WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE PIEMAN?
A PENNY for a pie! In the records of our individual experience, this is probably the most ancient species of
barter - the
first gentle and welcome induction to the dry details of
commerce, and one eminently calculated to impress upon the
infant minds of a trading population the primary principles of
exchange, of which a quid pro quo forms the universal basis.
We had imagined, upon the first view of our subject, that the
fabrication and consumption of pies must have been a custom
as ancient as cookery itself, and have ranked among the very
first achievements of the gastronomic art. Upon careful investigation, however, we find ourselves to have been mistaken
in this idea. We have not been able to discover among the
revelations to which the Rosetta Stone surrendered a key, any
authority for supposing that among all the butlers and bakers
of all the Pharaohs, there ever existed one who knew how to
prepare a pie for the royal banquet. No; it was reserved for
the Greeks, the masters of civilization and the demigods of
art, who brought every species of refinement to its highest
pitch, to add the invention of pies and pie-crust to the catalogue of their immortal triumphs. Their
artokreas (the word
passed unchanged into Roman use) was an aggregation of
succulent meats baked in a farinaceous crust, probably somewhat resembling in form a venison pasty of the present day,
and was the first combination of the kind, so far at least as we know, ever submitted to the appetite of the gourmand. We
have no intention of pursuing the history of this great discovery from its first dawn in some Athenian kitchen to its
present universal estimation among all civilized eaters. We
must pass the pies of all nations, from the monkey-pie of Central Africa, with the head of the baked semi-homo emerging
spectrally from the upper-crust, to the pate's of Strasburg, the
abnormally swollen livers of whose tormented geese roam the
wide world to avenge upon gluttonous man the infamous tortures inflicted upon their original proprietors we must pass,
too, the thousand-and-one ingenious inventions which adorn
the pages of Messrs. Glass and Rumbold, by means of which
dyspepsias arc produced secundum artem, and the valetudinarian is accustomed to retard his convalescence according to
the most approved and fashionable mode. The great pie of
1850, prepared by the ingenious Soyer, at the cost of a hundred guineas, for the especial delectation of municipal stomachs
at York, is, likewise, altogether out of our way. Our business is with the pie that is sold for a penny, and sold
in
London. Let us add, moreover, that we treat only of the pie
which is fairly worth a penny, leaving altogether out of our
category the flimsy sophistries of your professed confectioner.
From time immemorial the wandering pieman was a prominent character in the highways and byways of London. He
was generally a merry dog, and was always found where merriment was going on. Furnished with a tray about a yard
square, either carried upon his head or suspended by a strap in
front of his breast, he scrupled not to force his way through
the thickest crowd, knowing that the very centre of action was
the best market for his wares. He was a gambler, both from
inclination and principle, and would toss with his customers,
either by the dallying shilli-shally process of "best five in
nine," the tricksy manoeuvre of "best two in three," or the
desperate dash of "sudden death!" in which latter case the
first toss was destiny - a pie for a halfpenny, or your half-penny gone for nothing; but he invariably declined the mysterious process of "the odd man;" not being altogether free
from suspicion on the subject of collusion between a couple of
hungry customers. We meet with him frequently in old
prints; and in Hogarth's "March to Finchley," there he
stands in the very centre of the crowd, grinning with delight
at the adroitness of one robbery, while he is himself the victim of another. We learn from this admirable figure by the
greatest painter of English life, that the pieman of the last
century perambulated the streets in professional costume; and
we gather further, from the burly dimensions of his wares,
that he kept his trade alive by the laudable practice of giving
"a good pennyworth for a penny." Justice compels us to
observe that his successors of a later generation have not been
very conscientious observers of this maxim. The varying
price of flour, alternating with a sliding-scale, probably drove
some of them to their wit's end; and perhaps this cause more
than any other operated in imparting that complexion to their
productions which made them resemble the dead body of a
penny pie, and which in due time lost them favour with the
discerning portion of their customers. Certain it is that the
perambulating pie business in London fell very much into disrepute and contempt for several years before the abolition of
the corn-laws and the advent of free trade. Opprobrious
epithets were hurled at the wandering merchant as he paraded
the streets and alleys - epithets which were in no small degree
justified by the clammy and clay-like appearance of his goods.
By degrees the profession got into disfavour, and the pieman
either altogether disappeared, or merged in a dealer in foreign
nuts, fruits, and other edibles which barred the suspicion of
sophistication.
Still the relish for pies survived in the public taste, and the
willing penny was as ready as ever to guerdon the man who,
on fair grounds, would meet the general desire. No sooner,
therefore, was the sliding-scale gone to the dogs, and a fair
prospect of permanence offered to the speculator, in the
guarantee of something like a fixed cost in the chief ingredient
used, than up sprung almost simultaneously in every district of
the metropolis a new description of pie-shops, which rushed
at once into popularity and prosperity. Capital had recognised the leading want of the age, and brought the appliances
of wealth and energy to supply it. Avoiding, on the one hand,
the glitter and pretension of the confectioner, and on the other
the employment of adulterating or inferior materials, they produced an article which the populace devoured with universal commendation, to the gradual but certain profit of the
projectors. The peripatetic merchant was pretty generally
driven out of the field by the superiority of the delicacy with
which he had to compete. He could not manufacture on a
small scale in a style to rival his new antagonists, and he
could not purchase of them to sell again, because they would
not allow him a living margin-boasting, as it would appear
with perfect truth, that they sold at a small and infinitesimal
profit, which would not bear division.
