Japanese Food

This is marvellous in so many ways ... the Victorians review a Japanese restaurant ... 

INTERNATIONAL HEALTH EXHIBITION. Last evening the Japanese Restaurant, which is located upstairs in Messrs. Bertram and Roberts's smoking pavilion above the end of the western quadrant, nearest to the Exhibition-road entrance, was formally opened to the public. On the previous day his Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, chairman to the exhibition, and a party of ladies and gentlemen partook of a dinner here on the occasion of what might be termed the formal inauguration of this singular but interesting establishment. It cannot be said that Japanese cooking is quite so much to our tastes as even the Chinese. The rather embarrassing custom of serving the whole menu at once is apt to confuse people accustomed to a procession of dishes following each other in well-regulated, not to say time-honoured, fashion of precedence, soup, fish, entree, fowls, and roast, winding up with sweets and fruit. The Chinese begin by sweets and end with soups, but this is a trifling disarrangement of our customs, and can be tolerated even by the most fastidious. The Japanese bring all up at once, each guest being provided with a charming lacquer tray, and each dish, moreover, being served in a pretty little lacquer saucer with appropriate cover. The menu on Wednesday consisted of sea cucumber and raw turnip salad. Miso soup (miso, a fermented mixture of soy beans, wheat, and salt), broad beans, and aralia pinnatifida. Kuchitori, a side dish of mushrooms, radishes, and tomato mixed. Hachimono, a grilled or roast. Choku, dressed vegetables in vinegar. Han, boiled rice. Wanmori, soup of meat with vegetables. Sunomono, salad. Konomono,vegetables, salted or preserved in miso. Saké, a Japanese wine. The pervading flavour of all these dishes is what the French term aigre-doux - bitter sweet. There is very little taste of the meat or fish left, it all being apparently carefully extracted and concentrated in the soups, which are excellent, but we English are not in the habit of taking two soups at once at the same dinner, as is evidently the Japanese custom. The saké is identified with the Chinese beverage of the same name, and very refreshing, but rather stronger and more intoxicating than most people would imagine. The dinner is served by European waitresses, but under the direction of the Japanese Commissioners, with much elegance. Chop-sticks are given to each guest, supplemented, however, with knives and forks. Paper napkins and charming fans are also presented to the ladies, with the 'kind compliments' of the hosts of this unique restaurant, which far surpasses the Chinese in point of originality. It might be suggested, however, that a good curry or stew of a substantial character—and surely there must be such in the Japanese cuisine—could with advantage be added to the present menu, which to the majority, unaccustomed to the extreme recherché and ultra aestheticiem of the Japanese cookery, proves rather, to say the least, unsatisfactory. Several, on the occasion above alluded to, openly expressed their keen desire for a "stake" and one or two of the guests were still hungry enough to partake of an extra meal elsewhere. The soups are admirable, the pickled salmon also notable, being pungent enough to have pleased Sarah Gamp herself. It remains, however, to be seen whether the average Englishman will ever develop a great relish for raw turnip salad and sea-weed stew. The tea, wherewith the meal is brought to a close, is exquisite. There are no sweet dishes or preserves of any kind, and as fruit is not eaten at dinner in Japan, this important item of most Menus is left out, so also is cheese. The names of the Japanese cooks to whose art is due the fact that we in London can now dine as well according doubtless to Japanese notions as if we were in Yeddo, are Ki-i-ti, son of Ise-gen, and Gen-Suke, chief cook of Ise-gen. It is certainly one of the things to do at the Exhibition to dine a la Japanoise ; and no one ought to omit partaking of at least one dinner in this aerial restaurant, which is perched so high up that it commands a splendid view of the gardens and buildings.

