaint for this. The warmly glowing scenes in The Pickwick Papers , for

example, were set far from London for the same reason products labeled "Made

in Vermont" sell better: it seems a more natural and appealing place.

Whether city or country, high-born Victorians or the bootless and unhorsed,

all Victorians celebrated Christmas with drinks we would find extraordinary

today. Creating the concoctions with a jumble of happily opinionated

assistants was as enjoyable as the result itself. And Smoking Bishop, Wassail,

Lamb's Wool and Negus, for example, were nothing if not concoctions.

Brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, mace, lemons, cloves, ginger, Seville

oranges, raisins, crab apples and eggs were just a few of the things that

combined, in various recipes, with ale, port, ruby port, claret (British

English for a wine from Bordeaux), rum, sherry, and hard cider.

There was reason for all the alchemy. We expect modern food and drink to be

consistent. Bud Light, due to no mall effort by its brewer, never, ever

changes. Such was not the case much before the 20th Century, so for Dickens

and his contemporaries, adding sugar and spices typically improved the taste

of the beer, wine or spirits.

(There is a note of this today when we describe fine cognacs as V.S.O.P.: very

special, old, pale. "Pale" meant a clear liquid absent the additives used to

mask an inferior product.)

English middle- and upper-class entertaining in the early years of the 19th

Century was characterized by a stunning enormity of food and drink. The

Christmas Dickens brought so vividly to life portrayed this to all of England,

along with a heartfelt appreciation for dancing, games, laughter, kindness,

generosity to the poor, the warm company of those we love and the comfort one

takes from friendship.

Doesn't sound like a wholly bad Christmas, does it? How `bout a little Negus?

Readers thirsting for more are recommended to Edward Hewett and W.F. Axton's

Convivial Dickens (Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio, 1983). This book, the

basis of the foregoing article, is not the most charming work of scholarship

ever, but it's close.

Merry Christmas, Newtown!

John Oliver, a resident of Newtown, continues to search for the perfect

Christmas shopping experience.

WASSAIL

3 pts brown ale (or 2 pts pale ale and 1 pt stout)

« lb white sugar

1 tsp mixed spices (cinnamon or allspice, nutmeg, and mace)

6 cloves

7 roasted crabs (or sour apples)

1 pt hard cider

3 lemon slices

Put the beer, cider, sugar and cloves into a large enamelled pan and stir at

the stove until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is quite hot. Have the

roasted apples (35 minutes at 400§) ready, laid in the bottom of the serving

bowl and dusted with the spices. Pour in the hot mixture, float the lemon

rings, and decorate the bowl with holly sprigs. Serve.

(Note: The roasted cranberries may be peeled, cored and mashed before being

added to the bowl.)

BROWN BETTY substitues toast (on which the spices are put) for the apples, and

brown sugar for white. In addition, brandy at the ratio of one part to four of

ale is required, together with a quartered lemon.

JESUS COLEGE,

OXFORD, WASSAIL

(Served on the feast of St. David)

« lb brown sugar

6 pts dark beer

4 wine glasses sherry

Grated nutmeg

Grated ginger

Lemon slices

Dissolve sugar in a pint of heated beer and add grated nutmeg and ginger to

taste. Then add sherry and remaining beer. Heat but do not boil. Pour out to

serve in an earthenware pitcher or a Wassail bowl. Float lemon slices.

A variant of Wassail unglamorously called Cold Swig was made from a half pound

of sugar, six pints of beer, four wineglasses of Sherry, and some nutmeg and

ginger. After that had stood for three hours, two or three slices of toast and

lemon were added. The mixture was bottled and then drunk a few days later,

when it was reputed to effervesce.

Parting Cups, variously compounded of mild ale or light beer, nutmeg, sugar,

and either Sherry or lemons, were a further variant, sometimes thinned with a

bottle of soda water, and employed as a send-off to departing family or

friends.

LAMB'S WOOL I

1 qt dark beer or old ale

4 oz brown sugar

1-inch stick cinnamon

6 cloves

2 eggs

Grated ginger to taste

Heat the beer, sugar and spices together. Beat eggs well in a basin. When the

sugar has dissolved and the beer is hot, not boiling, pour it into an

earthenware jug, and from the jug rapidly into the basin of eggs. As quickly

as possible pour back and forth until a thick froth is raised. Then serve in

small rummers (drinking cups).

LAMB'S WOOL II

« doz roasted tart apples

4 oz brown sugar

1 qt strong ale or dark beer

Grated nutmeg

Grated ginger

Pulp the roasted apples and mix with sugar, spices, and hot beer until the

ingredients are thoroughly melded and the whole is quite hot, but not boiling.

Serve from an earthenware pitcher or Wassail bowl, as above.

A Note on Lamb's Wool. Lamb's Wool was sometimes called Brasenose Ale, after

the college at Oxford where it was a postprnadial drink on Shrove Tuesday.

The more daring may wish to make a spectacle out of the mixing of Lamb's Wool

by pouring the jugs back and forth at some distance, thereby gaining the

effect of a "Yard of Flannel."

BISHOP AND ITS

CLERICAL BROTHERS

2 or 3 Seville or other tart oranges (such as tangeloes), each studded with a

dozen cloves or so

Grated nutmeg

« lb sugar

1 lemon

3 bottles Ruby Port

Roast oranges in a 400§ oven (or on the hearth) until brown. Grate only the

yellow of the lemon rind. Quarter the roasted oranges and place in a large

saucepan with sugar, juice of a lemon, and grated rind. Add wine and heat to

simmer until the ingredients are well blended, stirring the while. Serve hot

in warm mugs sprinkled with freshly ground nutmeg.

The hierarchy of Bishop's clerical colleagues was determined by the color of

the wine, thus: Pope=Burgundy; Cardinal=Champagne or Rhine wine;

Archbishop=claret (or less frequently Sherry or Marsala); Bishop=Ruby Port;

Protestant Bishop=claret and a little rum, with lemons; Churchwarden=Grand

Rousillon (with tea or ale, Champagne, ginger and cherry brandy with a dash of

Port); Chorister=white wine with beaten eggs; and Beadle=raisin and ginger

wines.

Some authorities advocate cloved lemons instead of oranges. Others recommend

starting with whisked eggs into which the other ingredients are mixed, so

bringing Bishop closer to Lamb's Wool.

One-upsmen will seek out a cone of loaf sugar or, failing that, sugar cubes

for grating the lemon rind, thus adding both ingredients at once as it was

done in Dickens' day.