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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18526-8.txt b/18526-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7db97c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/18526-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1412 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Eating in Two or Three Languages, by Irvin S. Cobb + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Eating in Two or Three Languages + +Author: Irvin S. Cobb + +Release Date: June 7, 2006 [EBook #18526] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship, Sankar +Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +of Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + + + + + + + + + [Illustration: NO RED MEATS, BUT ONLY SEA FOODS] + + + _Eating_ + + _in Two or Three_ + + _Languages_ + + + + _By_ + + _Irvin S. Cobb_ + + _Author of_ + _"Paths of Glory," "Those Times and These," etc._ + + + + + _New York_ + _George H. Doran Company_ + + +COPYRIGHT, 1919, +BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + +COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + + * * * * * + + +TO + +B.B. McALPIN, ESQUIRE, + +WHO KNOWS A LOT + +ABOUT EATING + + * * * * * + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +No Red Meats, but Only Sea Foods. _Frontispiece_ + +"Herb, Stand Back! Stand Well Back to Avoid Being Splashed!" + +Half a Dozen Times a Night or Oftener He Travelled under Escort +through the Room + + + + +_Eating in Two or Three Languages_ + + +On my way home from overseas I spent many happy hours mapping out a +campaign. To myself I said: "The day I land is going to be a great day +for some of the waiters and a hard day on some of the cooks. Persons +who happen to be near by when I am wrestling with my first ear of +green corn will think I am playing on a mouth organ. My behaviour in +regard to hothouse asparagus will be reminiscent of the best work of +the late Bosco. In the matter of cantaloupes I rather fancy I shall +consume the first two on the half shell, or _au naturel_, as we +veteran correspondents say; but the third one will contain about as +much vanilla ice cream as you could put in a derby hat. + +[Illustration: "HERB, STAND BACK! STAND WELL BACK TO AVOID BEING +SPLASHED!"] + +"And when, as I am turning over my second piece of fried chicken, with +Virginia ham, if H. Hoover should crawl out from under it, and, +shaking the gravy out of his eyes, should lift a warning hand, I shall +say to him: 'Herb,' I shall say, 'Herb, stand back! Stand well back +to avoid being splashed, Herb. Please desist and do not bother me now, +for I am busy. Kindly remember that I am but just returned from over +there and that for months and months past, as I went to and fro across +the face of the next hemisphere that you'll run into on the left of +you if you go just outside of Sandy Hook and take the first turn to +the right, I have been storing up a great, unsatisfied longing for the +special dishes of my own, my native land. Don't try, I pray you, to +tell me a patriot can't do his bit and eat it too, for I know better. + +"'Shortly I may be in a fitter frame of mind to listen to your +admonitions touching on rationing schemes; but not to-day, and +possibly not to-morrow either, Herb. At this moment I consider food +regulations as having been made for slaves and perhaps for the run of +other people; but not for me. As a matter of fact, what you may have +observed up until now has merely been my preliminary attack--what you +might call open warfare, with scouting operations. But when they +bring on the transverse section of watermelon I shall take these two +trenching tools which I now hold in my hands, and just naturally start +digging in. I trust you may be hanging round then; you'll certainly +overhear something.' + +"'Kindly pass the ice water. That's it. Thank you. Join me, won't you, +in a brimming beaker? It may interest you to know that I am now on my +second carafe of this wholesome, delicious and satisfying beverage. +Where I have lately been, in certain parts of the adjacent continent, +there isn't any ice, and nobody by any chance ever drinks water. +Nobody bathes in it either, so far as I have been able to note. You'll +doubtless be interested in hearing what they do do with it over on +that side. It took me months to find out. + +"'Then finally, one night in a remote interior village, I went to an +entertainment in a Y.M.C.A. hut. A local magician came out on the +platform; and after he had done some tricks with cards and +handkerchiefs which were so old that they were new all over again, he +reached up under the tails of his dress coat and hauled out a big +glass globe that was slopping full of its crystal-pure fluid contents, +with a family of goldfish swimming round and round in it, as happy as +you please. + +"'So then, all in a flash, the answer came and I knew the secret of +what the provincials in that section of Europe do with water. They +loan it to magicians to keep goldfish in. But I prefer to drink a +little of it while I am eating and to eat a good deal while I am +drinking it; both of which, I may state, I am now doing to the best of +my ability, and without let or hindrance, Herb.'" + +To be exactly correct about it, I began mapping out this campaign long +before I took ship for the homeward hike. The suggestion formed in my +mind during those weeks I spent in London, when the resident +population first went on the food-card system. You had to have a meat +card, I think, to buy raw meat in a butcher shop, and you had to have +another kind of meat card, I know, to get cooked meat in a +restaurant; and you had to have a friend who was a smuggler or a +hoarder to get an adequate supply of sugar under any circumstances. +Before I left, every one was carrying round a sheaf of cards. You +didn't dare go fishing if you had mislaid your worm card. + +The resolution having formed, it budded and grew in my mind when I was +up near the Front gallantly exposing myself to the sort of +table-d'hôte dinners that were available then in some of the lesser +towns immediately behind the firing lines; and it kept right on +growing, so that by the time I was ready to sail it was full sized. En +route, I thought up an interchangeable answer for two of the oldest +conundrums of my childhood, one of them being: "Round as a biscuit, +busy as a bee; busiest thing you ever did see," and the other, "Opens +like a barn door, shuts like a trap; guess all day and you can't guess +that." In the original versions the answer to the first was "A watch," +and to the second, "A corset"--if I recall aright But the joint +answer I worked out was as follows: "My face!" + +Such was the pleasing program I figured out on shipboard. But, as is +so frequently the case with the most pleasing things in life, I found +the anticipation rather outshone the realisation. Already I detect +myself, in a retrospective mood, hankering for the savoury _ragoûts_ +we used to get in peasant homes in obscure French villages, and for +the meals they gave us at the regimental messes of our own forces, +where the cooking was the home sort and good honest American slang +abounded. + +They called the corned beef Canned Willie; and the stew was known +affectionately as Slum, and the doughnuts were Fried Holes. When the +adjutant, who had been taking French lessons, remarked "What the _la_ +hell does that _sacré-blew_ cook mean by serving forty-fours at every +meal?" you gathered he was getting a mite tired of baked army beans. +And if the lieutenant colonel asked you to pass him the Native Sons +you knew he meant he wanted prunes. It was a great life, if you +didn't weaken--and nobody did. + +But, so far as the joys of the table are concerned, I think I shall be +able to wait for quite a spell before I yearn for another whack at +English eating. I opine Charles Dickens would be a most unhappy man +could he but return to the scenes he loved and wrote about. + +Dickens, as will be recalled, specialised in mouth-watering +descriptions of good things and typically British things to eat--roast +sucking pigs, with apples in their snouts; and baked goose; and suety +plum puddings like speckled cannon balls; and cold game pies as big +round as barrel tops--and all such. He wouldn't find these things +prevailing to any noticeable extent in his native island now. Even the +kidney, the same being the thing for which an Englishman mainly raises +a sheep and which he always did know how to serve up better than any +one else on earth, somehow doesn't seem to be the kidney it once upon +a time was when it had the proper sorts of trimmings and sauces to go +with it. + +At this time England is no place for the epicure. In peacetime English +cooks, as a rule, were not what you would call versatile; their range, +as it were, was limited. Once, seeking to be blithesome and light of +heart, I wrote an article in which I said there were only three +dependable vegetables on the average Englishman's everyday +menu--boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, and a second helping of the +boiled potatoes. + +That was an error on my part; I was unintentionally guilty of the +crime of underestimation. I should have added a fourth to the list of +stand-bys--to wit: the vegetable marrow. For some reason, possibly +because they are a stubborn and tenacious race, the English persist in +looking upon the vegetable marrow as an object designed for human +consumption, which is altogether the wrong view to take of it. As a +foodstuff this article hasn't even the merit that attaches to stringy +celery. You do not derive much nourishment from stale celery, but +eating at it polishes the teeth and provides a healthful form of +exercise that gives you an