neandermagnon[/QUOTE]I would find Ebenezer Scrooge eating curry to be somewhat anachronistic, and not at all fitting with his character. Granted that curry wasn't unheard of by the British at this time, but it didn't become an integral part of British cuisine until the 20th century. Scrooge doesn't strike me as someone who'd venture outside of mainstream British cuisine and he hasn't spent any time in India so why would he ever eat curry? I think he'd find the idea of eating a dish from some distant part of the British Empire that he's got no interest in to be a ridiculous extravagance. He was a miser. He probably dined on bread and dripping like a poor person to avoid spending much money. In the book he initially blames the appearance of Marley's ghost on an indigestible bit of cheese (i.e. too miserly to even buy a decent cheese).[/QUOTE]
To answer your question “why would he ever eat curry?” is very simple - it was cheap and nutritious. The City of London, where Scrooge worked borders the East End of London and the London Docks. Spices and other ‘exotic’ food stuffs were unloaded there for centuries. Many exotic foods were first introduced to England by knights retuning from the Crusades – indeed one of the earliest English cookery books, written in 1390,[FONT="] [/FONT]The Forme of cury “is the first English text to mention olive oil, cloves, mace and gourds in relation to British food. Most of the recipes contain what were then luxurious and valuable spices: caraway, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger and pepper. There are also recipes for cooking strange and exotic animals, such as whales, cranes, curlews, herons, seals and porpoises.”
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/texts/cook/medieval/pygghome/pygg.html
In medieval times pottages were sometimes seasoned with spices “– these were an extra source of flavouring but as they had to be imported, they were expensive and usually only affordable by the rich. The most common spices used in pottage included cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. Saffron strands were sometimes used to add colour and an extra exotic flavour saffron was the most expensive of all spices imported.”
http://www.medieval-recipes.com/recipes/pottage/
There is a long history of spices being used to flavour food.
The first curry house opened in London in 1810.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4290124.stm
[/QUOTE] I would associate curry eating in this era with extravagant people who have lived many years in the colonies and miss it, who are rich enough to buy the spices (and likely employ someone to cook it for them too) and ostentatious rich people who like to serve food from the colonies as a way of showing off how wealthy, cultured and well-travelled they are. Scrooge is not even close to being any of those. [/QUOTE]
Scrooge was too mean to employ a cook so he probably had his evening meal – or lunch – at a chop house or a curry house. He may not have been cultured of well travelled, but he was wealthy. It may have been nabobs who would show off, the Upper Ten Thousand would have not needed to.
[/QUOTE] I was thinking of opium when I read the OP and I second the suggestion of laudanum. You wouldn't even need to have someone spike his food/drink with this, as it was commonly prescribed by doctors before they fully understood the dangers. It's likely a miserable old sod like Scrooge would probably have kept laudanum at home for whatever ailments he suffered (probably quite a few niggly ones made worse by being generally miserable). If it's important for your plot that someone spikes his food/drink, then maybe he's given laudanum by someone that's got a higher than usual opium and/or alcohol content (e.g. mixed with strong gin) - be careful not to make it so much stronger that it would kill him.
Scrooge may have had laudanum prescribed to him by a doctor for something that sounds utterly ridiculous nowadays. For example Aleister Crowley (who lived a bit later, i.e. late 19th and early 20th century) was prescribed heroin (or another strong opiate?) for asthma. So if you want Scrooge to have a reason for having laudanum in the house... a doctor or chemist recommending it for just about any medical reason you like (no matter how dangerous it would be considered nowadays) would be plausible in this era. [/QUOTE]
I did research laudanum, but it would not fit in with the plot I have in mind. It has to be something that would be free.
Thanks for your input.
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