A Simple Bill of Fare for a Chistmas Dinnner - Helen Hunt Jackson

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A simple bill of fare for a Christmas dinner. All
good recipe books give bills of fare for different occasions,
bills of fare for grand dinners, bills of fare for
little dinners, dinners to cost so much per head, dinners
which can be easily prepared with one servant, and so on.

(00:23):
They give bills of fare for one week, bills of
fare for each day in a month, to avoid too
great monotony. In diet, there are bills of fare for dyspeptics,
bills of fare for consumptives, bills of fare for fat people,
and bills of fair for thin and bills of fare
for hospitals, asylums and prisons, as well as for gentlemen's houses.

(00:48):
But among them all we never saw the one which
we give below. It has never been printed in any book,
but it has been used in families. We are not
drawing on our imagination for its items. We have sat
at such dinners, we have helped prepare such dinners. We
believe in such dinners they are within everybody's means. In fact,

(01:13):
the most marvelous thing about this bill of fare is
that the dinner does not cost a cent. Ho all
ye that are hungry and thirsty, and would like so
cheap a Christmas dinner. Listen to this bill of fare
for a Christmas dinner. First course gladness. This must be

(01:36):
served hot. No two housekeepers make it alike. No fixed
rule can be given for it. It depends, like so
many of the best things, chiefly on memory. But strangely enough,
it depends quite as much on proper forgetting as on
proper remembering. Worries must be forgotten, Troubles must be forgotten. Yes,

(02:01):
even sorrow itself must be denied and shut out. Perhaps
this is not quite possible. Ah, we all have seen
Christmas days on which sorrow would not leave our hearts
or our houses. But even sorrow can be compelled to
look away from its sorrowing for a festival hour, which
is so solemnly joyous as Christ's birthday. Memory can be

(02:25):
filled full of other things to be remembered. No soul
is entirely destitute of blessings, absolutely without comfort. Perhaps we
have but one very well. We can think steadily of
that one if we try. But the probability is that
we have more than we can count. No man has

(02:48):
yet numbered the blessings, the mercies, the joys, of God.
We are all richer than we think, And if we
once set ourselves to reckoning up the things of which
we are glad, we shall be astonished at their number. Gladness, then,
is the first item. The first course on our bill

(03:08):
of fare for a Christmas dinner entrees love garnished with smiles, gentleness,
with sweet wine, sauce of laughter, gracious speech, cooked with
any fine savory herbs such as drollery which is always
in season, or pleasant reminiscence, which no one need be without,

(03:33):
as it keeps for years, sealed or unsealed. Second course hospitality.
The precise form of this also depends on individual preferences.
We are not undertaking here to give exact recipes only
a bill of fare. In some houses, hospitality is brought

(03:56):
on surrounded with relatives. This is very well. In others
it is dished up with dignitaries of all sorts, men
and women of position and estate, for whom the host
has special likings or uses. This gives a fine effect
to the eye, but cools quickly and is not in

(04:16):
the long run satisfying. In a third class, best of all,
it is served in simple shapes, but with a great
variety of unfortunate persons, such as lonely people from lodging houses,
poor people of all grades, widows and childless in their affliction.

(04:36):
This is the kind most preferred, in fact, never abandoned
by those who have tried it. For dessert. Mirth in glasses,
gratitude and faith beaten together and piled up in snowy shapes,
these will look light if run over night, in the

(04:57):
molds of solid trust and patience. A dish of the
bonbonds good cheer and kindliness with every day mottoes, knots,
and reasons in shape of puzzles and answers, the whole
ornamented with apples of gold in pictures of silver of
the kind mentioned in the Book of Proverbs. This is

(05:20):
a short and simple bill of fare. There is not
a costly thing in it, not a thing which cannot
be procured without difficulty. If meat is desired, it can
be added. That is another excellence about our bill of fare.
It has nothing in it which makes it incongruous with
the richest or the plainest tables. It is not overcrowded

(05:42):
by the addition of roast, goose or plum pudding. It
is not harmed by the addition of herring and potatoes. Nay,
it can give flavor and richness to broken bits of
stale bread, served on a doorstep and eaten by beggars.
We might say much more about this bill of fare.

(06:04):
We might perhaps confess that it has an element of
the supernatural, that its origin is lost in obscurity, that
although as we said, it has never been printed before,
it has been known in all ages that the martyrs
feasted upon it, that generations of the poor called blessed

(06:25):
by Christ, have laid out banquets by it, That exiles
and prisoners have lived on it, and the despised and
forsaken and rejected in all countries have tasted it. It
is also true that when any great king ate well
and throve on his dinner, it was by the same

(06:47):
magic food. The young and the free, and the glad,
and all rich men in costly houses, even they have
not been well fed without it. And though we have
called it a bill of fare for a Christmas dinner,
that is only that men's eyes may be caught by
its name, and that they, thinking it a specialty for festival,

(07:10):
may learn and understand its secret, and henceforth laying all
their dinners according to its magic order, may eat unto
the Lord end of a simple bill of fare for
a Christmas dinner by Helen Hunt Jackson