by Alan Cordova

It's a tough time to be in the food and drink business. Restaurants are suffering, and shoplifting at grocery stores has become the new entrepreneurship.

However, while various financial indices — such as the Fed Funds Rate or the price of container shipping — have gone to zero, we have yet to see eating standards bottom out.

Until now, that is.

 

Last Tuesday in London, the Royal Society of Chemistry re-created the workhouse gruel that Charles Dickens imagines Oliver Twist eating to survive grinding poverty and served it for free in its courtyard. Critics were mixed: the society itself described the onion/oats/milk concoction as "barely palatable," but "several of the passers-by thought the gruel tasted quite good." And, of course, "A Mr Bumble character was even on hand to 'eject' any diner who, like Oliver, dared to ask for an extra helping."

Nevertheless, the slop was popular — hordes of people queued up for a taste of what life was like during recessions long ago.