LORD MAYOR'S BANQUET

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 151, 23 December 1929, Page 3

LORD MAYOR'S BANQUET

3IONAKCHS AT THE

FEAST

A GEORGIAN MENU

Although many feasts had been held in Guildhall of the City of London, it was not until the year 1501 that the Lord Mayor's annual banquet was served there, writes A. J. Fawley in the "Daily Telegraph." Till that time the tables had been set in the halls of the City Companies. It was the guilds which subscribed towards the cost of installing kitchens at Guildhall, and the first Mayor, to celebrate his election to the chair beneath the historic roof was Sir John Shaa, or Shaw, who had been knighted on Bosworth Field by the victor. Judging by the variety of dishes on the early menus, there was good reason for the service held in Guildhall Chapel before the feast, "to deprecate indigestions and all plethoric ills." Ben Johnson, who was Chronologer to the City recorded how the jester would "skip with a rhyme" on to the table, take a leap into a huge bowl of custard, and make my Lady Mayoress and her sisters laugh all their hoods over their shoulders. " ■ A FOREIGNER'S WONDER. Dr. Gottfried yon Bulow went to Giuldhall when 'the new megger or burgomaster"—a quaint designation for my Lord Mayor—was chosen in 1584. _ There were sixty tables, and "behind a curtain we saw the megger's table, arranged in a stately manner. "We were conducted into two other rooms, four tables being placed in each. In the first we found a great many young ladies dining, in the other as many married ladies, many of them very fine looking. We went to the kitchens. In the first, meat was roasting on eight fires, in the second only boilnd dishes were prepared, and in the third pastry of different kinds." The foreigner was impressed by the civic magnificence of Elizabethan days. Samuel Pepys attended the banquet in 1663, and "went up and down to see the tables, where under every salt was a bill of fare." In accordance with the custom, of the period he took his own spoon and fork, complained of a lack of napkins, knives, and clean plates, and of having to use earthen pitchers and wooden dishes. Plenty of wine was provided, but it happened to be a time at which Pepys was not taking it. "Many were the tables," he wrote, "but none but the Mayor's and the Lords of the Privy Council that had napkins or knives, which was very strange.'' Queen Anne graced the banquet of 1702, which involved an expenditure of £2000, and 'King George I. that of 1714, when he was so delighted that he said he would give £1000 for the relief of poor debtors. ORTOLANS AND KNOTTS. George 111. attended with his Queen nn 1761, when the outlay on the feast reached the great sum of £6898 5s 4d. The ladies in waiting on the Queen claimed to sit with.her at table, but this was overruled. The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. were less pretentious, taking up positions behind .the chairs of Their Majesties, who graciously insisted that they should be seated. The banquet started at 9 p.m., and the King and his Consort arrived home at 1 a.m. The menu has been preserved:— First Service: Venison, turtle soup, fish of every sort—viz., dorys, mullets, turbots, tench, soles, etc. Second Service: A fine roast, ortolans, teals, quails, ruffs, knotts, penchicks, snipes, partridges, pheasants, etc. Third Service: Vegetables and made dishes, green peas, green morelles, green truffles, cardoons, artichokes, ducks' tongues, fat livers, etc. Fourth Service: Curious ornaments in pastries, jellies, blomonges, in variety of shapes, figures, and colour. "Nothing was so scarce a 8 water" at this "most splendid, most elegant, most sumptuous, and best-conducted entertainment of any that has been given in this kingdom in the memory of man, end did honour to the munificence and taste of the great and ancient City of London," so a contemporary assures us. The fare certainly contrasted strikingly with the banquet of 1706, at which the claret cost 18d a bottle. Queen Victoria attended the Lord Mayor's Banquet in 1837, the year of her accession, when 700 sat down.