[-Vol.3-]
[-p.49-]
LONDON'S LIGHT REFRESHMENTS
BY GEORGE R. SIMS
LONDONERS of all classes have frequently need of light refreshment, and as
demand invariably creates supply, caterers are to be found in every
quarter of the Metropolis who have made this special need their study. The
restaurants, the taverns, the wine bars, the refreshment counters, and the great
tea shops have been dealt with in their place - that place is entirely outside
the sort of light refreshment that I am dealing with now.
The fashionable lady out for an afternoon walk, her suburban
sister up for an afternoon's shopping, frequently patronise the confectioner and
find in his well-appointed establishment a little table at which they can eat
either a dainty "French" creation (it is more generally German) or the
more homely bun or scone. There are pretty and artistically decorated tea-rooms
attached to high class chocolate and bon-bon shops to which elegantly-dressed
ladies repair for tea, coffee and cream, and ices, and the homelier pastry- cook
has long since learned the advantage of marble-topped little tables and the
legend, "Five o'clock tea."
Everybody does not want to take life from the bustling,
crowded point of view, and London is full of quiet, well-appointed refreshment
houses, catering only for a limited number of guests, who like to be leisurely
and peaceful while they are eating and drinking. For this class of customers the
great popular establishments have no charm.
The standard temperance "drinks" of London are
lemonade, ginger beer, and ginger ale. The fruit syrup of France is a [-50-]
rarity, even at the West-End, and is by no means in daily demand even at
the cafés run on Continental lines.
For lemonade or ginger beer the wealthier thirster goes to the confectioner,
especially when children are of the party. At one time the chemist did a certain
amount of business in aerated waters "to be drunk on the premises,"
but now the preparers of prescriptions and vendors of drugs play a very small
part as caterers, though many who have in the summer months established
ice-cream soda-fountains on the American principle supply other cooling
beverages.
It is during a heat wave that the ice-cream soda-fountain
establishment does a roaring trade. For this form of light refreshment a
perspiring panama-hatted crowd may frequently be seen waiting on the pavement
without when the shop itself is full.
It is in the summer that the fruiterer occasionally enters
the lists, and the legend "strawberries and cream" is inscribed outsde
the windows of shops where during the rest of the year they give you what you
need in a brown paper bag or a basket, and expect you to take it off the
premises for consumption. Brandy cherries are a form of light refreshment of
long standing, actually as well as figuratively. Ever since I can remember, a
peculiar-shaped glass jar of cherries in liquor has been the centre ornament of
certain confectioners' counters.
Port and sherry decanted and labelled are to be seen in most confectioners'
shops where they serve soup, jelly in glasses, and sandwiches, and
occasionally-very occasionally-hot meat patties. In some the wine licence is
taken advantage of to keep a bottle of champagne on an instrument which allows
it to be drawn off through a tap a glass at a time.
Curds and whey are a form of light refreshment commonly
associated with cool, clean, and delightful dairies. There is generally the
model of a cow in the front window, and sometimes another on the counter. Where
curds and whey are sold there is also frequently a trade done in glasses of new
milk and milk and soda. Some of the dairies which still offer this pastoral menu
to the jaded Londoner keep on the counter [-51-] under
a glass cover small spongy cakes with currants in them, which are a compromise
in shape between the "heart" and the "club" as represented
by the playing card artist.
Sweets are hardily light refreshment, because they are not
taken either to quench thirst or to allay hunger, and their refreshing
qualities, unless you have a tickling in the throat, are not appreciable. But
the sweet-stuff shop does supply light refreshment occasionally in the
shape of hot fruit drinks, which are exceedingly popular with small boys in the
winter evenings. There is a peripatetic sweet-vendor, a darkey, who does a good
trade in candy amongst folk waiting for admission at the theatre doors.
It is in the evening that the fried fish and potato
"chip" shop, the ham and beef shop, and the cookshop, whose
specialities are the hot sausage and the cooked onion and mashed potato, do a
busy trade. Before the windows of these establishments there is generally a
small crowd, not necessarily hungry, but interested. You may see among them well
dressed amid well-to-do people. For to watch the savoury sausage sizzle, and the
odoriferous onion ooze its oiliness in the pan laid over a gas arrangement, is a
delight to most of us. Pork chops and tomatoes have frequently cooking pans of
their own in these shop windows, but I hesitate to include a pork chop in a
catalogue of light refreshments.
The eel-pie shop is not as fascinating, but is almost
as well patronised. The dressing of an eel-pie shop window is conservative. It
is a tradition handed down through many generations to the present day. The eels
are shown artistically in lengths on a bed of parsley which is spread over a
dish. On either side of the eels cold pies in their pans are laid in tempting
profusion but in perfect order. The eel-pie shop varies its menu. You may
procure at the same establishment cranberry tarts, and at some of them apple
tarts ; also meat pies and meat puddings, and at the Christmas season mince
pies.
