Anyone for Tennyson is a series of articles about poetry

A Poetic Feast for Thanksgiving: Mince and spice with Vincent Price

On this day of feasting, poems about food, for, as Vincent Price and friends remark in our video, "Where is the man who can live without dining?"

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving, when we and our families remember our loved ones and help support those who aren’t as fortunate as many of us. We also gather at the dinner table for traditional and sometimes elaborate meals with underpinnings that go back into previous centuries. So it seemed an appropriate time for this column to present poems that have been written about cooking and dining. The host of our video is Vincent Price, a distinguished chef and writer of cookbooks who was also known to do some acting when not in the kitchen.

cookbook by Vincent Price
One of the Vincent Price cookbooks

Here is our Thanksgiving invitation, put into verse by Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

I beg you come today and dine.
A welcome waits you, and sound wine–
The sherry of an ancient brand.
No Persian pomp, you understand–
A soup, a fish, two meats, and then
A salad fit for aldermen.
A dish of grapes whose clusters won
Their bronze in Carolinian sun;
Next, cheese–for you the Neufchâtel,
A bit of Cheshire likes me well;
Cafe au lait or coffee black,
With Kirsch or Kümmel or Cognac
A round of toasts, these being through,
Friends shall drop in, a very few–
Shakespeare and Milton, and no more.
When these are guests I bolt the door,
With “Not at Home” to any one
Excepting Alfred Tennyson,
. . . and you!

Our poetic feast requires a centerpiece, which may be turkey or ham, but according to Maya Angelou, it must definitely be some kind of meat.

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilaf
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I’m dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run
to
Loins of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef
And hot dogs by the scores,
Or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.

I’m with you, Maya . . .  except for the smoking.

And I do like vegetables. Beau Brummel, the arbiter of taste and fashion in Regency England, was once asked if it was his habit not to take any vegetables.  Beau replied, “I once ate a pea.”

The pea is the vegetable most often found in poetry, probably because it’s easy to rhyme. Even beats beets! A favorite pea poem:

I take my peas with honey,
I’ve done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on my knife.

* * *

A feast at the court o King Louis XV
How many people did you invite for dinner? These are some of King Louis XV’s nearest and dearest.

Poetry can help you remember a recipe. The next time you toss a salad, and a poetic feast certainly needs one, this verse from Sydney Smith will remind you of every ingredient.To make this condiment your poet begs

The pounded yellow of two hard-boil’d eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt;
Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar procur’d from town;
And lastly o’er the flavour’d compound toss
A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl!
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
“Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today.”

* * *

If a question arises about whether to have wine with dinner, let me refer you to Henry Aldrich (1647-1710) who offers this timeless reasoning:

If all be true that I do think,
There are Five Reasons we should drink;
Good Wine, a Friend, or being Dry,
Or lest we should be by and by;
Or any other reason why.

And leave it to Anonymous to have some observations about dessert:

A crumble tart’s a piece of art.
A pecan pie’s a treasure.
I’ve never met a crêpes Suzette
That didn’t give me pleasure.

Real clotted cream is like a dream
From some far Scottish Highland.
But I’d like more to swim to shore
And find a dessert island!

* * *

Outrageous dessert
There’s always room for dessert. This requires quite a lot of room!

After Thanksgiving dinner there’ll be cleaning-up and maybe some football watching. By bedtime, Noël Coward suggests this comforting idea for a leftover.

When we’ve fought our weary way
Through some exhausting social day
We thankfully to bed retire
With pleasant book and crackling fire
And, like Salome in a bygone day,
Enjoy a little something on a tray.

* * *

VIDEO.   Now, as Thomas Gray put it in “The Bard:”

Fill high the sparkling bowl,
The rich repast prepare.

Vincent Price and members of the First Poetry Quartet ask you to join them in the kitchen where they are cooking up poems. Don’t be surprised if a serving of Ogden Nash is on the menu.

CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: A POETIC FEAST