appetite for the rest of the meal. + +From the vegetable marrow you derive no nourishment, and certainly you +derive no exercise; for, being a soft, weak, spiritless thing, it +offers no resistance whatever, and it looks a good deal like a streak +of solidified fog and tastes like the place where an indisposed carrot +spent the night. Next to our summer squash it is the feeblest +imitation that ever masqueraded in a skin and called itself a +vegetable. Yet its friends over there seem to set much store by it. + +Likewise the English cook has always gone in rather extensively for +boiling things. When in doubt she boiled. But it takes a lot of +retouching to restore to a piece of boiled meat the juicy essences +that have been simmered and drenched out of it. Since the English +people, with such admirable English thoroughness, cut down on fats and +oils and bacon garnishments, so that the greases might be conserved +for the fighting forces; and since they have so largely had to do +without imported spices and condiments, because the cargo spaces in +the ships coming in were needed for military essentials, the boiled +dishes of England appear to have lost most of their taste. + +You can do a lot of browsing about at an English table these days and +come away ostensibly filled; but inside you there will be a persistent +unsatisfied feeling, all the same, which is partly due, no doubt, to +the lack of sweetening and partly due to the lack of fats, but due +most of all, I think, to a natural disappointment in the results. In +the old times a man didn't feel that he had dined well in England +unless for an hour or two afterward he had the comfortable gorged +sensation of a python full of pigeons. + +I shall never forget the first meals I had on English soil, this +latest trip. At the port where we landed, in the early afternoon of a +raw day, you could get tea if you cared for tea, which I do not; but +there was no sugar--only saccharine--to sweeten it with, and no rich +cream, or even skim milk, available with which to dilute it. The +accompanying buns had a flat, dry, floury taste, and the portions of +butter served with them were very homoeopathic indeed as to size and +very oleomargarinish as to flavour. + +Going up to London we rode in a train that was crowded and darkened. +Brilliantly illuminated trains scooting across country offered an +excellent mark for the aim of hostile air raiders, you know; so in +each compartment the gloom was enhanced rather than dissipated by two +tiny pin points of a ghastly pale-blue gas flame. I do not know why +there should have been two of these lights, unless it was that the +second one was added so that by its wan flickerings you could see the +first one, and vice versa. + +During the trip, which lasted several hours longer than the scheduled +running time, we had for refreshments a few gnarly apples, purchased +at a way station; and that was all. Recalling the meals that formerly +had been served aboard the boat trains of this road, I realised I was +getting my preliminary dose of life on an island whose surrounding +waters were pestered by U-boats and whose shipping was needed for +transport service. But I pinned my gastronomic hopes on London, that +city famed of old for the plenteous prodigality of its victualling +facilities. In my ignorance I figured that the rigours of rationing +could not affect London to any very noticeable extent. A little +trimming down here and there, an enforced curtailment in this +direction and that--yes, perhaps so; but surely nothing more serious. + +Immediately on arrival we chartered a taxicab--a companion and I did. +This was not so easy a job as might be imagined by one who formed his +opinions on past recollections of London, because, since gasoline was +carefully rationed there, taxis were scarce where once they had been +numerous. Indeed, I know of no city in which, in antebellum days, +taxis were so numerously distributed through almost every quarter of +the town as in London. At any busy corner there were almost as many +taxicabs waiting and ready to serve you as there are taxicabs in New +York whose drivers are cruising about looking for a chance to run over +you. The foregoing is still true of New York, but did not apply to +London in war time. + +Having chartered our cab, much to the chagrin of a group of our fellow +travellers who had wasted precious time getting their heavy luggage +out of the van, we rode through the darkened streets to a hotel +formerly renowned for the scope and excellence of its cuisine. We +reached there after the expiration of the hour set apart under the +food regulations for serving dinner to the run of folks. But, because +we were both in uniform--he as a surgeon in the British Army, and I as +a correspondent--and because we had but newly finished a journey by +rail, we were entitled, it seemed, to claim refreshment. + +However, he, as an officer, was restricted to a meal costing not to +exceed six shillings--and six shillings never did go far in this +hotel, even when prices were normal. Not being an officer but merely a +civilian disguised in the habiliments of a military man, I, on the +other hand, was bound by no such limitations, but might go as far as I +pleased. So it was decided that I should order double portions of +everything and surreptitiously share with him; for by now we were +hungry to the famishing point. + +We had our minds set on a steak--a large thick steak served with +onions, Desdemona style--that is to say, smothered. It was a pretty +thought, a passing fair conception--but a vain one. + +"No steaks to-night, sir," said the waiter sorrowfully. + +"All right, then," one of us said. "How about chops--fat juicy chops?" + +"Oh, no, sir; no chops, sir," he told us. + +"Well then, what have you in the line of red meats?" + +He was desolated to be compelled to inform us that there were no red +meats of any sort to be had, but only sea foods. So we started in with +oysters. Personally I have never cared deeply for the European oyster. +In size he is anæmic and puny as compared with his brethren of the +eastern coast of North America; and, moreover, chronically he is +suffering from an acute attack of brass poisoning. The only way by +which a novice may distinguish a bad European oyster from a good +European oyster is by the fact that a bad one tastes slightly better +than a good one does. In my own experience I have found this to be the +one infallible test. + +We had oysters until both of us were full of verdigris, and I, for +one, had a tang in my mouth like an antique bronze jug; and then we +proceeded to fish. We had fillets of sole, which tasted as they +looked--flat and a bit flabby. Subsequently I learned that this lack +of savour in what should be the most toothsome of all European fishes +might be attributed to an insufficiency of fat in the cooking; but at +the moment I could only believe the trip up from Dover had given the +poor thing a touch of car sickness from which he had not recovered +before he reached us. + +After that we had lobsters, half-fare size, but charged for at the +full adult rates. And, having by now exhausted our capacity for sea +foods, we wound up with an alleged dessert in the shape of three +drowned prunes apiece, the remains being partly immersed in a palish +custardlike composition that was slightly sour. + +"Never mind," I said to my indignant stomach as we left the +table--"Never mind! I shall make it all up to you for this +mistreatment at breakfast to-morrow morning. We shall rise early--you +and I--and with loud gurgling cries we shall leap headlong into one of +those regular breakfasts in which the people of this city and nation +specialise so delightfully. Food regulators may work their ruthless +will upon the dinner trimmings, but none would dare to put so much as +the weight of one impious finger upon an Englishman's breakfast table +to curtail its plenitude. Why, next to Magna Charta, an Englishman's +breakfast is his most sacred right." + +This in confidence was what I whispered to my gastric juices. You see, +being still in ignorance of the full scope of the ration scheme in +its application to the metropolitan district, and my disheartening +experience at the meal just concluded to the contrary notwithstanding, +I had my thoughts set upon rashers of crisp Wiltshire bacon, and broad +segments of grilled York ham, and fried soles, and lovely plump +sausages bursting from their jackets, and devilled kidneys paired off +on a slice of toast, like Noah and his wife crossing the gangplank +into the Ark. + +Need I prolong the pain of my disclosures by longer withholding the +distressing truth that breakfast next morning was a failure too? To +begin with, I couldn't get any of those lovely crisp crescent rolls +that accord so rhythmically with orange marmalade and strawberry jam. +I couldn't get hot buttered toast either, but only some thin hard +slabs of war bread, which seemingly had been dry-cured in a kiln. I +could have but a very limited amount of sugar--a mere pinch, in fact; +and if I used it to tone up my coffee there would be none left for +oatmeal porridge. Moreover, this dab of sugar was to be my full day's +allowance, it seemed. There was no cream for the porridge either, but, +instead, a small measure of skimmed milk so pale in colour that it had +the appearance of having been diluted with moonbeams. + +Furthermore, I was informed that prior to nine-thirty I could have no +meat of any sort, the only exceptions to this cruel rule being +kippered herrings and bloaters; and in strict confidence the waiter +warned me that, for some mysterious reason, neither the kippers nor +the bloaters seemed to be up to their oldtime mark of excellence just +now. From the same source I gathered that it