Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Beer in Literature - Restorative Porter

I post occasional references to beer I find in books I read. The older I get, the more I like Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I don't read it every year, but watch various versions on TV and listen to Neil Gaiman's abridged audio version. This year, I caught this passage from when Scrooge is with the Ghost of Christmas Past:

When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But, scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

Who among us has not felt the restorative power of a face plunge into a pot of porter! 

Fiddler and his pot of porter overlooking the Fizziwigs' Christmas Party
Photo from VictorianWeb.org


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