http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.c...inner-for-250/


December 14, 2009

The Way We Ate: Christmas Dinner for $2.50

By MICHELE HUMES


"For more than a century and a half, The New York Times has been recording
the pleasures and prejudices of the American palate. "The Way We Ate" is a
weekly tasting menu of vintage food writing from The Times's archives.

If O. Henry had tried his hand at food writing, he might have produced
something like "A Joyous Christmas Dinner in Poverty Flat." Published in The
New York Times in December, 1907, the article isn't just a game plan for a
budget Christmas dinner. It's an exceptionally cheesy love story, with
recipes.

The piece is unsigned, so we don't know for a fact that he didn't write it.
We do know that he was living in New York City when it ran, and that the
story is reminiscent of one he'd published only a year earlier. That tale,
"The Gift of the Magi," also centers on a pair of New York newlyweds facing
a cash-strapped Christmas.

With all the warm characterization and tender dialog you'd expect from O.
Henry, "Poverty Flat" tells the story of a young bride's first Christmas
dinner. Despite questionable cooking skills and limited means, she is
determined to give her husband, Jack, a proper Christmas feast. After
consulting "every available cookbook" and scouring Washington Market for
bargains, our heroine decides on a menu:

OUR $2.50 DINNER

Olives.
Celery. Radishes.
Cream of Celery Soup.
Roast Duck, Sage Stuffing.
Creamed Potato. Mashed Sweet Potato.
Boiled Onions, Butter Sauce.
Crown of Japan on Toast.
Apple Sauce.
Endive Salad, French Dressing.
Apple Pie. American Cheese.
Christmas Plum Pudding, Hard Sauce.
Nuts. Raisins. Figs.
Coffee.


Christmas morning arrives, and Jack is promptly banished from the
apartment-his wife doesn't want him to see all those cookbooks. The reader,
however, may stay and observe her preparations, which she describes so
thoroughly that they form usable recipes: Celery soup is enriched with a
quart of scalded milk and a quantity of butter "a trifle larger than a hen's
egg"; three finely-chopped onions go into a bread stuffing for the
centerpiece duck.

Jack returns that afternoon with their friend, Mary, and the trio sit down
to a modest but delicious dinner. Future Christmases will be richer, our
time-traveling narrator reassures us, when Jack finds success as a writer,
and Mary triumphs on the stage. But tonight, all that Jack and his wife
could need is contained within the four walls of Poverty Flat.

It's a departure, to be sure, from O. Henry's trademark twist ending. But
the short story master, sentimental to a fault, would have approved..."

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