would be highly +inadvisable to order fried eggs, because of the lack of sufficient fat +in which to cook them. So, as a last resort, I ordered two eggs, +soft-boiled. They were served upended, English-fashion, in little +individual cups, the theory being that in turn I should neatly scalp +the top off of each egg with my spoon and then scoop out the contents +from Nature's own container. + +Now Englishmen are born with the faculty to perform this difficult +achievement; they inherit it. But I have known only one American who +could perform the feat with neatness and despatch; and, as he had +devoted practically all his energies to mastering this difficult alien +art, he couldn't do much of anything else, and, except when eggs were +being served in the original packages, he was practically a total loss +in society. He was a variation of the breed who devote their lives to +producing a perfect salad dressing; and you must know what sad affairs +those persons are when not engaged in following their lone talent. +Take them off of salad dressings and they are just naturally null and +void. + +In my crude and amateurish way I attacked those eggs, breaking into +them, not with the finesse the finished egg burglar would display, but +more like a yeggman attacking a safe. I spilt a good deal of the +insides of those eggs down over their outsides, producing a most +untidy effect; and when I did succeed in excavating a spoonful I +generally forgot to season it, or else it was full of bits of shell. +Altogether, the results were unsatisfactory and mussy. Rarely have I +eaten a breakfast which put so slight a subsequent strain upon my +digestive processes. + +Until noon I hung about, preoccupied and surcharged with inner +yearnings. There were plenty of things--important things, too, they +were--that I should have been doing; but I couldn't seem to fix my +mind upon any subject except food. The stroke of midday found me +briskly walking into a certain restaurant on the Strand that for many +decades has been internationally famous for the quality and the +unlimited quantity of its foods, and more particularly for its beef +and its mutton. If ever you visited London in peacetime you must +remember the place I mean. + +The carvers were middle-aged full-ported men, with fine ruddy +complexions, and moustaches of the Japanese weeping mulberry or +mammoth droop variety. On signal one of them would come promptly to +you where you sat, he shoving ahead of him a great trencher on +wheels, with a spirit lamp blazing beneath the platter to keep its +delectable burden properly hot. It might be that he brought to you a +noble haunch of venison or a splendid roast of pork or a vast leg of +boiled mutton; or, more likely yet, a huge joint of beef uprearing +like a delectable island from a sea of bubbling gravy, with an edging +of mashed potatoes creaming up upon its outer reefs. + +If, then, you enriched this person with a shilling, or even if you +didn't, he would take in his brawny right hand a knife with a blade a +foot long, and with this knife he would cut off from the joint a slice +about the size and general dimensions of a horseshoer's apron. And if +you cared for a second slice, after finishing the first one, the +carver felt complimented and there was no extra charge for it. It was +his delight to minister to you. + +But, alas, on this day when I came with my appetite whetted by my sea +voyage, and with an additional edge put upon it by the privations I +had undergone since landing, there was to be had no beef at all! Of a +sudden this establishment, lacking its roast beef, became to me as the +tragedy of Hamlet, the melancholy Dane, would be with Hamlet and +Ophelia and her pa and the ghost and the wicked queen, and both the +gravediggers, all left out. + +When I had seated myself one of the carvers came to me and, with an +abased and apologetic air, very different from his jaunty manner of +yore, explained in a husky half whisper that I might have jugged hare +or I might have boiled codfish, or I might have one of the awful +dishes. Anyhow, that was what I understood him to say. + +This last had an especially daunting sound, but I suppose I was in a +morbid state, anyhow, by now; and so I made further inquiry and +ascertained from him that the restrictions applying to the sale of +meat did not apply to the more intimate organs of the butchered +animal, such as the liver and the heart, and, in the case of a cow, +the tripe. But the English, with characteristic bluntness, choose to +call one of these in its cooked state an offal dish--pronounced as +spelled and frequently tasting as pronounced. + +As one who had primed himself for a pound or so of the rib-roast +section of a grass-fed steer, I was not to be put off with one of the +critter's spare parts, as it were. Nor did the thought of codfish, and +especially boiled codfish, appeal to me greatly. I have no settled +antipathy to the desiccated tissues of this worthy deep-sea voyager +when made up into fish cakes. Moreover that young and adolescent +creature, commonly called a Boston scrod, which is a codfish whose +voice is just changing, is not without its attractions; but the +full-grown species is not a favourite of mine. + +To me there has ever been something depressing about an adult codfish. +Any one who has ever had occasion to take cod-liver oil--as who, +unhappily, has not?--is bound to appreciate the true feelings that +must inevitably come to a codfish as he goes to and fro in the deep +for years on a stretch, carrying that kind of a liver about with him +all the while. + +As a last resort I took the jugged hare; but jugged hare was not what +I craved. At eventide, returning to the same restaurant, I was +luckier. I found mutton on the menu; but, even so, yet another hard +blow awaited me. By reason of the meat-rationing arrangements a single +purchaser was restricted to so many ounces a week, and no more. The +portion I received in exchange for a corner clipped off my meat card +was but a mere reminder of what a portion in that house would have +been in the old days. + +There had been a time when a sincere but careless diner from up +Scotland way, down in London on a visit, would have carried away more +than that much on his necktie; which did not matter particularly then, +when food was plentiful; and, besides, usually he wore a pattern of +necktie which was improved by almost anything that was spilled upon +it. But it did matter to me that I had to dine on this hangnail pared +from a sheep. + +A few days later I partook of a fast at what was supposed to be a +luncheon, which the Lord Mayor of London attended, in company with +sundry other notables. Earlier readings had led me to expect an +endless array of spicy and succulent viands at any table a Lord Mayor +might grace with his presence. Such, though, was not the case here. We +had eggs for an _entrée_; and after that we had plain boiled turbot, +which to my mind is no great shakes of a fish, even when tuckered up +with sauces; and after that we had coffee and cigars; and finally we +had several cracking good speeches by members of a race whose men are +erroneously believed by some Americans to be practically inarticulate +when they get up on their feet and try to talk. + +There was a touch of tragedy mingled in with the comedy of the +situation in the spectacle of these Englishmen, belonging to a nation +of proverbially generous feeders, stinting themselves and cutting the +lardings and the sweetenings and the garnishments down to the limit +that there might be a greater abundance of solid sustenance +forthcoming for their fighting forces. + +I do not mean by this that there was any real lack of nourishing +provender in London or anywhere else in England that I went. The long +queues of waiting patrons in front of the butcher shops during the +first few days of my sojourn very soon disappeared when people learned +that they could be sure of getting meat of one sort or another, and at +a price fixed by law; which was a good thing too, seeing that thereby +the extortioner and the profiteer lost their chances to gain unduly +through the necessities of the populace. So far as I was able to +ascertain, nobody on the island actually suffered--except the present +writer of these lines; and he suffered chiefly because he could not +restrain himself from comparing the English foods of pre-war periods +with the English foods of the hour. + +If things were thus in England, what would they be in France? This was +the question I repeatedly put to myself. But when I got to France a +surprise awaited me. It was a surprise deferred, because for the +first week of my sojourn upon French soil I was the guest of the +British military authorities at a château maintained for the +entertainment of visiting Americans who bore special credentials from +the British Foreign Office. + +Here, because Britain took such good and splendid care to provide +amply for her men in uniform, there was a wide variety of good food +and an abundance of it for the guests and hosts alike. I figured, +though, that when I had passed beyond the zone of this gracious +hospitality there would be slim pickings. Not at all! + +In Paris there was to be had all the food and nearly all the sorts of +food any appetite, however fastidious, might crave. This was before +the French borrowed the card system of ration control in order to +govern the consumption of certain of the necessities. Of poultry and +of sea foods the only limits to what one might order were his interior +capacity and his purse. Of red meats there was seemingly a boundless +supply. + +One reason for this plenitude lay in the fact that France, to a very +great extent, is a self-contained, self-supporting land, which England +distinctly is not; and