How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part, and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town. Where, then, lies the difference between the food of the nobleman and the porter, if both are at dinner on the same ox or calf, but in the seasoning, the dressing, the garnishing, and the setting forth? Hence the one provokes and incites the most languid appetite, and the other turns and palls that which is the sharpest and keenest.
In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up. […] In like manner, we shall represent human nature at first to the keen appetite of our reader, in that more plain and simple manner in which it is found in the country, and shall hereafter hash and ragoo it with all the high French and Italian seasoning of affectation and vice which courts and cities afford. By these means, we doubt not but our reader may be rendered desirous to read on for ever, as the great person just above-mentioned is supposed to have made some persons eat. (1.1.7-8)
Basically, the narrator uses food as a metaphor to explain why it's okay that Tom Jones jumps between lower class and upper class characters. Since the subject of Tom Jones is supposed to be human nature, that means all humans, no matter what their social positions. By reading about "plain things" (rough characters with gross habits), you will appreciate "the very quintessence of sauces and spices" (the characters with well-balanced and decent qualities) even more once you get to them. The narrator's message seems to be that class is mostly a matter of custom and education (and money) rather than real distinctions among people, which is pretty liberal for late eighteenth-century England.
Quote #2
Sure master might have made some difference, methinks, between me and the other servants. I suppose he hath left me mourning; but, i'fackins! if that be all, the devil shall wear it for him, for me. I'd have his worship know I am no beggar. I have saved five hundred pound in his service, and after all to be used in this manner. —It is a fine encouragement to servants to be honest; and to be sure, if I have taken a little something now and then, others have taken ten times as much; and now we are all put in a lump together. If so be that it be so, the legacy may go to the devil with him that gave it. (5.8.1)
All of Mrs. Wilkins's nasty feelings in this passage basically arise from the fact that Squire Allworthy won't leave her as much money as she feels she deserves in his will. We can't help but think, reading this, that it shows one of the major problems of any relationship between a master and a domestic servant. Mrs. Wilkins is an intimate part of Squire Allworthy's life. She has looked after Squire Allworthy's household for years and she has also helped to raise Tom. But she will never actually be a member of the family. She is still just a servant, and he treats her as such in his will. So, in a weird sort of way, by trying to be nice to Mrs. Wilkins and to blur the lines between master and servant, Squire Allworthy has actually made her more resentful of her position in his family than if he had kept more rigid discipline.
Quote #3
[Wine] heightens and inflames our passions (generally indeed that passion which is uppermost in our mind), so that the angry temper, the amorous, the generous, the good-humoured, the avaricious, and all other dispositions of men, are in their cups heightened and exposed.
And yet as no nation produces so many drunken quarrels, especially among the lower people, as England (for indeed, with them, to drink and to fight together are almost synonymous terms), I would not, methinks, have it thence concluded, that the English are the worst-natured people alive. Perhaps the love of glory only is at the bottom of this; so that the fair conclusion seems to be, that our countrymen have more of that love, and more of bravery, than any other plebeians. And this the rather, as there is seldom anything ungenerous, unfair, or ill-natured, exercised on these occasions: nay, it is common for the combatants to express good-will for each other even at the time of the conflict; and as their drunken mirth generally ends in a battle, so do most of their battles end in friendship. (5.9.10)
So, as you may have noticed, there is a lot of drinking going on in this book. But while Fielding mostly seems interested in the hilarious possibilities of drinking too much, alcohol also caused huge social rifts during his lifetime in the early 1700s. This subtle association between (a) poverty, (b) social disorder, and (c) booze seems to underlie the narrator's claim that, "no nation produces so many drunken quarrels, especially among the lower people, as England." (We're assuming that, by "lower people," the narrator means working class people. Not, like, mole people who enjoy living below ground.)
What's interesting about the book's approach to this issue is that, instead of finishing off this passage with a lecture—"in conclusion, drinking is bad and leads to fighting!"—the narrator just says, well, most of those drunken fights are friendly anyway. It's all in good fun!