These penny-pie shops now form one of the characteristic
features of the London trade in comestibles. That they are
an immense convenience as well as a luxury to a very large
section of the population, there can be no doubt. It might be
imagined, at first view, that they would naturally seek a
cheap locality and a low rental. This, however, is by no
means the universal practice. In some of the chief lines of
route they are to be found in full operation; and it is rare
indeed, unless at seasons when the weather is very unfavourable, that they are not seen well filled with customers. They
abound especially in the immediate neighbourhood of omnibus
and cab stations, and very much in the thoroughfares and
short - cuts most frequented by the middle and lower classes.
But though the window may be of plate-glass, behind which
piles of the finest fruit, joints, and quarters of the best meat,
a large dish of silver eels, and a portly china bowl charged
with a liberal heap of minced-meat, with here and there a
few pies, lie temptingly arranged upon napkins of snowy
whiteness, yet there is not a chair, stool, or seat of any kind
to be found within. No dallying is looked for, nor would it
probably be allowed. "Pay for your pie, and go," seems the
order of the day. True, you may eat it there, as thousands
do; but you must eat it standing, and clear of the counter.
We have more than once witnessed this interesting operation
with mingled mirth and satisfaction; nay, what do we care? - take the confession for what it is
worth -pars ipsi fuimus
- we have eaten our pies (and paid for them too, no credit
being given) - in loco, and are therefore in a condition to
guarantee the truth of what we record. With few exceptions
(we include ourselves among the number), there are no theoretical philosophers among the frequenters of the penny-pie
shop. The philosophy of bun-eating may be very profound,
and may present, as we think it does, some difficult points;
but the philosophy of penny-pie eating is absolutely next to
nil. The customer of the pie-shop is a man (if he is not a
boy) with whom a penny is a penny, and a pie is a pie, who,
when he has the former to spend or the latter to eat, goes
through the ceremony like one impressed with the settled
conviction that he has business in hand which it behoves him
to attend to. Look at him as he stands in the centre of the
floor, erect as a grenadier, turning his busy mouth full upon
the living tide that rushes along Holborn! Of shame or confusion of face in connection with the enviable position in
which he stands he has not the remotest conception, and could
as soon be brought to comprehend the differential calculus as to
entertain a thought of it. What, we ask, would philosophy
do for him? Still every customer is not so happily organised,
and so blissfully insensible to the attacks of false shame; and
for such as are unprepared for the public gaze, or constitutionally averse from it, a benevolent provision is made by a
score of old play-bills stuck against the adverse wall, or swathing the sacks of flour which stand ready for use, and
which they may peruse, or affect to peruse, in silence,
munching their pennyworths the while. The main body of
the pie-eaters are, however, perfectly at their ease, and pass
the very few minutes necessary for the discussion of their
purchases in bandying compliments with three or four good-
looking lasses, the very incarnations of good-temper and
cleanly tidiness, who from morn to night are as busy as bees
in extricating the pies from their metallic moulds, as they are
demanded by the customers. These assistants lead no lazy
life, but they are without exception plump and healthy-
looking, and would seem (if we are to believe the report of
an employer) to have an astonishing tendency to the parish
church of the district in which they officiate, our informant
having been bereaved of three by marriage in the short space
of six months. Relays are necessary in most establishments
on the main routes, as the shops are open all night long,
seldom closing much before three in the morning when situated in the neighbourhood of a theatre or a cab-stand. Of
the amount of business done in the course of a year it is not
easy to form an estimate. Some pie-houses are known to
consume as much flour as a neighbouring baker standing in
the same track. The baker makes ninety quartern loaves
from the sack of flour, and could hardly make a living upon
less than a dozen sacks a week; but as the proportion borne
by the crust of a penny-pie to a quartern loaf is a mystery
which we have not yet succeeded in penetrating, we are
wanting in the elements of an exact calculation.
The establishment of these shops has by degrees prodigiously increased the number of pie-eaters and the consumption of pies. Thousands and tens of thousands who would
decline the handling of a scalding hot morsel in the public
street, will yet steal to the corner of a shop, and in front of
an old play-bill, delicately dandling the titbit on their fingertips till it cools to the precise temperature at which it is so
delicious to swallow- "snatch a fearful joy." The tradesman, too, in the immediate vicinity, soon learns to appreciate
the propinquity of the pie-shop, in the addition it furnishes
to a cold dinner, and for half the sum it would have cost him
if prepared in his own kitchen. Many a time and oft have
we dropped in, upon the strength of a general invitation, at
the dinner-table of an indulgent bibliopole, and recognised
the undeniable pates of "over the way" following upon the
heels of the cold sirloin. With artisans out of work, and
with town-travellers of small trade, the pie-shop is a halting-
place, its productions presenting a cheap substitute for a
dinner. Few purchases are made before twelve o'clock in
the day; in fact the shutters are rarely pulled down much
before eleven; yet even then business is carried on for nearly
twenty hours out of the twenty-four. About noon the current of custom sets in, and all hands are busy till four or five
o'clock; after which there is a pause, or rather a relaxation,
until evening, when the various bands of operatives, as they
are successively released from work, again renew the tide.
