But the part of Christmas with which we are more especially concerned is the dinner-party. And our endeavour will be to help and advise that large class, the very backbone of English society, whose status may perhaps be best described by saying that they are blessed with neither poverty nor riches. To the really poor, the Christmas dinner is very dependent on the poor man’s friend, the baker’s oven. Early on the day the goose is carried there, prepared often in the somewhat primitive fashion of a heap of sage and onion on one side of the dish, and a pile of potatoes on the other. It is to be trusted that the baker’s man is an honest one. A small piece cut off each joint of meat before baking, on Sunday, too often maintains the man for the week. The poor know to their cost how much meat will shrink in the baking. On Christmas Day the number of geese sent to each baker’s is something extraordinary.
An ingenious baker once solved the following problem:—How to make a very small goose into a very large one. He purchased the smallest and cheapest that could be found, and substituted it for the smallest one sent to him to bake. By the simple method of making each person have the next smallest goose to the one he sent, the baker retained for himself the finest of the lot.
But we will now soar into the more aristocratic region of mock-turtle soup and boiled cod-fish, roast sirloin of beef, boiled turkey and oyster sauce, plum pudding and mince pies. At least, we think we have heard of such dishes at this season of the year as being occasionally used.
However, one word of warning. The following awful catastrophe actually occurred: _Scene_—A dinner-party. _Time_—Soon after Christmas. _Host_—A nephew, with a wife and very large family. _Important Guest_—An uncle, rich—very rich; a bachelor; elderly, but irritable. At the moment the covers are taken off, he rises from the table, wrath written on his brow: “I will stand it no longer; give me my hat. This is the twelfth day running I have had roast beef and boiled turkey. I’ll stand it no longer!” _Exit in a rage._
Now, as I said in my last article, there is such a demand for mock-turtle soup about Christmas-time that calves’ heads have been known to fetch a guinea apiece; but every housekeeper knows how exceedingly expensive they are at this season.