To see the eel-pie business at its best, to appreciate its
poetry, you must watch the process of serving its customers. Behind the counter
on a busy night stands the proprietor in his shirt sleeves, a clean white apron
preserving his waistcoat amid nether garments from damage. Observe with what
nimble deftness he lifts the lid of the metal receptacle in front of him, whips
out a hot pie, runs a knife round it inside the dish, and turns it out on to a
piece of paper for the customer - possibly into the eager outstretched hand.
He is generally assisted by his wife and daughter, who are
almost but not equally, dexterous. There are metal receptacles in front of them
also, and the pies are whipped out in such rapid succession that your eyes
become dazzled by the quick continuous movement. If you watch long enough it
will almost appear to you that a shower of hot pies is being flung up from below
by an invisible agency.
[-52-] The oyster shop is not as common as it
was in the clays when natives were sixpence a dozen. But there are many
scattered about London still. The great oyster rooms are at the west. At one you
can have fish in every variety, and lobster salad and dressed crabs are a
specialty. There is one famous establishment near Regent Street whose oysters
and fish sandwiches attract the highest in the land. Here during the afternoon
one may see a Field-Marshal and a Cabinet Minister, an ambassador and a Duke,
taking their "half-dozen" side by side. But the ordinary oyster shop
makes a specialty of the Anglo-Dutch and other varieties which can be sold at a
moderate rate. The arrangement of the window of the ordinary London oyster shop
is of the aquarium order. Many exhibit a large specimen of the shell which we
used to put to our ears as children in order to hear the ocean roar. Some shade
the window light with a brilliant green globe, others prefer a pink effect.
Seaweed is occasionally used to decorate a hearthstone-coloured combination
which is supposed to represent the bed of the ocean.
The trade in light refreshments which is left in the hands of the kerbstone
purveyor is not so great as it used to be, except perhaps in the east and south
of London and certain Saturday-night thoroughfares. The oyster stalls are few
and far between, and the whelk stall has of late shown a modest retirement in
the west. The old lady with a basket in which trotters are laid out on a clean
white cloth may still be found at certain corners, but she belongs to a rapidly
disappearing body of street caterers. The trotter woman's peculiar cry is
getting as rare as the muffin man's bell, and the "Fine Storbries" of
the hawker who, basket on head, was wont, especially on Sunday afternoons, to
wake the echoes of quiet streets with his trade announcement.
The cookshop which does a roaring trade in the daytime has no
place here, because it supplies the solid meal of most of its customers. In the
same category are the vegetarian restaurants, now liberally patronised by ladies
and gentlemen who abjure a flesh diet; but the foreign shops which are half in
the ham and beef line and half in the tinned provision trade are doing a big
light refreshment business all day long. At the counter where
"Delicatessen" are purveyed you may buy and eat your sandwich, and
have it made of un-English ingredients - sardines, German, French, and Italian
sausage, smoked salmon, occasionally even of caviare. These establishments have
generally a refreshment room upstairs, where you may have coffee, chocolate and
cakes, or sweet and savoury snacks. Here you may even purchase the herring salad
clear to the sons of the Fatherland, and eat it while you wait or take it home
in a paper bag.
All these forms of light refreshment are to be found in the
west. Let us wend our way [-53-] east, and study
the crowded menus of, say, Mile End Road.
This seems to be a neighbourhood where light refreshment is a
leading industry. Not only do the stalls on the kerbstone offer the passer-by
delicacies of various descriptions, but in main thoroughfare and side street
alike you find shop after shop catering for the appetite that requires "a
small contribution." Here is a pastrycook's with a side room packed with
young people, mostly of the Hebrew race, who are taking coffee and cakes. Here
is a cookshop in which white-shirt-sleeved assistants are
continually attacking "spotted dogs" and "curranty " rolls
with a knife, and deftly turning the slice into a piece of paper for the hand
stretched out to secure it. A favourite "dish" at these establishments
is a kind of batter pudding. When you have your penny slice of this in a piece
of paper the assistant pours over it a spoonful of the gravy in which the
remains of a loin of pork are standing. Why the gravy does not run over on to
the floor I cannot say. I only know that it does not. When the batter pudding
client comes out into the street with his light refreshment in his hand and
commences to eat it the gravy is there still.
The fried fish shop of the
east is very like the fried fish shop of the west, but in the matter of
"chips" there is a slight difference. It is in the vinegar bottle. It
may be the desire of the East-Ender to get more for his money, but this I know,
that where the West-End "chipper" is contented just to sprinkle his or
her pennyworth, the East-End "chipper" shakes the bottle for a good
two minutes in order to get a grand result. Salt for fish and chips or batter
pudding you take with your finger and thumb from a big salt box on the counter,
and you bring the salt out with you and do your seasoning in the street.