another reason undoubtedly was that the French, +being more frugal and careful than their British or their American +brethren ever have been, make culinary use of a great deal of +healthful provender which the English-speaking races throw away. +Merely by glancing at the hors d'oeuvres served at luncheon in a +medium-priced café in Paris one can get a good general idea of what +discriminating persons declined to eat at dinner the night before. + +The Parisian garbage collector must work by the day and not by the +job. On a piecework contract he would starve to death. And a third +reason was that all through the country the peasants, by request of +the Government, were slaughtering their surplus beeves and sheep and +swine, so there might be more forage for the army horses and more +grain available for the flour rations of the soldiers. + +In Paris the bread was indifferently poor. An individual was +restricted to one medium-sized roll of bread at a meal. Butter was not +by any means abundant, and of sugar there was none to be had at all +unless the traveller had bethought him to slip a supply into the +country with him. The bulk of the milk supply was requisitioned for +babies and invalids and disabled soldiers. Cakes or pastries in any +form were absolutely prohibited in the public eating places, and, I +think, in private homes as well. But of beef and mutton and veal and +fowls, and the various products of the humble but widely versatile +pig, there was no end, provided you had the inclination plus the +price. + +And so, though the lack of sugar in one's food gave one an almost +constant craving for something sweet--and incidentally insured a host +of friends for anybody who came along with a box of American candy +under his arm or a few cakes of sweet chocolate in his pocket--one +might take his choice of a wide diversity of fare at any restaurant +of the first or second class, and keep well stayed. + +In connection with the Paris restaurants I made a most interesting +discovery, which was that when France called up her available man +power at the time of the great mobilisation, the military heads +somehow overlooked one group who, for their sins, should have been +sent up where bullets and Huns were thickest. The slum gave up its +Apache--and a magnificent fighter he is said to have made too! And the +piratical cab drivers who formerly infested the boulevards must have +answered the summons almost to a man, because only a few of them are +left nowadays, and they mainly wear markings to prove they have served +in the ranks; but by a most reprehensible error of somebody in +authority the typical head waiters of the cafés were spared. I base +this assertion upon the fact that all of them appeared to be on duty +at the time of my latest visit. If there was a single absentee from +the ranks I failed to miss him. + +There they were, the same hawk-eyed banditti crew that one was +constantly encountering in the old days; and up to all the same old +tricks too--such as adding the date of the month and all the figures +of the year into the bill; and such as invariably recommending the +most expensive dishes to foreigners; and such as coming to one and +bending over one and smiling upon one and murmuring to one: "An' wot +will ze gentailman 'ave to-day?"--and then, before the gentailman can +answer, jumping right in and telling him what he is going to have, +always favouring at least three different kinds of meats for even the +lightest meal, and never less than two vegetables, and never once +failing to recommend a full bottle of the costliest wine on the +premises. + +Stress of war had not caused these gentry to forget or forgo a single +one of the ancient wiles that for half a century their kind has +practised upon American tourists and others who didn't care what else +they did with their money so long as they were given a chance to spend +it for something they didn't particularly want. Yep; those charged +with the responsibility of calling up the reserves certainly made a +big mistake back yonder in August of 1914. They practised +discrimination in the wrong quarter altogether. If any favouritism was +to be shown they should have taken the head waiters and left the +Apaches at home. + +Many's the hard battle that I had with these chaps in 1918. It never +failed--not one single, solitary time did it fail--that the +functionary who took my order first tried to tell me what my order was +going to be, and then, after a struggle, reluctantly consented to +bring me the things I wanted and insisted on having. Never once did he +omit the ceremony of impressing it upon me that he would regard it as +a deep favour if only I would be so good as to order a whole lobster. +I do not think there was anything personal in this; he recommended the +lobster because lobster was the most expensive thing he had in stock. +If he could have thought of anything more expensive than lobster he +would have recommended that. + +I always refused--not that I harbour any grudge against lobsters as a +class, but because I object to being dictated to by a buccaneer with +flat feet, who wears a soiled dickey instead of a shirt, and who is +only waiting for a chance to overcharge me or short-change me, or give +me bad money, or something. If every other form of provender had +failed them the populace of Paris could have subsisted very +comfortably for several days on the lobsters I refused to buy in the +course of the spring and summer of last year. I'm sure of it. + +And when I had firmly, emphatically, yea, ofttimes passionately +declined the proffered lobster, he, having with difficulty mastered +his chagrin, would seek to direct my attention to the salmon, his +motive for this change in tactics being that salmon, though apparently +plentiful, was generally the second most expensive item upon the +regular menu. Salmon as served in Paris wears a different aspect from +the one commonly worn by it when it appears upon the table here. + +Over there they cut the fish through amidships, in cross-sections, +and, removing the segment of spinal column, spread the portion flat +upon a plate and serve it thus; the result greatly resembling a pair +of miniature pink horse collars. A man who knew not the salmon in his +native state, or ordering salmon in France, would get the idea that +the salmon was bowlegged and that the breast had been sold to some one +else, leaving only the hind quarters for him. + +Harking back to lobsters, I am reminded of a tragedy to which I was an +eyewitness. Nearly every night for a week or more two of us dined at +the same restaurant on the Rue de Rivoli. On the occasion of our first +appearance here we were confronted as we entered by a large table +bearing all manner of special delicacies and cold dishes. Right in the +middle of the array was one of the largest lobsters I ever saw, +reposing on a couch of water cress and seaweed, arranged upon a +serviette. He made an impressive sight as he lay there prone upon his +stomach, fidgeting his feelers in a petulant way. + +We two took seats near by. At once the silent signal was given +signifying, in the cipher code, "Americans in the house!" And the +_maître d'hôtel_ came to where he rested and, grasping him firmly just +back of the armpits, picked him up and brought him over to us and +invited us to consider his merits. When we had singly and together +declined to consider the proposition of eating him in each of the +three languages we knew--namely, English, bad French, and profane--the +master sorrowfully returned him to his bed. + +Presently two other Americans entered and immediately after them a +party of English officers, and then some more Americans. Each time the +boss would gather up the lobster and personally introduce him to the +newcomers, just as he had done in our case, by poking the monster +under their noses and making him wriggle to show that he was really +alive and not operated by clockwork, and enthusiastically dilating +upon his superior attractions, which, he assured them, would be +enormously enhanced if only _messieurs_ would agree forthwith to +partake of him in a broiled state. But there were no takers; and so +back again he would go to his place by the door, there to remain till +the next prospective victim arrived. + +We fell into the habit of going to this place in the evenings in order +to enjoy repetitions of this performance while dining. The lobster +became to us as an old friend, a familiar acquaintance. We took to +calling him Jess Willard, partly on account of his reach and partly on +account of his rugged appearance, but most of all because his manager +appeared to have so much trouble in getting him matched with anybody. + +[Illustration: HALF A DOZEN TIMES A NIGHT OR OFTENER HE TRAVELLED +UNDER ESCORT THROUGH THE DINING ROOM] + +Half a dozen times a night, or oftener, he travelled under escort +through the dining room, always returning again to his regular +station. Along about the middle of the week he began to fail visibly. +Before our eyes we saw him fading. Either the artificial life he was +leading or the strain of being turned down so often was telling upon +him. It preyed upon his mind, as we could discern by his morose +expression. It sapped his splendid vitality as well. No longer did he +expand his chest and wave his numerous extremities about when being +exhibited before the indifferent eyes of possible investors, but +remained inert, logy, gloomy, spiritless--a melancholy spectacle +indeed. + +It now required artificial stimulation to induce him to display even a +temporary interest in his surroundings. With a practised finger, his +keeper would thump him on the tenderer portions of his stomach, and +then he would wake up; but it was only for a moment. He relapsed again +into