From the Diogenes club to Country Inns: Dining with Holmes and Watson

by Steve Connelly

Whenever I reread the canonical tales, one of my favourite aspects are the references to food and drink. It is easy, at a glance, to think Sherlock Holmes had little time for food. He was, after all, a man for whom the intellect eclipsed every earthly need. When the game was afoot, his appetite vanishes and only cases devour his attention, and so he might go twelve or twenty four hours regularly without so much as a crust. 
Yet upon closer inspection of the Canon, those stories, mostly penned by Dr Watson, contain many references to food; not as ornament, but as backdrop, atmosphere and mirror. Meals, though rarely the focus, reflect the world of Baker Street in all its contrasts: London and the countryside, the professional and the domestic, the appetites of the clients and the noticeable abstinence from the great detective. 
Breakfast at Baker Street is the meal we most often encounter, albeit with a central theme of ham and eggs and in both the Naval treaty and  Sign of Four being served. In The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb, Watson treats Mr Hatherley’s wound at his practice before taking him to Baker street. When there, meeting Holmes, Watson describes the scene as follows (he)… received us in his quietly genial fashion, ordered fresh rashers and eggs, and joined us in a hearty meal. In the second stain we observe breakfast acting as a conduit for the story with Dr Watson reading the newspaper to Holmes… “What do you think of that, Holmes?' I had read the account aloud to him, while he finished his breakfast”.
In these meals there is a sense of domestic rhythm, even if Holmes only respects it intermittently. When not working on a case, he might join Watson at the table, poring over the agony columns while a pot of warm coffee lies gently nearby. In The retired Colourman we find that Holmes has already dined and left, Watson finding evidence of toast crumbs and two empty egg shells.
The Victorian breakfast is a domestic scene straight from the pages of Mrs. Beeton: eggs certainly, bacon, cold ham, buttered toast, and coffee—respectable, filling, and proper. These were the staples of the Victorian middle-class breakfast, the meal most tied to a sense of household order. The full English breakfast, in the form we now recognize—bacon, eggs, sausages, grilled tomato, mushrooms, toast, was still evolving in Holmes’s time. But its elements were already established. A Victorian breakfast might also include devilled kidneys, kedgeree (a rice and smoked fish dish of Anglo-Indian origin), broiled herrings, or cold chicken. Holmes’s breakfasts are usually perfunctory, but when Watson joins him, one imagines fuller fare. 
Holmes, for his part, had an ambivalent relationship with food. When absorbed in thought, he might forget to eat altogether. In The Norwood Builder, Watson notes My friend had no breakfast himself, for it was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food, and I have known him presume upon his iron strength until he has fainted from pure inanition. 'At present I cannot spare energy and nerve force for digestion’.
Holmes, however, would have been most familiar with the cold supper of the refined bachelor: simple, tasteful, and convenient. Cold game such as partridge or pheasant, served garnished with herbs and accompanied by wine, was typical of an upper-middle-class meal in late Victorian London. When Holmes and Dr Watson return to Mrs St Clair’s home in the man with the man with the  Twisted lip they find a Cold Supper awaiting them.
It required foresight and proper storage; perhaps potted in lard, perhaps kept under a bell jar in the pantry and, crucially, it required the invisible labour of Mrs. Hudson. Holmes may have viewed food with indifference, but someone had to keep the tray warm and the wine cellar stocked.
Mrs. Hudson appears only briefly in the stories, but her presence is constant. She brings the morning post, maintains the fire, clears the trays. It is she who ensures that, whether or not Holmes eats, the food is always there. In The Dying Detective, Holmes fakes a grave illness to trap a murderer, and food, or the lack of it drives the plot as his malnutrition accelerates his outward  emaciated appearance and apparent demise.
Holmes’s refusal to eat is often a way of exerting control and a belief that his detective skills are enhanced by abstinence. 
Watson, in contrast, has a more affectionate and grounded relationship with food. He eats with appetite. His own meals are usually taken in company: with Holmes, with clients, with friends. He enjoys the rituals of tea and one suspects, the comfort of a good dinner.
However, Holmes also shows his gourmet side in the Noble Bachelor when he arranges a cold supper for Lord St. Simon: woodcock, pheasant, pâté de foie gras pie, vintage wine. This is not merely a meal, but a display. Cold suppers were the Victorian solution to elaborate hospitality without the need for hot service. They might also involve a parade of other game birds, terrines, galantines, and jellied eggs, all set out on silver salvers. That Holmes can summon such a meal at short notice speaks to his social flexibility and practical authority.