On the middle shelf, one chipped eggcup containing pepper,
The 61st Cast. Page 552, line 312.
On the middle shelf a chipped eggcup containing pepper, a drum of table salt, four conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an empty pot of Plumtree’s potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre and containing one Jersey pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and Co’s white invalid port, half disrobed of its swathe of coralpink tissue paper, a packet of Epps’s soluble cocoa, five ounces of Anne Lynch’s choice tea at 2/- per lb in a crinkled leadpaper bag, a cylindrical canister containing the best crystallised lump sugar, two onions, one, the larger, Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish, bisected with augmented surface and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model Dairy’s cream, a jug of brown crockery containing a naggin and a quarter of soured adulterated milk, converted by heat into water, acidulous serum and semisolidified curds, which added to the quantity subtracted for Mr Bloom’s and Mrs Fleming’s breakfasts, made one imperial pint, the total quantity originally delivered, two cloves, a halfpenny and a small dish containing a slice of fresh ribsteak.
As in the previous post, this is Episode 17. The whole of Episode 17 proceeds in the form of question and answer. This passage comes immediately after the one discussed in Cast 11 of this blog. It is the answer to the question of what was inside the open kitchen cupboard in Bloom’s house, and here the items on the middle shelf are listed one by one.
It is, on the face of it, merely a list of household contents, but in terms of the meaning it carries within Ulysses, it becomes a miniature of the Bloom household, and an extraordinarily rich one. Let us look at it item by item.
1. The contents of the middle shelf
As we saw in Cast 11, there are four eggcups on the top shelf. They were probably originally part of a set of six. One had its rim chipped, so it is being used as a pepper holder. This morning, when preparing his own breakfast, Mr. Bloom pinched pepper from it.（U51.279）
In Episode 18, Bloom’s wife Molly remembers that there are still a few olives in the kitchen.（U641.1481）
In section 5 of Episode 10, Boylan has a bottle and a wide-mouthed jar—namely Plumtree’s potted meat—packed into a wicker basket at the fruit shop, wrapped in pink tissue paper. Pears and peaches are then arranged on top and sent to Molly. Which means that he and Molly ate the potted meat together in the Bloom marital bed that day.
Plumtree’s potted meat is one of the most famous props in Ulysses. I will come back to it in more detail later.
The blond girl in Thornton’s bedded the wicker basket with rustling fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper and a small jar.
—Put these in first, will you? he said.
—Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top.
（U187.299-）
What Boylan had packed at the fruit shop has now been put away here.
The words bedded and disrobed seem to have been chosen with Boylan and Molly’s tryst in mind.
The Jersey pear is a French pear variety called Louise Bonne of Jersey. It is said to have reached Britain by way of Jersey, hence the name.
_-_Louise_bonne_de_Jersey.jpg)
File:Hedrick (1921) - Louise bonne de Jersey.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
William Gilbey and Co. was a Dublin wine and spirits merchant, but I have not been able to determine whether it was run by relatives of Walter Gilbey (1831–1914), founder of W&A Gilbey, the famous Gilbey company known for gin and vodka.
The word invalid comes from the fact that Boylan asked for the goods to be sent as if they were for a sick person (“It’s for an invalid”).Though Boylan certainly bought it under that pretext, it should be added that in the 1890s the London firm Gilbey’s actually marketed a product called “Gilbey’s Invalid Port,” advertised as beneficial to health. So this was indeed an actual product name.
Later on, Mr. Bloom will make cocoa for Stephen, whom he has brought home, and the two of them will drink it together. It is likely that he opened this cupboard in order to prepare that cocoa.
Epps’s cocoa was a commercial cocoa product associated with Dr. John Epps (1805–1869), the son of a prosperous Calvinist food merchant in London, and himself an English physician, phrenologist, and pioneer of homeopathy.
Cocoa became popular in the early years of the twentieth century as a nourishing and fortifying drink. Since it contains neither caffeine nor alcohol, cocoa is a very Bloom-like beverage in its health-consciousness.
“2/-” is a money notation meaning 2 shillings. “lb” is a unit of weight meaning pound.
One pound is about 453 grams. Two shillings in 1904 would be worth roughly £8 today, or about 1,200 yen.
Anne Lynch was a tea merchant in Dublin. Beyond that, I have not been able to find out much. This morning Mr. Bloom made tea for both Molly and himself. Since it is tea for Molly to drink, it is choice tea, that is, tea of good quality.
I am not sure what “leadpaper” is. Dictionaries gloss it as something like “lead foil paper,” but I wonder whether it literally means paper lined with a foil of lead.
This morning Mr. Bloom served sugar with the tea for both of them, but since Molly uses it too, the sugar is of good quality.
I think the Spanish onion corresponds to Molly, who is from Gibraltar, while the Irish onion corresponds to Mr. Bloom, who was born in Dublin.
