wellinghall: (Stilton)
wellinghall ([personal profile] wellinghall) wrote2016-01-13 07:27 pm
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Food quiz 2

4. Who gave a dinner party where he served, "Caviare, turtle soup, homard newburg, perdrix aux choux, asparagus, blackberry ice, mushrooms, sherry, Mumm 1911, light port, 1875 brandy"?

5. Whose host urged him, "Don't spare the caviare," "Eat your fill of the whitebait," "And when the porterhouse steak comes along, wade into it"?

6. Who was astonished to have, "A quite epicurean little cold supper laid out ... There were a couple of brace of cold woodcock, a pheasant, a pate de foie gras pie with a group of ancient and cobwebby bottles."

[identity profile] nineveh-uk.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 08:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know any of them, but I'd definitely like to go to 4's party.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)
And this was in January.

[identity profile] legionseaglelj.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Golly! Where did he get his asparagus from?

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 09:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know, but he complains that it cost him £1 a bundle!

[identity profile] legionseaglelj.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 07:55 am (UTC)(link)
The dates of the wine and the brandy suggest to me that the dinner in question is happening in the 1920s (just possibly the 1930s); everything is massively expensive either inherently or because it's out of season (and the fact that he complains about the cost of the asparagus suggests he's doing it to impress) but the meal isn't structured* - it's just "Let's have what's expensive"; you gave the cost of the asparagus in sterling, so it can't be the Great Gatsby, so I'm going for a self-made (possibly war profiteer) man who probably ends up as the victim in a Golden Age detective story.

*That is, it follows the formal pattern of cold hors d'oeuvres, soup, fish, main, vegetables, pudding, savoury but everything in each category is the top of the range item it could possibly be in that category, without considering that while lobster newburg would be fab on itself, would it really go well after turtle soup?
Edited 2016-01-14 08:02 (UTC)

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 08:17 am (UTC)(link)
1920s, yes.

Self-made man, to some extent.

War profiteer, no. He left his cushy desk job to go into the trenches.

This is a real person, writing in his diary.

[identity profile] legionseaglelj.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 08:31 am (UTC)(link)
Now I feel really bad for having misjudged him!

I can't think of anyone who fits the bill and who survived into the Twenties, so I'm going to have to draw a blank.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 08:32 am (UTC)(link)
I shall leave it open for a little while, before giving the answer.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 04:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Answers are here:
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com/1191804.html

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 04:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Answers are here:
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com/1191804.html

[identity profile] legionseaglelj.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
6 is Doctor Watson, and I can't recall at the moment if the story is the Noble Bachelor or The Naval Treaty.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
It is indeed.

[identity profile] hilarityallen.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Dammit! I talked myself out of that one. I went "That's a Sherlock Holmes story!" and then I got myself confused by the cobwebbed bottles, which I convinced myself were out of character. But no! my subconscious was right!

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 07:02 am (UTC)(link)
I think the cobwebbed bottles, and indeed the dinner, were in honour of their guest.

[identity profile] legionseaglelj.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 07:46 am (UTC)(link)
And, indeed, the occasion (I've now checked my references) given that they were celebrating (albeit in bittersweet circumstances) the reunion of a couple who had believed themselves parted forever.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 08:28 am (UTC)(link)
Indeed :-)

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 04:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Answers are here:
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com/1191804.html

[identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah - I was just thinking it might well be - glad to see I was right!

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 07:04 am (UTC)(link)
It is indeed Dr Watson.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 04:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Answers are here:
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com/1191804.html

[identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
5 has a feel of PG Wodehouse - so perhaps it was someone hosting Bertie Wooster?

[identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com 2016-01-13 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, wading into a Porterhouse steak is very Wodehousian, isn't it? No idea if it's right, though.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 07:03 am (UTC)(link)
It is Wodehouse, although it isn't Wooster.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 07:02 am (UTC)(link)
It is Wodehouse, but it isn't Wooster.

[identity profile] wellinghall.livejournal.com 2016-01-14 08:29 am (UTC)(link)
Nope.