The Morning Post 12 September 1884

Important to Muffin Munchers

IMPORTANT TO MUFFIN-MUNCHERS. - The march of modern legislation has in some matters kept pace with the march of intellect. The combined wisdom of both House of Parliament has succeeded in putting a stop to the slumber-breaking cry of "sweep" but as yet has signally failed in silencing that terrific to the tympanum tintinabulary clamour, the dustman's bell. As one great step towards this desirable consumation measures have at length been successfully adopted against its diminuitive mimic, the muffin-bell, and henceforth the lover of the tea delicacies of muffins and crumpets will have on Sundays to supply themselves otherwise than through those humble purveyors, who have time out of mind monopolised that branch of traffic. To those who rejoice in the partial extinction of their morning miseries, it will give pleasure to learn that the police have received orders to devote all their energies to the extirpation of that muffin merchants' calling and their exertions las Sunday have been crowned with great success. The magistrates Mr. Conant and Mr. Hall were applied to by the police for advice in an unlooked-for dilemma. In discharge of their new duties between four and five o'clock yesterday afternoon they heard the prohibited cry of 'Hot muffins' and on reaching the spot laid hold of the astonished muffin maker and took from him his stock, about 100 large and small. The Act of Parliament which legalised this seizure did not clearly specify the manner in which the property was to be disposed of, and it therefore became a point whether the muffins were to be devoted to feeding the police or the parish paupers.
     Mr. Conant inquired if the muffinman was present? for on looking at the Lord's Day Act, he found he was also liable to a penalty for trafficing in his commodities.
    The muffinman, however, was too good a judge to make his appearance, and the decision of the bench was that the man was to have his basket and the paupers were to have the muffins.

Morning Post, 1 November 1836

A Wealthy Pauper

A WEALTHY PAUPER - A man named Lewis, who had been nearly a quarter of a century an inmate of the workhouse of St. Martin in the Fields, some time back became possessed of a funded property amounting to 300l. and upwards, but found himself so comfortable in the poor-house that he preferred reamining there, and handed over his dividends to the parish authorities for hsi support, the maximum allowed for such purposes being 1s. 7d. per week. In December last he died, bequesting various sums to the different parish officers; the doctor, Mr. Bainbridge, being appointed residuary legatee. He refused to leave a mite to any of his companions, with whom he never was a great favourite, and among whom he was called "Money Lewis."

Examiner, 18 January 1845

She wished to go to sea.

MANSION HOUSE. On Saturday a young girl, only 20 years of age, and whose sex for some time could not be easily ascertained on account of her being dressed in men's cloaths, was charged by the Overseers of the Poor of Bishopsgate parish, with stealing from a pauper in their workhouse a seven-shilling piece and thirteen shillings in silver. The prisoner hasd been taken up some time ago for being a common prostitute, was sent to Bridewell and passed to the above workhouse. On committing the robbery in question, she ran way from the workhouse, threw off her female dress, cut off her hair, and put on male attire. The man who had been robbed of the money being very ill could not attend.
The LORD MAYOR committed the prisoner to Bridewell for one month. She heard her sentence with the utmost calmness and indifference and said she wished to go to sea.

Times, 10 October 1803

The Refractory Poor

The day on which they visit the insane is by the officers considered an excessively heavy day's duty. The first they do is to go to Islington, where they keep the refractory poor, who are a parcel of worthless creatures, who quarrel with those in the [work]house; idle, dissipated creatures, who we find it impossible to keep with any peace and quietness in the [work]house.  There is a farm workhouse, where they lodge badly, and food very inferior to what they do in the workhouse of St. Martin's, and we do that as a punishment to them; we keep them as bare as we can, with any degree of propriety of clothing. They always make a rule on the day of visiting the insance to visit the refractory poor; to examine them, and see if any of them are at all to be reformed, or are brought down from their high spirit, or are brought fit for work; they also examine them minutely, which takes generally a couple of hours; sometimes it happens there are thirty of forty, and at times not above fifteen or sixteen. They then go from there to visit the insane; there they go through the same sort of examination, patient by patients, both the male and female, which seldom takes less than two hours.

Mr. James De Ville, Overseer of the Poor, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, in 

Report from the Select Committee appointed to Inquire into the General Operation and Effect of The Laws and Usages under which Select and Other Vestries are constituted in England Wales (1830)