his lamentable state of depression and languor. By every outward +sign here was a lobster that fain would withdraw from the world. But +we knew that for him there was no opportunity to do so; on the hoof he +represented too many precious francs to be allowed to go into +retirement. + +Coming on Saturday night we realised that for our old friend the end +was nigh. His eyes were deeply set about two-thirds of the way back +toward his head and with one listless claw he picked at the serviette. +The summons was very near; the dread inevitable impended. + +Sunday night he was still present, but in a greatly altered state. +During the preceding twenty-four hours his brave spirit had fled. They +had boiled him then; so now, instead of being green, he was a bright +and varnished red all over, the exact colour of Truck Six in the +Paducah Fire Department. + +We felt that we who had been sympathisers at the bedside during some +of his farewell moments owed it to his memory to assist in the last +sad rites. At a perfectly fabulous price we bought the departed and +undertook to give him what might be called a personal interment; but +he was a disappointment. He should have been allowed to take the veil +before misanthropy had entirely undermined his health and destroyed +his better nature, and made him, as it were, morbid. Like Harry Leon +Wilson's immortal Cousin Egbert, he could be pushed just so far, and +no farther. + +Before I left Paris the city was put upon bread cards. The country at +large was supposed to be on bread rations too; but in most of the +smaller towns I visited the hotel keepers either did not know about +the new regulation or chose to disregard it. Certainly they generally +disregarded it so far as we were concerned. For all I know to the +contrary, though, they were restricting their ordinary patrons to the +ordained quantities and making an exception in the case of our people. +It may have been one of their ways of showing a special courtesy to +representatives of an allied race. It would have been characteristic +of these kindly provincial innkeepers to have done just that thing. + +Likewise, one could no longer obtain cheese in a first-grade Paris +restaurant or aboard a French dining car, though cheese was to be had +in unstinted quantity in the rural districts and in the Paris shops; +and, I believe, it was also procurable in the cafés of the Parisian +working classes, provided it formed a part of a meal costing not more +than five francs, or some such sum. In a first-rate place it was, of +course, impossible to get any sort of meal for five francs, or ten +francs either; especially after the ten per cent luxury tax had been +tacked on. + +In March prices at the smarter café eating places had already +advanced, I should say, at least one hundred per cent above the +customary pre-war rates; and by midsummer the tariffs showed a second +hundred per cent increase in delicacies, and one of at least fifty per +cent in staples, which brought them almost up to the New York +standards. Outside of Paris prices continued to be moderate and fair. + +Just as I was about starting on my last trip to the Front before +sailing for home, official announcement was made that dog biscuits +would shortly be advanced in price to a well-nigh prohibitive figure. +So I presume that very shortly thereafter the head waiters began +offering dog biscuits to American guests. I knew they would do so, +just as soon as a dog biscuit cost more than a lobster did. + +Until this trip I never appreciated what a race of perfect cooks the +French are. I thought I did, but I didn't. One visiting the big cities +or stopping at show places and resorts along the main lines of motor +and rail travel in peacetime could never come to a real and due +appreciation of the uniformly high culinary expertness of the populace +in general. I had to take campaigning trips across country into +isolated districts lying well off the old tourist lanes to learn the +lesson. Having learned it, I profited by it. + +No matter how small the hamlet or how dingy appearing the so-called +hotel in it might be, we were sure of getting satisfying food, cooked +agreeably and served to us by a friendly, smiling little French +maiden, and charged for at a most reasonable figure, considering that +generally the town was fairly close up to the fighting lines and the +bringing in of supplies for civilians' needs was frequently +subordinated to the handling of military necessities. + +Indeed, the place might be almost within range of the big guns and +subjected to bombing outrages by enemy airmen, but somehow the local +Boniface managed to produce food ample for our desires, and most +appetising besides. His larder might be limited, but his good nature, +like his willingness and his hospitality, was boundless. + +I predict that there is going to be an era of better cooking in +America before very long. Our soldiers, returning home, are going to +demand a tastier and more diversified fare than many of them enjoyed +before they put on khaki and went overseas; and they are going to get +it, too. Remembering what they had to eat under French roofs, they +will never again be satisfied with meats fried to death, with soggy +vegetables, with underdone breads. + +Sometimes as we went scouting about on our roving commission to see +what we might see, at mealtime we would enter a community too small +to harbour within it any establishment calling itself a hotel. In such +a case this, then, would be our procedure: We would run down to the +railroad crossing and halt at the door of the inevitable _Café de la +Station_, or, as we should say in our language, the Last Chance +Saloon; and of the proprietor we would inquire the name and +whereabouts of some person in the community who might be induced, for +a price, to feed a duet or a trio of hungry correspondents. + +At first, when we were green at the thing, we sometimes tried to +interrogate the local gendarme; but complications, misunderstandings, +and that same confusion of tongues which spoiled so promising a +building project one time at the Tower of Babel always ensued. Central +Europe has a very dense population, as the geographies used to tell +us; but the densest ones get on the police force. + +So when by bitter experience we had learned that the gendarme never by +any chance could get our meaning and that we never could understand +his gestures, we hit upon the wise expedient of going right away to +the Last Chance for information. + +At the outset I preferred to let one of my companions conduct the +inquiry; but presently it dawned upon me that my mode of speech gave +unbounded joy to my provincial audiences, and I decided that if a +little exertion on my part brought a measure of innocent pleasure into +the lives of these good folks it was my duty, as an Ally, to oblige +whenever possible. + +I came to realise that all these years I have been employing the wrong +vehicle when I strive to dash off whimsicalities, because frequently +my very best efforts, as done in English, have fallen flat. But when +in some remote village I, using French, uttered the simplest and most +commonplace remark to a French tavern keeper, with absolutely no +intent or desire whatsoever, mind you, to be humorous or facetious, +invariably he would burst instantly into peals of unbridled merriment. + +Frequently he would call in his wife or some of his friends to help +him laugh. And then, when his guffaws had died away into gentle +chuckles, he would make answer; and if he spoke rapidly, as he always +did, I would be swept away by the freshets of his eloquence and left +gasping far beyond my depth. + +That was why, when I went to a revue in Paris, I hoped they'd have +some good tumbling on the bill. + +I understand French, of course, curiously enough, but not as spoken. I +likewise have difficulty in making out its meaning when I read it; but +in other regards I flatter myself that my knowledge of the language is +quite adequate. Certainly, as I have just stated, I managed to create +a pleasant sensation among my French hearers when I employed it in +conversation. + +As I was saying, the general rule was that I should ask the name and +whereabouts of a house in the town where we might procure victuals; +and then, after a bit, when the laughing had died down, one of my +companions would break in and find out what we wanted to know. + +The information thus secured probably led us to a tiny cottage of +mud-daubed wattles. Our hostess there might be a shapeless, wrinkled, +clumsy old woman. Her kitchen equipment might be confined to an open +fire and a spit, and a few battered pots. + +Her larder might be most meagrely circumscribed as to variety, and +generally was. But she could concoct such savoury dishes for us--such +marvellous, golden-brown fried potatoes; such good soups; such savoury +omelets; such toothsome fragrant stews! Especially such stews! + +For all we knew--or cared--the meat she put into her pot might have +been horse meat and the garnishments such green things as she had +plucked at the roadside; but the flavour of the delectable broth cured +us of any inclinations to make investigation as to the former stations +in life of its basic constituents. I am satisfied that, chosen at +random, almost any peasant housewife of France can take an old Palm +Beach suit and a handful of potherbs and, mingling these together +according to her own peculiar system, turn out a ragout fit for a +king. Indeed, it would be far too good for some kings I know of. + +And if she had a worn-out bath sponge and the cork of a discarded +vanilla-extract bottle she, calling upon her hens for a little help in +the matter of eggs, could produce for dessert a delicious meringue, +with floating-island effects in