The Olive And The Caper by Susanna Hoffman

I’ve mentioned before that there are many joys to be found in reading cookery books, not just for the references to booze; a lot of them are also well written and contain much more than just recipes.


Hoffman’s homage to Greek cuisine is a rambling compendium of culinary history which often strays into culture and language. Wine has been an essential part of Greek life for millennia, and she devotes several pages to it, starting with amphora of the ancients, and running up to the modern day. A glass of local wine is now part of the main meal, however:

...in ancient times wine was reserved for the second part of the dinner, called the symposion, the time when conversation, games, and entertainment took over. There, after a first sip of undiluted wine taken as a libation to the gods, the wine was always diluted with water. Drinking undiluted wine was considered dangerous, with possible dire consequences.

The ritual of the symposion is described thus:

At the symposion, the wine part of the banquet, three kratirs, or mixing bowls, were thought the proper, moderate amount of wine to imbibe. The host was in charge of the pace of the drinking, and since rituals accompanied the first three bowls, he could even force guests to finish the number of bowls served. At some gatherings a wine watcher was in charge to see that all received an equal amount of wine. In a play by a writer named Euboulos, the god Dionysos describes the bowls: The first bowl, he says, is for health, the second for love and pleasure, the third for sleep. At this point wise drinkers go home. Should guests drink onward, the fourth bowl belongs to hubris, which in Greek means “boastful talk among males.” The fifth leads to shouting, the sixth to revelry, the seventh to black eyes, the eight to court summonses, the ninth to bile, and the tenth to madness and people throwing the furniture about.

They knew a thing or two did the Ancient Greeks. Along with wine, they were also known to imbibe beer, indeed, Aristotle notes its effects:

Aristotle compared the intoxication caused by beer to that of wine: Wine, he said, caused a drunk to pass out and fall face down, whereas beer caused one to fall belly up.

I think proof of this might require further research...

Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser

I’ve had this on the bookshelf for a few years now, and having some time ago given up on a rather foolish attempt to read all twelve in order, I picked this up, reasoning that Flashman withdrawal was a good enough reason to break sequence.

MacDonald Frasers’s eponymous anti-hero is a liar, a bully and a toady, who ducks and skives his way through some of the more colourful parts of nineteenth century history. In this episode he finds himself caught up in the Sikh War of 1845, and once again, Flashman has unwitting found himself in a tight spot.

He volunteers for a political role in an effort to avoid the inevitable fight between the Sikh kingdom in the Punjab and the East India Company, but is instead sent off to the court at Lahore. He is supposed to report back on court intrigue from the lions’ den itself, but after being dramatically rescued from falling off a high balcony by his servant, Jassa, his mind is strangely elsewhere.

I’m not certain what line our conversation took, once I’d heaved up my supper, because I was in that state of blind funk and shock where talk don’t’ matter, and I made it worse – once I’d recovered the strength to crawl indoors – by emptying my pint flask of brandy in about three great gulps, while Jassa asked damnfool questions. That brandy was a mistake. Sober, I’d have begun to reason straight, and let him talk some sense into me, but I sank the lot, and the short result was, in the immortal words of Thomas Hughes, Flashy became beastly drunk. And when I’m foxed, and shuddering scared into the bargain ... well, I ain’t responsible.

Flashman has overheard that the safest place for him to be is the durbar room (court) and he makes a sharp exit in that direction. Surprised when he gets there by scenes of utter debauchery, he’s quickly accosted by Mangala, slave and chief adviser of the Maharani:

She said I needed something to warm me, and a lackey serving the folk in the gallery put a beaker in my hand. What with brandy and funk I was parched as a camel’s oxter, so I drank it straight off, and another – dry red wine, with a curious effervescent tang to it. D’you know, it settled me wonderfully... I took another swig, and Mangala laid a hand on my arm, smiling roguishly. “That is your third cup, bahadur. Have care. It is ... strangely potent, and the night has only begun. Rest a moment.”

That might be hard work. The durbar is in the throes of an orgy, and Flashman feels ill disposed to restraint. He’s quickly brought to a booth at the end of the room and realises that he was in the presence of the notorious Maharani Jeendan, Indian Venus, modern Messalina, and uncrowned queen of the Punjab.

She’s quite a character:

...she was simply the lewdest-looking strumpet I ever saw in my life. Mind you, when a young woman with the proportions of an erotic Indian statue is found reclining half-naked and three parts drunk, while a stalwart wrestler rubs her down with oil, it’s easy to jump to conclusions.

