The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Mark Forsyth (Insulting Foods) #24

Insulting Foods

There are two sorts of guests: welcome and unwelcome. The host is not permitted to tell you which you are, though he may give you a clue.

If your host cooks you a nice hot dinner, you’re probably welcome. If he gives you yesterday’s leftovers – for example a cold shoulder of mutton – then he probably wishes you hadn’t come around.

It could have been worse, though – he could have made you eat humble pie. Humble pie is made using the umbles or innards of a deer. Here’s a recipe from Nathan Bailey’s Dictionarium Domesticum of 1736:

Boil the umbles of a deer until they are very tender, set them by till they are cold, and chop them as small as meat for minc’d pyes, and shred to them as much beef suet, six large apples and half a pound of currants, as much sugar; seasoning with salt, pepper, cloves and nutmegs, according to your palate; mix all well together, and when you put them into the paste, pour in half a pint of sack, the juice of one orange and two lemons, then close the pie, bake it, and serve it hot to table.

Of course, the umbles are the worst parts of the deer. After a hard day’s stag-hunting a rich man will dine on venison. Only his servants beneath the stairs would have to make do with umble (and therefore humble) pie.