I Now Constantly Dine In My Own Lodgings; And I Cannot But Flatter
Myself That My Meals Are Regulated With Frugality.
My usual dish at
supper is some pickled salmon, which you eat in the liquor in which
it is pickled, along with some oil and vinegar; and he must be
prejudiced or fastidious who does not relish it as singularly well
tasted and grateful food.
I would always advise those who wish to drink coffee in England, to
mention beforehand how many cups are to be made with half an ounce;
or else the people will probably bring them a prodigious quantity of
brown water; which (notwithstanding all my admonitions) I have not
yet been able wholly to avoid. The fine wheaten bread which I find
here, besides excellent butter and Cheshire-cheese, makes up for my
scanty dinners. For an English dinner, to such lodgers as I am,
generally consists of a piece of half-boiled, or half-roasted meat;
and a few cabbage leaves boiled in plain water; on which they pour a
sauce made of flour and butter. This, I assure you, is the usual
method of dressing vegetables in England.
The slices of bread and butter, which they give you with your tea,
are as thin as poppy leaves. But there is another kind of bread and
butter usually eaten with tea, which is toasted by the fire, and is
incomparably good. You take one slice after the other and hold it
to the fire on a fork till the butter is melted, so that it
penetrates a number of slices at once: this is called toast.
The custom of sleeping without a feather-bed for a covering
particularly pleased me. You here lie between two sheets:
underneath the bottom sheet is a fine blanket, which, without
oppressing you, keeps you sufficiently warm. My shoes are not
cleaned in the house, but by a person in the neighbourhood, whose
trade it is; who fetches them every morning, and brings them back
cleaned; for which she receives weekly so much. When the maid is
displeased with me, I hear her sometimes at the door call me "the
German"; otherwise in the family I go by the name of "the
Gentleman."
I have almost entirely laid aside riding in a coach, although it
does not cost near so much as it does at Berlin; as I can go and
return any distance not exceeding an English mile for a shilling,
for which I should there at least pay a florin. But, moderate as
English fares are, still you save a great deal, if you walk or go on
foot, and know only how to ask your way. From my lodging to the
Royal Exchange is about as far as from one end of Berlin to the
other, and from the Tower and St. Catharine's, where the ships
arrive in the Thames, as far again; and I have already walked this
distance twice, when I went to look after my trunk before I got it
out of the ship.
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