Indeed it is. And it’s all too easy to get carried away. Flashman has another close shave before the night is out and has to get rescued by an American... and the war with the Sikhs hasn’t even begun yet.

Drunkard’s Tales by Jaroslav Hašek

Last week’s post on Patrick Leigh Fermor’s trek through Mitteleuropa prompted me to mention Joseph Roth and Jaroslav Hašek, so I thought I’d carry on the theme and return, once again, to Drunkard’s Tales, Hašek’s boozy stories from old Prague...

Mr. Motejzlík’s Fatherly Delights concerns the eponymous new father and reprobate, who in the run up to the arrival of his son and heir, has been putting it about in the bars and shops around town that he’s already got a little boy at home. Realising that his wife might give birth to a girl, he back pedals and tells everyone it’s a daughter, then twins, then...

Finally, when the moment came that he was to become a father, he disappeared in the neighbourhood even though his in-laws were present, and at the pork butcher’s, the baker’s the chemist’s, in two pubs and one wine house claimed that it is a done thing, and again in his lying ways – a girl, boy – boy, girl – twins, triplets – boy, girl – girl, boy – to cut along story short he left himself a back door open. And when in the wine house he had his fifth glass of vermouth tucked inside, he exclaimed, “You don’t know how happy I am!” and went home.

Back at home, the drunken father is presented with the newborn:

When the midwife brought in the red infant, Mr. Motejzlík took hold of him and was in the hallway in a jiffy. He wanted to show it to the neighbours next door. They wrestled it away from him, and Mr. Motejzlík, shouting at the whole house in the quiet of the evening, “I have a son!” ran down and out to the restaurant opposite. There he ordered ten beers and told everyone he has a son. Since he told them half an hour ago that he had a daughter, an argument arose while Mr. Motejzlík was shouting, “I know better, it’s mine!”

The in-laws aren’t happy and show him the door, so Motejzlík spends the night on the toot, before trying to kip at a friend’s house. When this goes wrong (he sneaks in through a window and startles the man’s wife...) he creeps back home and sleeps on the sofa.

Still, Motejzlík is a doting father, if a little prone to festivities:

When somebody becomes a father, there are many little delights... What a great joy to note into your diary every gram that your offspring gains, slowly but surely, according to the implacable rules of nature. Then a new pleasure – your boy wants to drink. You take him to his mother and get back to your guests, take another bottle of cognac out of the cupboard, and while your little dear drinks, so do you and your guests to his health.

Once again, the in-laws show him the door and he ends up out on the pop. He comes back with a hare-brained idea that he wants his lad christened Hector, after the Trojan hero, but the family put the kibosh on that pretty quickly and tell him there’s no way the boy is having the same name as a butcher’s dog. Motejzlík storms off in a huff, but comes back a couple of days later, seemingly repentant:

Then he got ignored, shut in a room and when he spoke up at the door all contrite, “Could I please see my dear little son,” he received a curt answer, “When you sober up!” – “Sorry, I am really not drunk today, I would really like to see my own blood, dearest madam." The dearest mother-in-law did not answer and started to whistle an aria from the Huguenots, the part when they are starting to slaughter the Huguenots.

Father-in-law decides that Motejzlík is sober enough to make himself useful and sends him out to buy a pram, furnishing him with 150 crowns to fund the purchase. Motejzlík dutifully shops around, comparing prices and finally sits in a coffee shop working out which one is best value. Unable to decide, he goes back out to the street, only to find that it’s eight in the evening and all the shops are shut. The shadow of opprobrium has been cast on the night and he doesn’t dare go home:

All of a sudden Mr. Motejzlík began to feel the need to distract the thoughts of a hunted man with a jovial talk with his true friends, whom he saw daily at the restaurant U Zvěřinů in Košíře, whenever he managed to escape from home. So there he tried to banish his dismal thoughts with good beer, but still it was not the real thing, some excitement was needed to forget his sad lot.

Some wiseguy suggests a nightclub where they play cards, and before he knows what he’s doing, Motejzlík is changing a 100 crown note. Before long he’s down to his last 20 so he goes all in – “Everything for my little son!” – and scoops a monkey:

It was the next day around ten o’clock, when Mr. Motejzlík came back to his family and home. But in what condition!