it. I'd stake my life on her ability +to deliver. + +If, on such an occasion as the one I have sought to describe, we were +perchance in the south of France or in the Côte-d'Or country, lying +over toward the Swiss border, we could count upon having a bait of +delicious strawberries to wind up with. But if perchance we had fared +into one of the northeastern provinces we were reasonably certain the +meal would be rounded out with helpings of a certain kind of cheese +that is indigenous to those parts. It comes in a flat cake, which +invariably is all caved in and squashed out, as though the +cheese-maker had sat upon it while bringing it into the market in his +two-wheeled cart. + +Likewise, when its temperature goes up, it becomes more of a liquid +than a solid; and it has an aroma by virtue of which it secures the +attention and commands the respect of the most casual passer-by. It is +more than just cheese. I should call it mother-of-cheese. It is to +other and lesser cheeses as civet cats are to canary birds--if you get +what I mean; and in its company the most boisterous Brie or the most +vociferous Camembert you ever saw becomes at once deaf and dumb. + +Its flavour is wonderful. Mainly it is found in ancient Normandy; and, +among strangers, eating it--or, when it is in an especially fluid +state, drinking it--comes under the head of outdoor sports. But the +natives take it right into the same house with themselves. + +And, no matter where we were--in Picardy, in Brittany, in the Vosges +or the Champagne, as the case might be--we had wonderful crusty bread +and delicious butter and a good light wine to go along with our meal. +We would sit at a bare table in the smoky cluttered interior of the +old kitchen, with the rafters just over our heads, and with the broken +tiles--or sometimes the bare earthen floor--beneath our feet, and +would eat our fill. + +More times than once or twice or thrice I have known the mistress of +the house at settlement time to insist that we were overpaying her. +From a civilian compatriot she would have exacted the last sou of her +just due; but, because we were Americans and because our country had +sent its sons overseas to help her people save France, she, a +representative of the most canny and thrifty class in a country known +for the thriftiness of all its classes, hesitated to accept the full +amount of the sum we offered her in payment. + +She believed us, of course, to be rich--in the eyes of the European +peasant all Americans are rich--and she was poor and hard put to it to +earn her living; but here was a chance for her to show in her own way +a sense of what she, as a Frenchwoman, felt for America. Somehow, the +more you see of the French, the less you care for the Germans. + +Moving on up a few miles nearer the trenches, we would run into our +own people; and then we were sure of a greeting, and a chair apiece +and a tin plate and a tin cup apiece at an American mess. I have had +chuck with privates and I have had chow with noncoms; I have had grub +with company commanders and I have dined with generals--and always the +meal was flavoured with the good, strong man-talk of the real +he-American. + +The food was of the best quality and there was plenty of it for all, +and some to spare. One reason--among others--why the Yank fought so +well was because he was so well fed between fights. + +The very best meals I had while abroad were vouchsafed me during the +three days I spent with a front-line regiment as a guest of the +colonel of one of our negro outfits. To this colonel a French +general, out of the goodness of his heart, had loaned his cook, a +whiskered poilu, who, before he became a whiskered poilu, had been the +chef in the castle of one of the richest men in Europe. + +This genius cooked the midday meals and the dinners; but, because no +Frenchman can understand why any one should require for breakfast +anything more solid than a dry roll and a dab of honey, the +preparation of the morning meal was intrusted to a Southern black boy, +who, I may say, was a regular skillet hound. And this gifted youth +wrestled with the matutinal ham and eggs and flipped the flapjacks for +the headquarters mess. + +On a full Southern breakfast and a wonderful French luncheon and +dinner a grown man can get through the day very, very well indeed, as +I bear witness. + +Howsomever, as spring wore into summer and summer ran its course, I +began to long with a constantly increasing longing for certain +distinctive dishes to be found nowhere except in my native clime; +brook trout, for example, and roasting ears, and--Oh, lots of things! +So I came home to get them. + +And, now that I've had them, I often catch myself in the act of +thoughtfully dwelling upon the fond remembrances of those spicy +fragrant stews eaten in peasant kitchens, and those army doughnuts, +and those slices of bacon toasted at daybreak on the lids of mess kits +in British dugouts. + +I suppose they call contentment a jewel because it is so rare. + + * * * * * + + +BY IRVIN S. COBB + +FICTION + +THOSE TIMES AND THESE +LOCAL COLOR +OLD JUDGE PRIEST +FIBBLE, D.D. +BACK HOME +THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM + +WIT AND HUMOR + +"SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS--" +EUROPE REVISED +ROUGHING IT DE LUXE +COBB'S BILL OF FARE +COBB'S ANATOMY + +MISCELLANY + +THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE +"SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS--" +PATHS OF GLORY + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY +NEW YORK + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Eating in Two or Three Languages, by Irvin S. Cobb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES *** + +***** This file should be named 18526-8.txt or 18526-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/5/2/18526/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship, Sankar +Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +of Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Cobb + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + a[name] {position:absolute;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:#ff0000} + + table { width:80%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } + .tocch { text-align: right; vertical-align: top;} + .tocpg {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + img { border-color:#000000; border-style: solid; border-width:0.1em; } + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .caption { font-size:smaller; font-weight: bold;} +--> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Eating in Two or Three Languages, by Irvin S. Cobb + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Eating in Two or Three Languages + +Author: Irvin S. Cobb + +Release Date: June 7, 2006 [EBook #18526] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship, Sankar +Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +of Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + + +<p class="center"><a name="img1" id="img1"></a><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="NO RED MEATS, BUT ONLY SEA FOODS" width="600" height="398" /><br /> +<span class="caption">NO RED MEATS, BUT ONLY SEA FOODS</span> </p> + + +<h1><i>Eating</i><br /> + + +<i>in Two or Three</i><br /> + + +<i>Languages</i></h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h2><i>Irvin S. Cobb</i></h2> + +<h4><i>Author of<br /> + "Paths of Glory," "Those Times and These," etc.</i> +</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3><i>New York</i></h3> +<h3><i>George H. Doran Company</i></h3> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1919,<br /> + +By George H. Doran Company</span></p> + +<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4>TO</h4> +<h2>B.B. McALPIN, ESQUIRE,</h2> +<h3>WHO KNOWS A LOT</h3> +<h3>ABOUT EATING </h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> +<table summary="Illustrations"> + <tr> + <td><a href="#img1">No Red Meats, but Only Sea Foods.</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><i><a href="#img1">Frontispiece</a></i> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tocpg"><span class="smcap">Page</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#img2">"Herb, Stand Back! Stand Well Back to Avoid Being Splashed!"</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tocpg"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#img3">Half a Dozen Times a Night or Oftener He Travelled under Escort +through the Room</a></td> + <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p> + +<h2><i>Eating in Two or Three Languages</i></h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>On my way home from overseas I spent many happy hours mapping out a +campaign. To myself I said: "The day I land is going to be a great day +for some of the waiters and a hard day on some of the cooks. Persons +who happen to be near by when I am wrestling with my first ear of +green corn will think I am playing on a mouth organ. My behaviour in +regard to hothouse asparagus will be reminiscent of the best work of +the late Bosco. In the matter of cantaloupes I rather fancy I shall +consume the first two on the half shell, or <i>au naturel</i>, as we +veteran correspondents say; but the third one will contain about as +much vanilla ice cream as you could put in a derby hat.</p> + +<p>"And when, as I am turning over my second piece of fried chicken, with +Virginia ham, if H. Hoover should crawl out from under it, and, +shaking the gravy out of his eyes, should lift a warning hand, I shall +say to him: 'Herb,' I shall say, 'Herb, stand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> back! Stand well back +to avoid being splashed, Herb. Please desist and do not bother me now, +for I am busy. Kindly remember that I am but just returned from over +there and that for months and months past, as I went to and fro across +the face of the next hemisphere that you'll run into on the left of +you if you go just outside of Sandy Hook and take the first turn to +the right, I have been storing up a great, unsatisfied longing for the +special dishes of my own, my native land. Don't try, I pray you, to +tell me a patriot can't do his bit and eat it too, for I know better.