Judith Schrut has a taste of Food Glorious Food at the Charles Dickens Museum. No need to ask for more.
Everyone knows about ‘big hitters’ like the Tate and the British Museum, but did you know London’s chock full of small, charming and intimate museums and art galleries as well?
One of my favourites is the Charles Dickens Museum, set in the only remaining home of the beloved Victorian writer and social activist. In this renovated Georgian terraced house on a Bloomsbury back street, you can experience the sights, sounds and living spirit of the man, explore the family home of the writer, his wife Catherine and several of their 10 children, the furnished rooms where Dickens dined and entertained many famous guests and the working rooms where he wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. From more than 100,000 treasures in the Museum’s collection, you can view original manuscripts and drawings, his writing desk and more unusual items such as a commode (chair with a concealed chamber pot) and hip bath. If you’ve time to linger, the Museum’s cozy garden café is ideal for sipping hot chocolate and sampling some enticing cakes.
The Museum’s new exhibition, Food Glorious Food: Dinner with Dickens, highlights the importance of food throughout Dickens work and life, and the haunting hunger of his childhood that remained a deep secret until after he died. If you’ve ever read A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield or Oliver Twist, with their vivid descriptions of dinner tables groaning with roast turkey, plum pudding and holiday punch, pork pies and sherry by an open fire, and starving orphans begging for a spoonful more gruel, it’s clear that food and drink were mighty important to Dickens. But Dickens wrote about food not just as sustenance, he also understood its deeper emotional and moral meaning. He strongly believed that rich and poor alike had the right to share and enjoy food and drink, and that every child deserved the security of good meals provided by a kind and loving person.
Food Glorious Food: Dinner with Dickens runs until 22 April 2019 at the Charles Dickens Museum, 48 Doughty Street, WC1N 2LX. Museum, shop and cafe open every day except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Museum tickets £4.50-£9.50, children under six free. Find out more at dickensmuseum.com.