Irish Model Dairy probably refers to Albert Agricultural College, which was founded for the purpose of modern agricultural education.
The cream jar would have looked something like this:
This morning Mr. Bloom served tea with sugar and cream, but he says explicitly that the cream is for Molly.
Everything on it? Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes.
（U51.298）
In Episode 8, Nolan mentions that he saw Bloom buying cream for Molly the day before yesterday.
It’s not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day before yesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan’s wife has in Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand taking it home to his better half. She’s well nourished, I tell you. Plovers on toast.
（U145.951）
The cream seems to be reserved for Molly alone, and to be something relatively expensive and of good quality.
A naggin is an Irish English term for a small bottle of liquor. Originally it seems to have meant a quantity of 0.25 imperial pint (about 140 ml). Here it is clearly being used as a unit of volume.
Bacteria in milk break down the sugar lactose and produce lactic acid, which is what makes milk sour. As the lactic acid acidifies the milk, the casein molecules in it begin to coagulate and precipitate. That is why spoiled milk separates.
Mrs. Fleming is the charwoman or housekeeper who comes in to work at the Bloom household. The milk appears to be drunk by Mr. Bloom, Mrs. Fleming, and the cat, but not by Molly. That may be why the milk is of poor quality.
Molly uses cloves as a breath freshener.（U233.1057）
This may well be something Molly has set aside for Mr. Bloom’s supper.
2. Plumtree’s potted meat
Now to Plumtree’s potted meat. It appears repeatedly in this novel.
When Bloom meets McCoy in the street, he opens his newspaper and notices the Plumtree advertisement. Presumably he had been trying to look at the obituary notices because Dignam’s funeral is taking place that day.
He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly:
What is home without
Plumtree’s Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.
（U61.145）
Looking at Healey’s stationery advertisement, Bloom thinks that Healey’s ideas for advertisements are as bad as the potted-meat ad placed under the obituary notices. Since Bloom works in advertising, he is naturally interested in ads.
His ideas for ads like Plumtree’s potted under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can’t lick ’em.
（U127.139）
As Bloom wonders what to eat in the pub, he recalls the Plumtree’s potted meat advertisement under the obituary notices. His chain of association then develops into thoughts of the flesh of the dead and even cannibalism.
Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham and his descendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is home without Plumtree’s potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam’s potted meat. Cannibals would with lemon and ric
（U140.743-）
In Bloom’s hallucination scene, he is holding pork and mutton in his hands, and when Mrs. Breen, an old flame, asks what it is, he recalls the Plumtree’s potted meat advertisement.
BLOOM: (Offhandedly.) Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without potted meat is incomplete. I was at Leah, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Rattling good place round there for pigs’ feet. Feel.
（U364.495）
The present passage.（U552.312）
As an example of an advertisement that should never have existed, Plumtree’s potted meat is cited. This is followed by a detailed description of the product.
Such as never?
What is home without Plumtree’s Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23 Merchants’ quay, Dublin, put up in 4 oz pots, and inserted by Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti, M. P., Rotunda Ward, 19 Hardwicke street, under the obituary notices and anniversaries of deceases. The name on the label is Plumtree. A plumtree in a meatpot, registered trade mark. Beware of imitations. Peatmot. Trumplee. Moutpat. Plamtroo.
（U560.597-）
When Bloom gets into bed, what he feels is described. Breadcrumbs and flakes of potted meat have been left behind in the bed.
What did his limbs, when gradually extended, encounter?
New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form, female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs, some flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed.
（U601.2126）
In Molly Bloom’s half-dreaming consciousness, she remembers that during the day she drank port and ate potted meat with Boylan.
after the last time after we took the port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste yes
（U611.132）
In this novel, Plumtree’s potted meat seems to carry the following meanings:
1. As an advertisement placed under the obituary notices in the newspaper, it evokes burial and the flesh of the dead.
2. As the food eaten by Molly and Boylan in the Bloom marital bed, it becomes a symbol of their adulterous meeting.
It also seems to be linked to the Book of Exodus.
In Ulysses, the phrase “fleshpots of Egypt” appears several times. Stephen uses it in Episode 3（U35.177）and Episode 9（U171.884）, Bloom in Episode 5（U70.548）, and Bloom’s grandfather Virag Lipoti in Episode 15（U419.2365）.
Originally, the phrase comes from the Old Testament Book of Exodus (16:3), where the Israelites, having left Egypt under Moses, run out of food in the wilderness and complain that in Egypt they had once sat by the fleshpots and eaten well. The “fleshpots of Egypt” represent imagined luxury, sensual satisfaction, or desire.
And at the end of Episode 7, on the way from the newspaper office to the pub, the title of the parable told by Stephen is “A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of The Plums”. (Mount Pisgah, of course, is the mountain from which Moses, after the Exodus, looked out toward the Promised Land.)
I think Plumtree is being linked both with the “fleshpots of Egypt” and with “The Parable of the Plums.”
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