As these disappear, the numberless nightly exhibitions, lecture-rooms, mechanics' institutes, concerts, theatres and
casinos, pour forth their motley hordes, of whom a large
and hungry section find their way to the pie-house as the
only available resource -the public-houses being shut up
for the night, and the lobster-rooms, oyster saloons, "shades," "coal-holes,'' and
"cider-cellars,'' too expensive for the
means of the multitude. After these come the cab-drivers,
who, having conveyed to their homes the more moneyed
classes of sight-seers and playgoers, return to their stands
in the vicinity of the shop, and now consider that they may
conscientiously indulge in a refreshment of eel-pies, winding
up with a couple of "fruiters," to the amount at least of the
sum of which they may have been able to cheat their fares.
Throughout the summer months the pie trade flourishes
with unabated vigour. Each successive fruit, as it ripens and
comes to market, adds a fresh impetus to the traffic. As
autumn waxes, every week supplies a new attraction and a
delicious variety; as it wanes into winter, good store of
apples are laid up for future use; and so soon as Jack Frost
sets his cold toes upon the pavement, the delicate odour of
mince-meat assails the passer-by, and reminds him that
Christmas is coming, and that the pieman is ready for him.
It is only in the early spring that the pie-shop is under a
temporary cloud. The apples of the past year are well nigh
gone, and the few that remain have lost their succulence, and
are dry and flavourless. This is the precise season when, as
the pieman in "Pickwick" too candidly observed, "fruits is
out, and cats is in." Now there is an unaccountable prejudice against cats among the pie-devouring population of the
metropolis; we are superior to it ourselves, and can therefore
afford to mention it dispassionately, and to express our regret
that any species of commerce, much more one so grateful to
the palate, and so convenient to the purse, should periodically
suffer declension through the prevalence of an unfounded prejudice. Certain it is that penny-pie eating does materially
decline about the early spring season; and it is certain too
that, of late years, about the same season, a succession of fine
Tabbies of our own have mysteriously disappeared. Attempts
are made with rhubarb to combat the depression of business;
but success in this matter is very partial - the generality of
consumers being impressed with the popular notion that
rhubarb is physic, and that physic is not fruit. But relief
is at hand; the showers and sunshine of May bring the
gooseberry to market; pies resume their importance; and
the pieman, backed by an inexhaustible store of a fruit grateful to every English palate, commences the campaign with
renewed energy, and bids defiance for the rest of the year to
the mutations of fortune.
We shall close this sketch with a legend of the day, for the
truth of which, however, we do not personally vouch. It
was related and received with much gusto at an annual
supper lately given by a large pie proprietor to his assembled
hands -
Some time since, so runs the current narrative, the owner
of a thriving mutton-pie concern, which, after much difficulty,
he had succeeded in establishing with borrowed capital, died
before he had well extricated himself from the responsibilities of debt. The widow carried on the business after his
decease, and throve so well, that a speculating baker on the
opposite side of the way made her the offer of his hand.
The lady refused, and the enraged suitor, determined on
revenge, immediately converted his baking into an opposition
pie-shop; and acting on the principle universal among London bakers, of doing business for the first month or two at a
loss, made his pies twice as big as he could honestly afford to
make them. The consequence was that the widow lost her
custom, and was hastening fast to ruin, when a friend of her
late husband, who was also a small creditor, paid her a visit.
She detailed her grievance to him, and lamented her lost
trade and fearful prospects. "Ho, ho!" said her friend,
"that ere's the move, is it? Never you mind, my dear. If
I don't git your trade agin, there aint no snakes, mark me -
that's all!" So saying he took his leave.
About eight o'clock the same evening, when the baker's
new pie-shop was crammed to overflowing, and the principal
was below superintending the production of a new batch, in
walks the widow's friend in the costume of a kennel-raker,
and elbowing his way to the counter, dabs down upon it a
brace of huge dead cats, vociferating at the same time to the
astonished damsel in attendance; "Tell your master, my dear,
as how them two makes six-and-thirty this week, and say
I'll bring t'other four to-morrer arternoon!" With that he
swaggered out and went his way. So powerful was the prejudice against cat-mutton among the population of that
neighbourhood, that the shop was clear in an instant, and the floor was seen covered with hastily-abandoned specimens
of every variety of segments of a circle. The spirit-shop at
the corner of the street experienced an unusually large demand for "goes" of brandy, and
interjectional ejaculations
not purely grammatical were not merely audible, but visible
too in the district. It is averred that the ingenious expedient
of the widow's friend, founded as it was upon a profound
knowledge of human prejudices, had the desired effect of
restoring "the balance of trade." The widow recovered her
commerce; the resentful baker was clone as brown as if he
had been shut up in his own oven; and the friend who
brought about this measure of justice received the hand of
the lady as a reward for his interference.