Down the little dark side streets around Whitechapel and
Spitalfields you will find curious little shops that deal principally in olives
and gherkins in salt and water. The latter are exposed in big tubs, and are
often bought and eaten without ceremony on the spot. For the Russians and
Roumanian Jews there are special light refreshments provided in the shops that
have their fronts ornamented with Hebrew characters. There are even small
refreshment counters and little coffee shops in which the menu is entirely in
Yiddish.
[-54-] The larger Hebrew
population is responsible for the fact that many beef and ham shops are beef
shops only, or substitute the huge German sausage for the familiar ham of the
Gentile establishment.
The pie shops here offer you a more varied choice than at the
west. In them you can buy hot beef-steak pies and puddings, eel, kidney, meat,
fruit, and mince pies. There is also in Mile End Road an establishment which is
famous for miles around for its baked sheeps' hearts, and another which has a
reputation for tripe and onions that extends beyond the tramway system.
The stall catering of this district is extensive and
peculiar. here in all its glory the eel-jelly trade is carried on. In great
white basins you see a savoury mess. Behind the stall mother and father,
sometimes assisted by son and daughter, wash up cups and spoons, and ladle out
the local luxury to a continuous stream of customers. Many a time on a terribly
cold night have I watched a shivering, emaciated-looking man eagerly consuming
his cup of eel -jelly, and only parting with the spoon and crockery when even
the tongue of a dog could not have extracted another drop from either.
The shell-fish stalls are larger and more commodious than
they are in the west. Under the flaring naphtha lights are set out scores of
little saucers containing whelks, cockles, and mussels "a penny a
plate." Oysters at these stalls are sold at sixpence a dozen. The trade,
even at that price, is not large.
Hot green peas are served in teacups at some outdoor
establish merits. The peculiarity of this form of light refreshment is the
prodigality of the customers in the matter of vinegar and pepper. which are à
discretion and gratis. And in the east you may also purchase peanuts fresh
roasted while you wait. The hot apple fritter is now, too, a street stall
luxury.
The hot fruit drink is a favourite light refreshment in the
East-End, where a large number of the Hebrew immigrants have
[-55-] no taste for the more potent beverages of the gin palace and the
tavern. Everywhere you will see little shops with windows removed and counters
open to the street. These establishments may include some other business,
perhaps cigars or sweets or newspapers or general items, but the trade on which
they rely is the hot temperance beverage.
This business is also carried on by many stall-holders and on bitter winter
nights the proprietor has all his work to do keep the boys who have no money to
spend from warming themselves gratis at the pan of burning coke on which he
keeps his kettle boiling.
The baked potato can is in evidence east and west during the
winter months, and a "nice floury tater" is a favourite form of light
refreshment with the poor. To many a poor fellow it is the evening meal. West
End youngsters have been known to purchase a baked potato in lightness of heart
and to consume it "on the premises." But as a rule they refuse the
peripatetic vendor's polite offer of a dab of yellow grease which he
euphemistically terms butter.
In the East-End the baked chestnut stand has its appointed
place. Many roast chestnut vendors, with a bitter knowledge of the vagaries of
the English climate, wheel out on Saturday afternoons prepared for
meteorological eccentricities. They divide their establishment on wheels into
two distinct departments, and offer you at the same time baked chestnuts and
ices.
The cry of the hokey-pokey merchant is not so familiar as it
used to be. "Hokey Pokey " was the Englishing of "ecco uno poco"-
"here is a little." The London boy found that the ice done up in white
paper was too little. He preferred his "gelata" in a glass
which he could hold in his hand and lick at his leisure while leaning in an easy
attitude against the Italian merchant's gaily painted barrow.
In hot weather there are two temperance drink vendors who are well known in the
City and who drive a big trade during the dinner-hour. These are the man with
"the yellow lemonade" in a big glass bottle, with the real lemon doing
duty as a cork, and the sherbet vendor. An entirely new form of liquid
refreshment for small boys has come into vogue during recent years. It is the
liquor left in the preserved pineapple tin after the slices of fruit have been
taken out. "A halfpenny a small glass" is the price usually charged.
The man who sells sarsaparilla as a beverage has sometimes a gay and attractive
[-56-] vehicle fitted up for the purpose. It is gorgeously labelled in
gold, and wherever it stands draws around it an admiring crowd. "Herb
beer" is somewhat similarly retailed.
An article on London's Light Refreshments would not be
complete without a reference to the railway station buffet large and small. For
many years the pork pie and the Banbury cake were held to be the ordinary food
of the travelling Englishman. Of late years great improvements have taken place
in railway buffet catering. A spirit of humanity has animated the directors and
they no longer look upon their passengers as human ostriches. At the railway
termini of London and on the many branches of the Metropolitan and North London
system you can to-day obtain light refreshment that will sustain you between
meals without incapacitating you for the enjoyment of life for a fortnight. Tea
and coffee may be had at most of the bars at all hours and although the hard
boiled egg and the cold sausage are still displayed for the unwary and ham is
the only form of sandwich known to some caterers, many little delicacies have
been introduced, and there are signs of still further improvement.
