And, as with anything in Dickens, it is the circumstance rather than the comestible that is most telling. "This is an observation rather than a rule," she laughs, "and there are lots of counter examples. While investigating this fascinating Dickensian nexus between food and morality, Vogler came up with her tea-good-coffee-bad theory. One scathing example of the latter can be found in Bleak House, where Jo, the wretched orphan boy who sweeps London's streets, munches on a "dirty bit of bread" while sitting on the doorstep of the grandiosely named Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The recipes are accompanied by literary essays on how Dickens - who experienced hunger and poverty when he was sent to work in a shoe-blacking factory at the age of 12 - used food not just for sensory and dramatic effect, but to provide crucial insights into individual character and expose social hypocrisy. Micawber's insolvency blues in David Copperfield. The recipes - updated for the modern cook - cover everything from the pork pie Pip stole for the convict Magwitch in Great Expectations to the roast goose and plum pudding from A Christmas Carol to the fragrant bowl of punch that helped dissolve Mr. In Dinner with Dickens, her elegantly produced new book, Vogler combines her twin passions for English food and Charles Dickens to recreate 60 Victorian dishes that feature either in his novels or his life. ![]() According to her, the good guys prefer tea while the dodgier ones plot and scheme over coffee. Not so fast, says British food historian Pen Vogler, who has a whimsical but rather wonderful theory to offer about the Victorian author's various characters' moral fiber based on who drinks what beverage. The eccentric, angelic, villainous and beguiling characters populating the teeming novels of Charles Dickens - whose birthday is today - are constantly inviting one another to tea.
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