Spot on, Robin!
Also I remember the days before styrofoam was prevalent, and we
would take home the extra bread in a napkin in mom's purse. Posh
restaurants (with the cloth napkins) would wrap the leftovers in
foil, and if you were lucky in the shape of a swan. I saw that on
TV. :-)
-Carol
On Jun 9, 2010, at 4:19 PM, Robin Netherton wrote:
debloughcostu...@aol.com wrote:
Firstly, even though a pocket may have been sizable enough to
accomodate the items referred to, it wouldn't be waterproof.
Secondly, who in their right mind would put them all in there
together??? My coat has poachers pockets - designed for the
transportation of freshly shot game birds and therefore
waterproof (not that I use it for such) - I still wouldn't be
putting cake and wine and chicken in there all at once...
Ah, but she didn't put in wine, not intentionally. She put in "cold
chicken and sweet cakes," not the "jellies, creams, and ices" that
were also being served. The mischievous observer clearly thought
this greedy behavior was inappropriate, and, tempted by the
"opportunity," he dumped in his custard (I think that's what was in
the glass he described, not wine) when she wasn't looking, fully
aware she'd find an unexpected mess later, "when she got home."
The cold chicken and sweet cakes sound as though they were set out
as finger foods -- maybe greasy, but certainly self-contained and
maybe not that large. The sweet cakes may have been something
equivalent to cookies or brownies; the chicken and meats may even
have been pastry-wrapped but might have been chunks or slices. Wrap
them in a handkerchief and it's no messier than tucking an
unfinished few things from your plate into a napkin in your purse
when you're leaving a restaurant. (I should note that taking home
food you've paid for as part of a meal is quite unobjectionable,
and not parallel to the situation in the quotation. Lifting food
off the buffet-at-the-ball as described is more like pocketing
extras off an all-you-can-eat buffet after you've eaten your fill,
as someone else mentioned in this thread. That's probably what
caught the writer's attention, who makes the point that the women
in question had already eaten as much as they could.)
The quotation again:
"The supper was at a buffet in another room and there was plenty of
cold chicken and cold meat, with jellies, creams and ices, which was
done justice to, especially by the ladies who crowded up to the buffet
and, after eating as much as they could, pocketed many of the good
things. One stout middle-aged French woman was engaged in filling her
pockets which were stuffed out with cold chicken and sweet cakes as
she stood before me. I was eating a custard – the opportunity was
tempting – so I emptied my glass into her open pocket, and a nice
mixture she must have found when she got home."
--Robin
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