An Excerpt from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
Monday, 14 December 2009
The poulterers shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant
with glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped
like the waist-coats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling
out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy,
brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their
growth like Spanish Friars; and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at
the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There
were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches
of grapes, made in shopkeepers’ benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks,
that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of
filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among
the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there
were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges
and lemons, and, in great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently
entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after
dinner…
The Grocers’! Oh the Grocers’! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down,
or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that scales
descending on the counter made a merry sound, or the twine and roller parted
company so briskly, or that canisters were rattled up and down like juggling
tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to
the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight so caked and
spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and
subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or the
French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly decorated boxes, or
that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress: but the customers
were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled
up against each other at the door, clashing their wicker baskets wildly, and
left their purchases at the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and
committed hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humour possible; while the
Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with
which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside
for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck if they chose.
In the Dickensian spirit of the season, please enjoy these recipes for some of our favorite treats. Each one makes a great gift from your kitchen:
