A miserable dinner of cutlets and rolls
PUB food was a trifle hit and miss in the 19th century.
Take the unpleasant memories of Lewes cuisine of Louis Jennings in 1878, extracted from his book Rambles among the Hills.
"Nothing would now have been easier for me than to have returned to London and its smoke and noise, in ample time for dinner. But I wished to see a little more of the Lewes Downs and I therefore put up at the Star Inn where, as the waiter impressed upon me, there was a fine old staircase.
"But you cannot eat a fine old staircase.
"On leaving the inn than morning the waiter consulted me on the important question of dinner. The matter was easily settled – a partridge and a boiled mackerel to begin with.
" 'Yes sir'', said the waiter. Away I went rejoicing. No walk was ever spoiled by the knowledge that a good dinner was at the end of it.
Hungry as a hunter, I rushed into the Star on my return and changed my clothes. While thus occupied, the waited announced himself.
" 'We could not get any mackerel, sir,'' he said. A Sussex man always finds it easy to say: 'I couldn't do that.'
" 'That is bad,' I replied. 'But never mind; don't let them overcook the partridge. 'Sorry sir, we couldn't get a partridge.'
" 'The waiter seemed quite at his ease and bore my disappointment with resignation.
" 'Then what could you get?
" 'Cutlets sir'.
"Had the observant reader dropped into the coffee room of the Star Inn that night he would have remarked a gloomy and downcast stranger at the table, discontentedly munching cutlets and making little bread rolls on the tablecloth, and occasionally casting dark and lowering looks of hatred in the direction of the waiter.
"Let us draw a veil over the sad scene. In the morning I bade goodbye to the waiter and the fine old staircase, and turned to the left to reach Cliffe Hill from which an excellent view of the old town of Lewes is to be gained."
Not too bad then!
For more County Rouser stories see this week's Sussex Express.
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Weather for Lewes
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South east
