Here Let Us Feast by M.F.K. Fisher

Author:M.F.K. Fisher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2018-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

From Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, 1812–1870

So, they established the rule, that all poor people would have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, no, not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals a day of thin gruel, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays. . . . It was rather expensive at first, in consequence of the undertaker’s bill, and the necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two’s gruel. But the number of workhouse inmates got thin as well as the paupers; and the board were in ecstacies.

Here I must give a recipe from A Handbook of Cookery for Irish Workhouses. It was published in 1911, but I feel there had been few changes made in it since little Oliver ate his gruel in such a place.

SOWANS OR FLUMMERY

6 ounces unsifted oatmeal

1 gallon water

Soak meal in lukewarm water 24 hours, press the mixture through a fine sieve, boil until thick, let stand 15 minutes, and serve.

And that reminds me of a brutal proverb of the very poor in France: Tout fait ventre, pourvu que ça entre . . . (Anything that can be swallowed is food . . . Food is anything you can get down without gagging.)

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