Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:03:42.891Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EATING THE WORLD: LONDON IN 1851

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2008

Thomas Prasch
Thomas Prasch*
Affiliation:
Washburn University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

“London, for some time previous to the opening of the Great Exhibition, has been a curious sight even to Londoners,” Henry Mayhew declared in 1851, or the Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and Family, Who Came Up to London to “Enjoy Themselves,” and to See the Great Exhibition, his comic instant novel about the transformation of London in the year of the Great Exhibition. Mayhew proceeded to detail what had grown curiouser and curiouser about the London scene in that climactic year: “New amusements were daily springing into existence, or old ones being revived. The Chinese Collection had returned to the Metropolis, with a family from Pekin, and a lady with feet two inches and a half long, as proof of the superior standing she had in society; Mr Calin [sic; he means Caitlin] had re−opened his Indian exhibit; Mr Wyle [sic; he means Wyld; instant novels apparently did not allow much time for proofreading] had bought up the interior of Leicester Square, with a view of cramming into it – ‘yeah, the great globe itself’” (132). Elsewhere in Mayhew's parodic panorama of London's exhibition mania, he offered a view of other globalized London scenes, focusing on celebrated chef Alexis Soyer's new restaurant, “where the universe might dine, from sixpence to a hundred guineas, of cartes ranging from pickled whelks to nightingale's tongues . . . from the ‘long sixes,’ au natural of the Russians, to the ‘stewed Missionary of the Marquesas,’ or the ‘cold roast Bishop’ of New Zealand” (2). Mayhew's imaginary menu, with its cannibalistic extremes, expresses a wider concern about the deluging of London by foreigners come to see the Great Exhibition (some 60000 “extra” foreigners – beyond, that is, standard visiting numbers – were estimated to have actually visited, mostly from the Continent, that year, roughly doubling the existing foreign population of London; see Auerbach 186), which found expression in an amused (when not more genuinely terrified) xenophobia that often focused on foreign foodways.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , September 2008 , pp. 587 - 602
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Amis, Martin. London Fields. New York: Harmony, 1989.Google Scholar
Auerbach, Jeffrey. The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999.Google Scholar
Baedeker, Karl. London and Its Environs: Handbook for Travellers. London: F. Unwin, 1900.Google Scholar
Black, Jeremy. The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century. Stroud: Sutton, 1992.Google Scholar
Brandon, Ruth. “The Menu.” The People's Chef: The Culinary Revolution of Alexis Soyer. New York: Wiley, 2004. 10 January 2008. <http://ruthbrandon.co.uk/menu.htm>.Google Scholar
British Metropolis in 1851: A Classified Guide to London; So Arranged as to Show, in Separate Chapters, Every Object in London Interesting to Special Tastes and Occupations. London: Arthur Hall, Virtu, 1851.Google Scholar
Brooks, Shirley. “Foreign Gentlemen in London,” in Smith, Albert, ed. Sketches of London Life and Character. Victorian London, ed. Jackson, Lee. 10 January 2008. <http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/lifeandcharacter-22.htm>..>Google Scholar
Burton, Antoinette. At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain. Berkeley: U of California P, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clement-Lorford, Frank, “Alexis Bénoist Soyer.” Alexis Benoist Soyer. 10 January 2008. <http://www.soyer.co.uk/>..>Google Scholar
Cohen, Robin. Frontiers of Identity: The British and the Others. London: Longman, 1994.Google Scholar
Collingham, Lizzie. Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006.Google Scholar
Cruchley's New Guide to London. London: G. F. Cruchley, 1862.Google Scholar
Dictionary of National Biography (DNB). Founded by George Smith; edited by Stephen, Leslie and Lee, Sidney. Volume 18, Shearman-Stovin. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1967Google Scholar
Engels, Friedrich. Condition of the Working Class in England (1844). In Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, Collected Works, vol. 4. New York: International Publishers, 1975.Google Scholar
“Food Sold at the Crystal Palace.” 1st Report of the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 (1852): vol. 26, Appendix 29. Victorian London. Ed. Jackson, Lee. 10 January 2008. <http://www.victorianlondon.org/food/crystalfood.htm>..>Google Scholar
Celina, Fox, ed. London – World City, 1800–1840. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Freeman, Sarah. Mutton and Oysters: The Victorians and Their Food. London: Victor Gollancz, 1989.Google Scholar
Garval, Michael. “Alexis Soyer and the Rise of the Celebrity Chef.” Romantic Gastronomies: A Volume in the Romantic Circles Praxis Series. Ed. Gigante, Denise. In Romantic Circles, ed. Fraistat, Neil et al. 10 January 2008. <http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/gastronomy/garval/garval_essay.html>..>Google Scholar
“Gliddon's Divan.” Reprinted from Punch, Jan.-June 1842. Victorian London, ed. Jackson, Lee. 10 January 2008. <http://www.victorianlondon.org/food/gliddons.htm>..' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=“Gliddon's+Divan.”+Reprinted+from+Punch,+Jan.-June+1842.+Victorian+London,+ed.+Jackson,+Lee.+10+January+2008.+.>Google Scholar
