Dinner For Dickens

Catherine Dickens, under the pseuonym of Lady Maria Clutterbuck, wrote a little book called What Shall we Have for Dinner? Satisfactorily Answered by Numerous Bills of Fare for from Two to Eighteen Persons in 1851. It had two subsequent editions in 1852 and 1854. The foreword was contribured (anonymously) by her husband, Charles. Susan Rossi-Wilcox reprints this work and contributes asn engaging study of the domestic arrangements of the Dickens household together with a culinary commentary on the recipes and foodstuffs mentioned in the original work.

Recipes and menus from the novels and the household of Charles Dickens, one of the world's favorite authors. Recipes and menus from the novels and the household of Charles Dickens, one of the world's favorite authors. Dinner with Dickens celebrates the food of Victorian England by recreating dishes the author wrote about with such gusto, and enjoyed in real life. Food in the novels not only creates character and comedy, but is also a means of highlighting social issues. A grand wedding breakfast skewers ostentation in a wealthy household. A bread-and-butter tea conjures honesty and companionship. The gruel given to hungry children exposes a cruel and unjust regime. The characters who throng Dickens novels are forever offering one another punch or seed biscuits; arranging a nice little supper of pickled salmon, salad and tea; showing concern with a roast fowl; or sisterly love with a painstakingly made beefsteak pudding. And, of course, there is the great feast of Christmas, celebrated in glorious style even by the impoverished Cratchits. At home, Dickens’ wife Catherine helped him entertain, and published (under a pseudonym) her own book, What Shall We Have for Dinner?, with pages of menus or “bills of fare” for different sizes of party and the changing seasons. In Dinner with Dickens, Pen Vogler has fully updated recipes from contemporary Victorian cookbooks, including Catherine’s own book. Clear instructions enable you to recreate mutton stuffed with oysters, Betsey Prig’s Twopenny Salad, Dickens’ own recipe for punch, and the Dickens family’s Twelfth Cake. In addition there are features on topics such as Dickens Abroad, Shopping for Food, and Eating Out, with fascinating insights into housekeeping, entertaining, and social history.

Drinking with Dickens is a light-hearted sketch by Cedric Dickens, the great-grandson of Charles Dickens. There are vivid and memorable drinking scenes in Dickens' books, and Drinking with Dickens abounds in recipes, many based on the drinks of Dickensian England and America: Bishop, Dog's Nose, Hot Bowl Punch, Milk Punch, Mint Julep, Sherry Cobbler, Shrub and Negus, to mention only a few. Unbelievably it seems to be the first book on this vast and important subject, and Cedric has added some recipes and experiences of his own. The Victorian sources include a penny notebook dated 1859 and kept by "Auntie Georgie," Georgina Hogarth, when she was looking after the younger children of Charles Dickens at Gads Hill. It starts with a recipe for Ginger Beer, a teetotal drink which calls for a quart of brandy! Then there is the catalogue for the sale of Gads Hill after Charles Dickens died which shows what was in the cellar at that time. This book transcends the generations. Cedric, with an eye for people and detail, describes a whole series of joyous episodes where drink, wisely taken, has been the catalyst.

A Dickens Dinner, a music and rhymes performance, it is a dinner theater play that has known to raise money for charities and nonprofit companies. A Dickens Dinner theater event is based upon characters written into a novella, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens in 1843. Audience for A Dickens Dinner, those who attended are entertained by actors, singers, magicians, strolling violinists, mimes, still-walkers and Christmas carolers who provide entertainment between each dinner course. During dinner, merrymakers pretend to send cranky, miserly Scrooge reeling in his grave, while they serve dinner and humorous poetry, while handing out poultry, fish, side dishes and English desserts during holidays.

Complete and unabridged paperback edition. First Published 1833

No author is more closely associated with the food of Christmas than Charles Dickens, and with this collection you will be able to recreate classic Victorian dishes and drinks of the season, as featured in the writings of “the man who invented Christmas.” No author is more closely associated with the food of Christmas than Charles Dickens, and with this collection you will be able to recreate classic Victorian dishes and drinks of the season, as featured in the writings of “the man who invented Christmas.” From Mrs Cratchit’s plum pudding to Mr Pickwick’s "mighty bowl of wassail," Charles Dickens's novels and other writings are alive with examples of good food being enjoyed in good company. In this selection of Victorian classics, updated for modern cooks, you will find old favorites for Christmas dinner such as roast fowl with tarragon, plus recipes for entertaining, such as lobster patties and a Charlotte Russe. There’s even a recipe for a hand-raised pork pie to keep in the pantry for unexpected visitors (or escaped convicts.)

The award-winning author of modern classics such as Schindler’s List and Napoleon’s Last Island is at his triumphant best with this “engrossing and transporting” (Financial Times) novel about the adventures of Charles Dickens’s son in the Australian Outback during the 1860s. Edward Dickens, the tenth child of England’s most famous author Charles Dickens, has consistently let his parents down. Unable to apply himself at school and adrift in life, the teenaged boy is sent to Australia in the hopes that he can make something of himself—or at least fail out of the public eye. He soon finds himself in the remote Outback, surrounded by Aboriginals, colonials, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women. Determined to prove to his parents and more importantly, himself, that he can succeed in this vast and unfamiliar wilderness, Edward works hard at his new life amidst various livestock, bushrangers, shifty stock agents, and frontier battles. By reimagining the tale of a fascinating yet little-known figure in history, this “roguishly tender coming-of-age story” (Booklist) offers penetrating insights into Colonialism and the fate of Australia’s indigenous people, and a wonderfully intimate portrait of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of his son.

A “delightful reader’s companion” (The New York Times) to the great nineteenth-century British novels of Austen, Dickens, Trollope, the Brontës, and more, this lively guide clarifies the sometimes bizarre maze of rules and customs that governed life in Victorian England. For anyone who has ever wondered whether a duke outranked an earl, when to yell “Tally Ho!” at a fox hunt, or how one landed in “debtor’s prison,” this book serves as an indispensable historical and literary resource. Author Daniel Pool provides countless intriguing details (did you know that the “plums” in Christmas plum pudding were actually raisins?) on the Church of England, sex, Parliament, dinner parties, country house visiting, and a host of other aspects of nineteenth-century English life—both “upstairs” and “downstairs. An illuminating glossary gives at a glance the meaning and significance of terms ranging from “ague” to “wainscoting,” the specifics of the currency system, and a lively host of other details and curiosities of the day.