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Charles Lamb (1 775-1 834) one of the most engaging personal essayists of all the writers of English Literature. He wrote his essays under the pen name Elia. The circumstances of his personal life were harsh and even tragic. Charles and his sister Mary Ann both suffered periods of mental illness, and Charles spent six weeks in a psychiatric hospital during 1795. After 1799 they lived together and collaborated on several books for children, publishing in 1807 their famous Tales from Shakespeare. Lamb began publishing his Essays of Elia in the London Magazine in 1820.
About Prose:
In September, 1822, Charles Lamb published his classic essay
"A Dissertation upon Roast Pig" in London Magazine under the pen name
of Elia. This is an essay that shows Lamb at his humorous best. It is full of fun
from beginning to end. Lamb uses various devices that to portray a humorous
account of the origin of mankind's practice of roasting pigs besides giving an
insight into his own temperament and tastes.
Mankind,
says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and
explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing
or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day.
This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second
chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by
the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' holiday. The manuscript goes on to say,
that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder
brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following: The swineherd,
Ho-ti, having gone out in the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect
masts for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a
great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age
commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling
quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till
it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage, (a sorry antediluvian
makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a
fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China
pigs had been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods
that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not
so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily
build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at
any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say
to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those
untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he
had before experienced. What could it proceed from?—not from the burnt
cottage—he had smelt that smell before—indeed this was by no means the first
accident of the kind which had occured through the negligence of this unlucky
young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or
flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He
knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any
signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in
his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had
come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's
life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted—crackling! Again he
felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked
his finger from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow
understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so
delicious; and surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to
tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was
cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid
the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood,
began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hailstones,
which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling
pleasure which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite
callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His
father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly
made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation,
something like the following dialogue ensued:
"You graceless whelp, what have
you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three
houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating
fire, and I know not what—what have you got there, I say?"
"O
father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats."
The
ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself
that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig.
Bo-bo,
whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another
pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into
the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig,
father, only taste—O Lord,"—with such-like barbarous ejaculations, cramming
all the while as if he would choke.
Ho-ti
trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable things wavering whether he
should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the
crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the
same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, make
what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to
him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father
and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had
despatched all that remained of the litter.
The
judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the
decision; and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all
the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his Lordship's town
house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was
nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously
dear all over the district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop.
People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very
science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this
custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript,
a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or
indeed of any other animal, might be cooked (burnt, as they call it) without
the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude
form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two
later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the
manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their
way among mankind.
Without
placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must be agreed, that
if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire
(especially in these days) could be assigned in favour of any culinary object,
that pretext and excuse might be found in roast pig.
Of all
the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will maintain it to be the most
delicate—princeps obsoniorum.
I
speak not of your grown porkers—things between pig and pork—those
hobbydehoys—but a young and tender suckling—under a moon old—guiltless as yet
of the sty—with no original speck of the amor immunditiæ, the hereditary
failing of the first parent, yet manifest—his voice as yet not broken, but
something between a childish treble, and a grumble—the mild forerunner, or
præludium, of a grunt.
He
must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or
boiled—but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument!
There
is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny,
well-watched, not over-roasted, crackling, as it is well called—the very teeth
are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the
coy, brittle resistance—with the adhesive oleaginous—O call it not fat—but an
indefiable sweetness growing up to it—the tender blossoming of fat—fat cropped
in the bud—taken in the shoot—in the first innocence—the cream and quintessence
of the child-pig's yet pure food—the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal
manna—or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into
each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common
substance.
Behold
him, while he is doing—it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth, then a scorching
heat, that he is so passive to. How equably he twirleth round the string!—Now
he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he hath
wept out his pretty eyes—radiant jellies—shooting stars—
See
him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!—wouldst thou have had
this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany
maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an
obstinate, disagreeable animal—wallowing in all manner of filthy
conversation—from these sins he is happily snatched away—
Ere
sin could blight, or sorrow fade,
Death
came with timely care—
his
memory is odoriferous—no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the
rank bacon—no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking sausages—he hath a fair
sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure—and for such a tomb
might be content to die.
He is
the best of sapors. Pineapple is great. She is indeed almost too transcendent—a
delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, that really a
tender-conscienced person would do well to pause—too ravishing for mortal
taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that approach her—like lover's
kisses, she biteth—she is a pleasure bordering on pain from the fierceness and
insanity of her relish—but she stoppeth at the palate—she meddleth not with the
appetite—and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton
chop.
