What else would one drink while travelling?

Food by Lois

I was once again wandering through  Constance Spry’s cookery book, and came across a section on train food. Do they still have buffet cars on trains? Or are we all just served from a trolley?  Constance’s travels were very different from what most of us have ever or will ever experience. She was born in 1886, so her descriptions of train food come from a very, very different era. She died in 1960 and her book that I’m wandering through was published in 1956, co-authored by Rosemary Hume who was twenty years younger.

Constance instructs that ‘the primary qualification about such food (train food) is that it shall taste fresh and be really appetising. It should never bear the faintest trace of paper flavouring… sandwiches or bread and butter, and  chicken may each be wrapped in lettuce leaves to keep them away from napkins or wrapping paper…’ . She gives a delightful description of the first time she had a luncheon basket on a train – ‘ordered ahead by wire, it was brought to the carriage at some main-line station en-route.’ She was also brought a foot-warmer – ‘hair up, long skirts, luncheon basket, the Strand Magazine’  and on her way to her first ever house party. Obviously, every fan of Agatha Christie knows all about house parties of that era!

Constance shares details of a journey to the far north which obviously made a great impression on her:

Each of us was handed when we got into our sleepers,,a small, neat cardboard box containing two little screw-top cartons and  other small packages. In one carton was a perfectly fresh made lobster salad in a delicious dressing, the second carton contained fresh fruit salad of peaches, strawberries and orange. Crisp poppy-seed-sprinkled rolls were quartered and buttered, and a Porsan bag held the crisp heart of a cos lettuce. There were small cream cheese rolls made by taking two short pieces of celery, filling the hollow made when they were put together with cream cheese, and rolling the whole in brown bread and butter.

I imagine that Porsan bags were made from some sort of material or fabric which was grease-proof and maybe water-proof which were used as Constance describes. I can’t find any reference to them – Porsan now seems to be bathroom furniture, and also a name.

There were more train food ideas; Constance’s writing partner Rosemary also remembered lettuce leaves used for food wrapping, French bread sandwiches, carefully-picked watercress, salted water-biscuits, Camembert cheese (I guess they were in their own compartment!) ripe pears and a bottle of Claret. Well, what else would one drink while travelling? (I remember travelling with a bottle of vodka, and ditto Bacardi, but that’s another story!) Constance and Rosemary reminisced about hard-boiled eggs in their shells, of course, French rolls with the centre scooped out, buttered and filled with  a peeled and salted tomato and cold chicken, buttered ginger cake, and cheese.

They also recalled not so delicious train food – ‘a nasty one’ of hard-boiled eggs which had been shelled so they tasted ‘un-fresh’, tine sandwich-loaf bread, buttered but tasting of paper, and an un-English tomato tasting of nothing.

12 Comments

  1. Dorothy's New Vintage Kitchen
    Reply

    We haven’t traveled by Amtrak here since before Covid, but the dining was the high point of the day. White tablecloths, flowers on the table, and most importantly pretty good food! Beautiful salads, nicely cooked fish (and I’m picky) and the breakfasts were as good as the other meals, even had a vegan had chicken sausage alternatives.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Hamishmacneil
    Reply

    When I lived in France, all the sports shops ran skiing excursions at the weekends in winter. A coach would leave St Etienne at around 4 or 5 am, depending on the resort of the day, and they generally arrived at the foot of the slopes as the first chair lifts began to operate. I would have breakfasted before leaving, and made myself a simple sandwich, wrapped in film and stuffed in my knapsack, but I remember one gentleman, shortly after we got underway at about half past four, producing a baguette and a ceramic pot of ridiculously stinky pate which he proceeded to spread with a wooden-handled lock-knife, Frankly oblivious of all the other passengers, all washed down with half a bottle of claret. I can still smell the pate now, as it happens.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Milena Alien
    Reply

    In trains in Ukraine they always serve you hot black tea with sugar and lemon. Special glasses come with iron glass holders. If you are a student this is all you can afford. Also if you need food while traveling by train, try those babushkas selling their freshly cooked meals right on the platform. They are usually very good both meals and babushkas. So it makes you feel better for helping those older folks survive.
    For the richer ppl they have restaurant car in the train, I have never eaten there and heard mixed reviews about the quality. Traditional train food is chicken and champagne.

    Liked by 1 person

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