</p> + +<p class="center"><a name="img2" id="img2"></a><img src="images/image_02.jpg" alt=""HERB, STAND BACK! STAND WELL BACK TO AVOID BEING SPLASHED!"" width="600" height="348" /><br /> +<span class="caption">"HERB, STAND BACK! STAND WELL BACK TO AVOID BEING +SPLASHED!"</span></p> + +<p>"'Shortly I may be in a fitter frame of mind to listen to your +admonitions touching on rationing schemes; but not to-day, and +possibly not to-morrow either, Herb. At this moment I consider food +regulations as having been made for slaves and perhaps for the run of +other people; but not for me. As a matter of fact, what you may have +observed up until now has merely been my preliminary attack—what you +might call open warfare, with scouting operations. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> But when they +bring on the transverse section of watermelon I shall take these two +trenching tools which I now hold in my hands, and just naturally start +digging in. I trust you may be hanging round then; you'll certainly +overhear something.'</p> + +<p>"'Kindly pass the ice water. That's it. Thank you. Join me, won't you, +in a brimming beaker? It may interest you to know that I am now on my +second carafe of this wholesome, delicious and satisfying beverage. +Where I have lately been, in certain parts of the adjacent continent, +there isn't any ice, and nobody by any chance ever drinks water. +Nobody bathes in it either, so far as I have been able to note. You'll +doubtless be interested in hearing what they do do with it over on +that side. It took me months to find out.</p> + +<p>"'Then finally, one night in a remote interior village, I went to an +entertainment in a Y.M.C.A. hut. A local magician came out on the +platform; and after he had done some tricks with cards and +handkerchiefs which were so old that they were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> new all over again, he +reached up under the tails of his dress coat and hauled out a big +glass globe that was slopping full of its crystal-pure fluid contents, +with a family of goldfish swimming round and round in it, as happy as +you please.</p> + +<p>"'So then, all in a flash, the answer came and I knew the secret of +what the provincials in that section of Europe do with water. They +loan it to magicians to keep goldfish in. But I prefer to drink a +little of it while I am eating and to eat a good deal while I am +drinking it; both of which, I may state, I am now doing to the best of +my ability, and without let or hindrance, Herb.'"</p> + +<p>To be exactly correct about it, I began mapping out this campaign long +before I took ship for the homeward hike. The suggestion formed in my +mind during those weeks I spent in London, when the resident +population first went on the food-card system. You had to have a meat +card, I think, to buy raw meat in a butcher shop, and you had to have +another kind of meat <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> card, I know, to get cooked meat in a +restaurant; and you had to have a friend who was a smuggler or a +hoarder to get an adequate supply of sugar under any circumstances. +Before I left, every one was carrying round a sheaf of cards. You +didn't dare go fishing if you had mislaid your worm card.</p> + +<p>The resolution having formed, it budded and grew in my mind when I was +up near the Front gallantly exposing myself to the sort of +table-d'hôte dinners that were available then in some of the lesser +towns immediately behind the firing lines; and it kept right on +growing, so that by the time I was ready to sail it was full sized. En +route, I thought up an interchangeable answer for two of the oldest +conundrums of my childhood, one of them being: "Round as a biscuit, +busy as a bee; busiest thing you ever did see," and the other, "Opens +like a barn door, shuts like a trap; guess all day and you can't guess +that." In the original versions the answer to the first was "A watch," +and to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> the second, "A corset"—if I recall aright But the joint +answer I worked out was as follows: "My face!"</p> + +<p>Such was the pleasing program I figured out on shipboard. But, as is +so frequently the case with the most pleasing things in life, I found +the anticipation rather outshone the realisation. Already I detect +myself, in a retrospective mood, hankering for the savoury <i>ragoûts</i> +we used to get in peasant homes in obscure French villages, and for +the meals they gave us at the regimental messes of our own forces, +where the cooking was the home sort and good honest American slang +abounded.</p> + +<p>They called the corned beef Canned Willie; and the stew was known +affectionately as Slum, and the doughnuts were Fried Holes. When the +adjutant, who had been taking French lessons, remarked "What the <i>la</i> +hell does that <i>sacré-blew</i> cook mean by serving forty-fours at every +meal?" you gathered he was getting a mite tired of baked army beans. +And if the lieutenant colonel asked you to pass him the Native Sons +you knew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> he meant he wanted prunes. It was a great life, if you +didn't weaken—and nobody did.</p> + +<p>But, so far as the joys of the table are concerned, I think I shall be +able to wait for quite a spell before I yearn for another whack at +English eating. I opine Charles Dickens would be a most unhappy man +could he but return to the scenes he loved and wrote about.</p> + +<p>Dickens, as will be recalled, specialised in mouth-watering +descriptions of good things and typically British things to eat—roast +sucking pigs, with apples in their snouts; and baked goose; and suety +plum puddings like speckled cannon balls; and cold game pies as big +round as barrel tops—and all such. He wouldn't find these things +prevailing to any noticeable extent in his native island now. Even the +kidney, the same being the thing for which an Englishman mainly raises +a sheep and which he always did know how to serve up better than any +one else on earth, somehow doesn't seem to be the kidney it once upon +a time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> was when it had the proper sorts of trimmings and sauces to go +with it.</p> + +<p>At this time England is no place for the epicure. In peacetime English +cooks, as a rule, were not what you would call versatile; their range, +as it were, was limited. Once, seeking to be blithesome and light of +heart, I wrote an article in which I said there were only three +dependable vegetables on the average Englishman's everyday +menu—boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, and a second helping of the +boiled potatoes.</p> + +<p>That was an error on my part; I was unintentionally guilty of the +crime of underestimation. I should have added a fourth to the list of +stand-bys—to wit: the vegetable marrow. For some reason, possibly +because they are a stubborn and tenacious race, the English persist in +looking upon the vegetable marrow as an object designed for human +consumption, which is altogether the wrong view to take of it. As a +foodstuff this article hasn't even the merit that attaches to stringy +celery. You do not derive much nourishment from stale celery, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> but +eating at it polishes the teeth and provides a healthful form of +exercise that gives you an appetite for the rest of the meal.</p> + + + +<p>From the vegetable marrow you derive no nourishment, and certainly you +derive no exercise; for, being a soft, weak, spiritless thing, it +offers no resistance whatever, and it looks a good deal like a streak +of solidified fog and tastes like the place where an indisposed carrot +spent the night. Next to our summer squash it is the feeblest +imitation that ever masqueraded in a skin and called itself a +vegetable. Yet its friends over there seem to set much store by it.</p> + +<p>Likewise the English cook has always gone in rather extensively for +boiling things. When in doubt she boiled. But it takes a lot of +retouching to restore to a piece of boiled meat the juicy essences +that have been simmered and drenched out of it. Since the English +people, with such admirable English thoroughness, cut down on fats and +oils and bacon garnishments, so that the greases might be conserved +for the fighting forces; and since they have so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> largely had to do +without imported spices and condiments, because the cargo spaces in +the ships coming in were needed for military essentials, the boiled +dishes of England appear to have lost most of their taste.</p> + +<p>You can do a lot of browsing about at an English table these days and +come away ostensibly filled; but inside you there will be a persistent +unsatisfied feeling, all the same, which is partly due, no doubt, to +the lack of sweetening and partly due to the lack of fats, but due +most of all, I think, to a natural disappointment in the results. In +the old times a man didn't feel that he had dined well in England +unless for an hour or two afterward he had the comfortable gorged +sensation of a python full of pigeons.