Unlike
to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices, inexplicably
intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he is—good throughout.
No part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth, as far as his
little means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. He is all
neighbors' fare.
I am
one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of
this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I
protest I take as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and
proper satisfactions, as in mine own. "Presents," I often say,
"endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door
chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"), capons, plovers, brawn,
barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste
them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put
somewhere. One would not, like Lear, "give everything." I make my
stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good
flavours, to extra-domiciliate, or send out of the house, slightingly (under
pretext of friendship, or I know not what), a blessing so particularly adapted,
predestined, I may say, to my individual palate—It argues an insensibility.
I
remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old aunt, who
never parted from me at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or
some nice thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking
plum-cake, fresh from the oven. In my way to school (it was over London Bridge)
a gray-headed old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that
he was a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity of
self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, schoolboy-like, I made him a
present of—the whole cake! I walked on a little, buoyed up, as one is on such
occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satisfaction; but before I had got to
the end of the bridge, my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears,
thinking how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good
gift away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a bad
man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be
taking in thinking that I—I myself, and not another—would eat her nice cake—and
what should I say to her the next time I saw her—how naughty I was to part with
her pretty present—and the odour of that spicy cake came back upon my
recollection, and the pleasure and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make
it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would
feel that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last—and I blamed my
impertinent spirit of almsgiving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness, and
above all I wished never to see the face again of that insiduous,
good-for-nothing, old gray impostor.
Our
ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender victims. We
read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, as we hear of any other
obsolete custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be curious to
inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what effect this process might have
towards intenerating and dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet
as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be
cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of the
practice. It might impart a gusto—
I
remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I was at St.
Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides,
"Whether, supposing that the flavor of a pig who obtained his death by
whipping (per flagellationem extremam) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of
a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal,
is man justified in using that method of putting the animal to death?" I
forget the decision.
His
sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crumbs, done up with his
liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I
beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate,
steep them in shalots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic;
you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they are—but consider, he is
a weakling—a flower.
Summary:
‘A
Dissertation upon Roast Pig’ is one of Lamb’s funniest and most fanciful
essays. It has two parts. In the first part, Lamb gives an account of how
people in China discovered the custom of roasting pigs.
A
Chinese boy by name Bo-bo was asked to take care of the swine-herd by his
father Ho-ti. The boy was fond of playing with fire, while he was playing with
fire a spark fell on the thatch and caught fire. Nine young pigs were burnt to
death. Bo-bo, smelt an alluring smell from the burnt pigs. He touched one to
know if it was still alive. He burnt his fingers. To cool it, he put his
fingers in his mouth. Thus, he tasted the meat sticking in his fingers. It was
delicious, so he started eating it with great interest. When the father came
back, he noticed his son who eating burnt flesh of pigs. He was horrified and
he started to beat his son. The son persuaded the father to taste some burnt flesh
of pigs. After tasting the roasted pig, the father cooled down, and praised his
son. Their after, Ho-ti’s cottage caught fire often to eat roasted pork. The
matter was reported to the judge by the neighbours. The father and the son were
put on trial. The Jury who enquired the case, tasted the burnt pig and declared
the father and the son were not guilty. They gave permission to all the people
to eat the roasted pig. Pigs and fuel soon became very expensive. At last
someone invented the gridiron and houses were prevented from fire.
In the
second part, Lamb, expresses his love for the roast pig. He says that old pigs
are not tasteful as the taste of a month old pig. He calls it ‘animal manna’.
He becomes poetical in describing the sight of a young pig being roasted. After
being roasted it lays so meekly on the plate. He does not have any pity for the
suffering pig. Pine apple is tasty but it cannot satisfy hunger. But the roast
pig is not only tasty but also satisfies one’s hunger. Moreover, all its parts
are useful. When it is served, no one complain of getting a less tasty portion
than another. Lamb is ready to share anything with his friends except the roast
pig. He shares an anecdote about his boyhood. Once he gave a beggar the plum
cake presented to him by his aunt. Later he felt that he had betrayed her. He
would feel similar regret if he shared the pig with anybody.
The suckling pig was whipped to death in
the past. This appears very cruel. Lamb feels that it is not necessary as the
flesh of a young pig is tender enough. He ends the essay with a reference to
the sauces which should accompany the roast pig. He is against using onion and
garlic, as they are too strong for the delicate flesh of a young pig.
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