A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
1843
Raise your hand if you’ve either read A Christmas Carol or watched Scrooged.
Well and good, but did you know that that Gothic and Christmas go together like ham and funerals? The tradition of ghostly tales around the winter fire dates back at least to Shakespeare’s time and possibly earlier; but their firm connection with Christmas we owe to Dickens and his four spirited seasonal tales, and particularly to the one he published, almost as a vanity, in 1843. With the success of A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, Dickens saved himself from financial disaster, helped resurrect the Christmas celebration after the Puritans had tried to stamp it to death in the 17th century, and connected Christmas to ghost stories forever more.
Scrooge, like a good Gothic protagonist, is both haunted by the past and determined to ignore it until it bangs on the door and refuses to remain unadmitted. He becomes a better person for looking Death in the face, which is the main message Dickens conveys with humor and terror and compassion in perfectly-timed doses of the type that pervade a growing number of post 18th-century Gothic works.
But what should we choose for a meal? There is always great interest amongst the literary dinner crowd in recreating either the refreshments of the Fezziwig party (cake, negus, beer, mince pies, Cold Roast and Cold Boiled), or one of the Christmas feasts occurring without detailed explanation at the end of the book: the Cratchits’ with the turkey as big as the errand boy, or the one enjoyed by Fred’s family. Each of these three repasts represents a celebration of family and life, a scene of exuberant joy, a pause for gratitude, and a refutation of life’s sorrows; and therefore we are not interested. Let us instead focus on the book’s beginning. Evening has fallen as we follow Ebenezer home from a hard day pinching the life out of ha’pennies and exploiting workers, down chill, dreary, grey London streets toward his cheerless home, stopping off first to fill his tank.
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern . . .
We can surmise that Scrooge would have chosen a down-at-heels pub where other patrons would be unlikely to bother him by enjoying themselves within earshot, and we also know that he would spend as little money as possible on food with no purpose other than keeping his miserable frozen soul in his wizened body. Sounds about perfect for our purposes.
What cheerless fare would have been offered in the middle of the 19th century in a small tavern in one of London’s poorer sections? The worst pies in London? Let us hope not. We will presume that parsimonious old Ebenezer, the epitome of the old word “nipcheese,” would have haggled and whinged and whined the publican down to the least possible price, and in return been given the least possible sustenance for three or four pence. Indeed, we have a hint from further on in the night, when Scrooge dismisses the supernatural as merely his late dinner repeating on him -- the ghost of dinner past, so to speak.
“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
Therefore, that will be the repast for one of the guests at this dinner, perhaps chosen by drawing dusty broom straws. The remaining guests will enjoy what the other less stingy customers might have chosen.
A Melancholy Dinner in a Melancholy Tavern
Menu for Scrooge
3 – 4 small pieces of cold boiled beef
1 small chunk of very old cheese with most of the mold rubbed off by dirty fingers
Fragment of an underdone potato
Blot of mustard
Serve on a nasty old cracked plate that appears to have been ‘cleaned’ by spit and finger-scrubbing. These items should be eaten quickly, with many scornful looks at the other diners for their short-sighted self-indulgence.
Menu for Everyone Else
Pork Pie
Herb-roasted apples, potatoes, and turnips
Smoking Bishop
Ambience
Low lighting.
Bad smells. Suggest to guests that they not bathe during the month prior to the dinner. Call them poor sports if they refuse.
Someone can read Shakespeare or Dickens aloud by candlelight, with one or two rapt listeners and the rest just drowning their sorrows.
Give everyone a copy of a newspaper (the worse the news, the better) to hide behind.
Restrooms? I think not. Go outside and find a semi-private corner and do your thing.
Goth It Up
Dessert should either be something nasty like moldy black treacle, or absent entirely. If the former, a member of the party can compound the down mood by reading aloud “The Signalman,” a quietly alarming and horrific Gothic Dickens short story. Turn the lights off for this one, with a single candle to read by. Close your eyes and listen.
If you’re totally hardcore: read “The Judge’s House” by Bram Stoker instead. Personally? I’ve been so traumatized by this one that I shiver every time I see the title.
Recipes
Pork Pie
Ingredients
1 ½ pounds ground pork
½ pound ground beef
½ pound finely diced smoked ham
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper
1 cup mashed potato flakes
Salt to taste
2 9-inch pie crusts
1 beaten egg
Sautḗ the meat and onion until cooked through. Drain well, mix in the potato flakes and spices, and spoon into one of the pie crusts. Cover with the other crust, seal, and make cross vents; brush with the egg, and place foil liners around the edges of the crust to prevent burning. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, then remove foil edges and bake for another 15 minutes. Let cool to room temperature and serve with spiced mustard and apple chutney.
Roast Apples, Potatoes, and Turnips
Ingredients
6 large baking apples, washed, cored, and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, oh hell, use dried if need be
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
4 large russet potatoes, ditto except for the coring
3 turnips, ditto
Place turnip cubes into a large shallow baking pan, add olive oil, salt, and dill, and coat the cubes well. Put baking pan into oven and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees; add the potato cubes, stir to coat, and bake for another 20 minutes; add the apple cubes, stir to coat, and bake for another 15 minutes.
Smoking Bishop
Ingredients
6 large oranges
1 grapefruit or 2 lemons (not both)
30 whole cloves
½ cup sugar
¼ tsp each allspice, mace, cinnamon
2 bottles strong red wine
1 bottle port
Stick the cloves into the fruit, several per, incising as necessary, and bake in a 350 oven for 30 minutes. Place in a large bowl and pour the wine over; add sugar and stick in a warm place for 24 hours.
Juice the fruit into the wine and put into a sauce pan; add the port and heat gently; serve in mugs with slices of the fruit.