Greenhalgh, Paul. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions, and World's Fairs, 1851–1939. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Hare, Augustus J. C.Walks in London. Vol. 2. London: Daldy, Isbister, 1878.Google Scholar
Hoffenberg, Peter H. An Empire on Display: English, Indian, and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War. Berkeley: U of California P, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humble, Nicola. Culinary Pleasures: Cookbooks and the Transformation of British Food. London: Faber and Faber, 2005.Google Scholar
Humpherys, Anne. Travels into the Poor Man's Country: The Work of Henry Mayhew. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1977.Google Scholar
Kelly, Edward Robert. Kelly's Post Office Guide to London in 1862, Visitor's Handbook to the Metropolis, and Companion to the Directory. London: Kelly, 1862.Google Scholar
Kingsolver, Barbara (with Steven, L. Hopp and Kingsolver, Camille). Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.Google Scholar
Knight, Charles, ed. London. 6 vols. London: H. G. Bohn, 1851.Google Scholar
Korg, Jacob. London in Dickens' Day. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1960.Google Scholar
Limbird, John. Limbird's Hand-Book Guide to London: or What to Observe and Remember of the Public Buildings, Cathedrals, Churches, Halls, Parks, Theatres, and Exhibitions including a History of the Scientific Societies, Museums, Libraries, and Schools for the Cultivation of the Allied Sciences, with the Names of their Presidents and Secretaries and a Descriptive Panorama of the Thames from Gravesend to Hampton Court Embellished with Views of Public Buildings, a Map, and an Engraving of the Great Exhibition Building. London: John Limbird, 1851.Google Scholar
London at Dinner, or Where to Dine. Victorian London. Ed. Jackson, Lee. 10 January 2008. <http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/londonatdinner.htm>..>Google Scholar
Mayhew, Henry. 1851, or the Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and Family, Who Came Up to London to “Enjoy Themselves,” and to See the Great Exhibition. London: George Newbolt, 1851.Google Scholar
Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor. 1861–62. 4 vols. New York: Dover, 1968.Google Scholar
Mennell, Stephen. All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1996.Google Scholar
Merriman, Nick, ed. The Peopling of London: Fifteen Thousand Years of Settlement from Overseas. London: Museum of London, 1993.Google Scholar
Morris, Helen. Portrait of a Chef: The Life of Alexis Soyer, Sometime Chef to the Reform Club. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1938.Google Scholar
Nair, Mira dir. Vanity Fair. Focus Features, 2004.Google Scholar
Newnham-Davis, Lieut.-Col. Dinners and Diners: Where and How to Dine in London. Victorian London. Ed. Jackson, Lee. 10 January 2008. <http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications2/dinners.htm>..>Google Scholar
Oddy, Derek J. From Plain Fare to Fusion Food: British Diet from the 1890s to the 1990s. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2003.Google Scholar
Porter, Roy. London: A Social History. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Sala, George Augustus. Gaslight and Daylight with Some London Scenes They Shine Upon. Victorian London. Ed. Jackson, Lee. 10 January 2008. <http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications2/gaslight.htm>..>Google Scholar
Sala, George Augustus. The Thorough Good Cook (1896). 10 January 2008. <http://www.eatdangerously.com/thorough_cook/index.html>..>Google Scholar
Sala, George Augustus. Twice Around the Clock; or, The Hours of the Day and Night in London. London: W. Kent, 1861.Google Scholar
Smith, Adolphe. “Political Refugees,” in Besant, Walter, ed. London in the Nineteenth Century. London: Chatto and Windus, 1909.Google Scholar
Smith, Charles Manley. Curiosities of London Life: or, Phases, Physiological and Social, of the Great Metropolis. 1853; rpt. (with new introduction by Humpherys, Anne) London: F. Cass, 1972.Google Scholar
Spona, Lucia. “Italian 'Penny Ice-Men' in Victorian London.” Food and the Migrant Experience. Ed. Kersher, Anne J.. London: Ashgate, 2000.Google Scholar
Tames, Richard. Feeding London: A Taste of History. London: Historical Publications, 2003.Google Scholar
Thackeray, William Makepeace. Miscellaneous Contributions to Punch, vol. 2. Complete Works vol. 30 London: Chesterfield Society, 1904.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P.The Making of the English Working Class. 1963. Rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1966.Google Scholar
Timbs, John. Curiosities of London: Exhibiting the Most Rare and Remarkable objects of Interest in the Metropolis, with Nearly Sixty Years' Personal Recollections. Rev. ed. 1867; rpt. Detroit: Singing Tree, 1968.Google Scholar
Visram, Rozina. Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: Indians in Britain 1700–1947. London: Pluto, 1986.Google Scholar
Volant, F., and Warren, J. R.. Memoirs of Alexis Soyer, with Unpublished Receipts and Odds and Ends of Gastronomy. London: W. Kent, 1859.Google Scholar
Zlotnick, Susan. “Domesticating Imperialism: Curry and Cookbooks in Victorian England.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 16.2/3 (1996): 51–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar