The Magpie System
By ELIZAB ETH DAVID
AN organisation we could do with at Christ- mas time is one which would provide pack- ing depots—boutiques perhaps they would be called—places to which all one's miscellaneous presents could be taken, made up into seemly parcels and entrusted to the shop for postage or dispatch.
Parcel-wrapping stations in big stores are fine as far as they go but since one can hardly ask them to pack things bought in other shops, that isn't quite far enough. I w as thinking particularly about hampers of food and wine. The roof under which one would be able to buy everything one would like to put into such parcels doesn't exist; my hampers would be based on a lot of small things; some cheap, sonic less so; they would be Christmas stockings really, not hampers, and one rule would be that everything should be the very best of its kind, and that means you have to go to specialist shops, like, for instance, Moore Brothers (of the Brompton Road and Notting Hill) for coffee, three or four different kinds in labelled parcels (all ready-made hampers contain fine quality tea, which is all very well for friends abroad, but silly in England; you can buy good tea anywhere; good coffee is infinitely more rare) which would include Mocha, Java, Blue Moun- tain. Then there would be little packets, neat and gaudy, of those spices which are not always easy to come by even in a city which not all that long ago was the centre of the entire world spice trade.
The spice importing-exporting centre appears to have moved to North America, and the English supermarketcers (and how sensible of them) have been quick to see the possibilities of American- and Canadian-packed whole spices, such as coriander seeds, allspice berries, cumin and fennel seeds, cinnamon sticks and ginger root. As a matter of fact, by buying one large packet of pickling spice you get, if you can identify them, a good selection of these spices (not the cumin or fennel seeds, though) which grocers are always denying they have in stock. For a phial of fine whole saffron—even I wouldn't need a professional packer for that— a well-found chemist is the best bet. Then, inevitably, an expedition to Soho and Roche of 14 Old Compton Street, the only shop selling the envelopes of herbs dried and packed on the stalk—wild thyme, basil, thick fennel
twigs, which contain the right true essence of all the hills of Provence. And one could al worse than buy a gallon or two of their heautifLi olive oil, and decant it into clear wine °f liqueur bottles for presents.
Half the charm of the magpie system of shop ping is that one comes across unexpeet61,Y pretty and festive-looking things for so money; in the window of the Empire Sh°P in Sloane Street there is a pyramid of white eallwe sugar in rocky lumps, so irresistibly decoratiNi, that one would like to hang them on the tree' and inside the shop, by-passing the chaired3irkY goods which have somehow strayed in, are d3rt and dazzly genuine Indian chutneys, garnet bright Jamaican guava jelly, English clmtl'i', Scottish rowan and squat jars of shinytemon culee Indeed, to think no further than how to rfla'sA up hampers of jams and jellies, marmalade alw honey would still be to have and to give Plc° of entertainment. Dark French heather honey from the leallde5 is one which I know to be especially aromatirt and there must be some fifty more difIerCP0, kinds of honey at least to be bought in Lood-°,,,, Fortnum's seem to have the most dazill; choice; there can be found (if you dodge gift packs, the china beehives, the peasant tery) honey from. Hungary and Guatellia`„ California and Canada and Dalmatia, fast and Jamaica, from Mexico, Sicily, Greery Scotland, Italy, Ireland and Spain; and ev'ra aromatic flower of which one has ever hcand has apparently fed those bees; lime flow'rs, rosemary, acacia, wild thyme, white cl°,.rith orange blossom and lemon and wild roses. 'city all their colours and different degrees of °Olio or translucence, some creamy as white eortleto and some clear and golden as Château cl" from 13asl'e,tge and some bronze as. butterscotch, they bavc to allure which Christmas . presents alight the have. Three Kings' presents perhaps. JUSt „ier5 quality which things in ready-made-up halm-- hardly ever possess.
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Those bottles of indeterminate sherry and iks, Christmas puddings and tins of tea and freeY
cuits are survivals from the days when such things were distributed by Ladies Bountiful to old retainers, retired nannies and governesses and coachmen who would probably much rather have had a couple of bottles of gin. Well, wouldn't you? And really one would have to have quite a grievance against somebody before one felt impelled to give them a hamper—this is one from the list of a great West End store a year or two ago—containing one tin each of chicken, ox-tongue, steak, cocktail sausages, shrimps, ham, crab, dressed lobster and steak pie, plus one box of assorted cheese, and all cost- ing 63s. Then there was the writer of a handout 1 once received from a public relations firm flogging Italian tomato products whose Christ- mas hamper idea was for two tins of tomato juice packed in a beribboned wicker basket, price about 21s. as I remember, which would make, they ventured to suggest, a gift acceptable to 'elderly people or neighbours.' As Christmas approaches, people (and neighbours, too, I dare say) do tend to rather morbid ideas about others. But that bad?
I'm not sure about the precise technical dis- tinction between mushrooms and champignons, but Fortnum's hampers this year have come out in a rash of tinned champignon butter and champignon bisque; and here and there in the parcels directed at overseas customers are ready-
eady-
made crêpes Suzette brought over from the United States; perhaps pancakes travel excep- tionally well, and if they don't, they are, at any rate in Fortnumese, 'Conversation Pieces of memorable quality.' Harrods' man seems to have been bemused by dates in glove boxes and some- thing called Bakon Krisp; Selfridges are bent on spreading the joyful tidings that you can buy shoestring potatoes in tins; Barkers' cheese hampers would be rather sensible, except that Prize Dairy Stilton and Assorted Cheese Portions seem to make such unlikely basketfellows.
Inconsistency is characteristic of all Christmas hampers, but at least Christopher's, the wine mer- chants of 94 Jermyn Street, is one firm which has eliminated it from their Christmas lists this year. A case containing a bottle of Manzanilla and two tins of Spanish green olives stuffed with anchovies, all for 25s., makes sense; so does a bottle of Scrcial Madeira and two large jars of turtle soup for £2, and a bottle of cham- pagne, plus a tin of foie gras for two, at 45s., or a bottle of Club port and a jar of Stilton for 44s., are better value by a good deal than the contents of most store-chosen hampers, and since Messrs Christopher's also sell first- pressing Provence olive oil and Barton and Guestiers fine white wine vinegar, it shouldn't be beyond the ingenuity of their directors to devise a salad-making or kitchen case which would be cheap and imaginative.
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