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the first meals I had on English soil, this +latest trip. At the port where we landed, in the early afternoon of a +raw day, you could get tea if you cared for tea, which I do not; but +there was no sugar—only saccharine—to sweeten it with, and no rich +cream, or even skim milk, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> available with which to dilute it. The +accompanying buns had a flat, dry, floury taste, and the portions of +butter served with them were very homoeopathic indeed as to size and +very oleomargarinish as to flavour.</p> + +<p>Going up to London we rode in a train that was crowded and darkened. +Brilliantly illuminated trains scooting across country offered an +excellent mark for the aim of hostile air raiders, you know; so in +each compartment the gloom was enhanced rather than dissipated by two +tiny pin points of a ghastly pale-blue gas flame. I do not know why +there should have been two of these lights, unless it was that the +second one was added so that by its wan flickerings you could see the +first one, and vice versa.</p> + +<p>During the trip, which lasted several hours longer than the scheduled +running time, we had for refreshments a few gnarly apples, purchased +at a way station; and that was all. Recalling the meals that formerly +had been served aboard the boat trains of this road, I realised I was +getting my preliminary dose of life on an island <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> whose surrounding +waters were pestered by U-boats and whose shipping was needed for +transport service. But I pinned my gastronomic hopes on London, that +city famed of old for the plenteous prodigality of its victualling +facilities. In my ignorance I figured that the rigours of rationing +could not affect London to any very noticeable extent. A little +trimming down here and there, an enforced curtailment in this +direction and that—yes, perhaps so; but surely nothing more serious.</p> + +<p>Immediately on arrival we chartered a taxicab—a companion and I did. +This was not so easy a job as might be imagined by one who formed his +opinions on past recollections of London, because, since gasoline was +carefully rationed there, taxis were scarce where once they had been +numerous. Indeed, I know of no city in which, in antebellum days, +taxis were so numerously distributed through almost every quarter of +the town as in London. At any busy corner there were almost as many +taxicabs waiting and ready to serve you as there are taxicabs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> in New +York whose drivers are cruising about looking for a chance to run over +you. The foregoing is still true of New York, but did not apply to +London in war time.</p> + +<p>Having chartered our cab, much to the chagrin of a group of our fellow +travellers who had wasted precious time getting their heavy luggage +out of the van, we rode through the darkened streets to a hotel +formerly renowned for the scope and excellence of its cuisine. We +reached there after the expiration of the hour set apart under the +food regulations for serving dinner to the run of folks. But, because +we were both in uniform—he as a surgeon in the British Army, and I as +a correspondent—and because we had but newly finished a journey by +rail, we were entitled, it seemed, to claim refreshment.</p> + +<p>However, he, as an officer, was restricted to a meal costing not to +exceed six shillings—and six shillings never did go far in this +hotel, even when prices were normal. Not being an officer but merely a +civilian disguised in the habiliments of a military man, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> I, on the +other hand, was bound by no such limitations, but might go as far as I +pleased. So it was decided that I should order double portions of +everything and surreptitiously share with him; for by now we were +hungry to the famishing point.</p> + +<p>We had our minds set on a steak—a large thick steak served with +onions, Desdemona style—that is to say, smothered. It was a pretty +thought, a passing fair conception—but a vain one.</p> + +<p>"No steaks to-night, sir," said the waiter sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>"All right, then," one of us said. "How about chops—fat juicy chops?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, sir; no chops, sir," he told us.</p> + +<p>"Well then, what have you in the line of red meats?"</p> + +<p>He was desolated to be compelled to inform us that there were no red +meats of any sort to be had, but only sea foods. So we started in with +oysters. Personally I have never cared deeply for the European oyster. +In size he is anæmic and puny as compared with his brethren of the +eastern <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> coast of North America; and, moreover, chronically he is +suffering from an acute attack of brass poisoning. The only way by +which a novice may distinguish a bad European oyster from a good +European oyster is by the fact that a bad one tastes slightly better +than a good one does. In my own experience I have found this to be the +one infallible test.</p> + +<p>We had oysters until both of us were full of verdigris, and I, for +one, had a tang in my mouth like an antique bronze jug; and then we +proceeded to fish. We had fillets of sole, which tasted as they +looked—flat and a bit flabby. Subsequently I learned that this lack +of savour in what should be the most toothsome of all European fishes +might be attributed to an insufficiency of fat in the cooking; but at +the moment I could only believe the trip up from Dover had given the +poor thing a touch of car sickness from which he had not recovered +before he reached us.</p> + +<p>After that we had lobsters, half-fare size, but charged for at the +full adult rates. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> And, having by now exhausted our capacity for sea +foods, we wound up with an alleged dessert in the shape of three +drowned prunes apiece, the remains being partly immersed in a palish +custardlike composition that was slightly sour.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," I said to my indignant stomach as we left the +table—"Never mind! I shall make it all up to you for this +mistreatment at breakfast to-morrow morning. We shall rise early—you +and I—and with loud gurgling cries we shall leap headlong into one of +those regular breakfasts in which the people of this city and nation +specialise so delightfully. Food regulators may work their ruthless +will upon the dinner trimmings, but none would dare to put so much as +the weight of one impious finger upon an Englishman's breakfast table +to curtail its plenitude. Why, next to Magna Charta, an Englishman's +breakfast is his most sacred right."</p> + +<p>This in confidence was what I whispered to my gastric juices. You see, +being still in ignorance of the full scope of the ration <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> scheme in +its application to the metropolitan district, and my disheartening +experience at the meal just concluded to the contrary notwithstanding, +I had my thoughts set upon rashers of crisp Wiltshire bacon, and broad +segments of grilled York ham, and fried soles, and lovely plump +sausages bursting from their jackets, and devilled kidneys paired off +on a slice of toast, like Noah and his wife crossing the gangplank +into the Ark.</p> + +<p>Need I prolong the pain of my disclosures by longer withholding the +distressing truth that breakfast next morning was a failure too? To +begin with, I couldn't get any of those lovely crisp crescent rolls +that accord so rhythmically with orange marmalade and strawberry jam. +I couldn't get hot buttered toast either, but only some thin hard +slabs of war bread, which seemingly had been dry-cured in a kiln. I +could have but a very limited amount of sugar—a mere pinch, in fact; +and if I used it to tone up my coffee there would be none left for +oatmeal porridge. Moreover, this dab <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> of sugar was to be my full day's +allowance, it seemed. There was no cream for the porridge either, but, +instead, a small measure of skimmed milk so pale in colour that it had +the appearance of having been diluted with moonbeams.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, I was informed that prior to nine-thirty I could have no +meat of any sort, the only exceptions to this cruel rule being +kippered herrings and bloaters; and in strict confidence the waiter +warned me that, for some mysterious reason, neither the kippers nor +the bloaters seemed to be up to their oldtime mark of excellence just +now. From the same source I gathered that it would be highly +inadvisable to order fried eggs, because of the lack of sufficient fat +in which to cook them. So, as a last resort, I ordered two eggs, +soft-boiled. They were served upended, English-fashion, in little +individual cups, the theory being that in turn I should neatly scalp +the top off of each egg with my spoon and then scoop out the contents +from Nature's own container.</p> + +<p>Now Englishmen are born with the fac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>ulty to perform this difficult +achievement; they inherit it. But I have known only one American who +could perform the feat with neatness and despatch; and, as he had +devoted practically all his energies to mastering this difficult alien +art, he couldn't do much of anything else, and, except when eggs were +being served in the original packages, he was practically a total loss +in society. He was a variation of the breed who devote their lives to +producing a perfect salad dressing; and you must know what sad affairs +those persons are when not engaged in following their lone talent. +Take them off of salad dressings and they are just naturally null and +void.</p> + +<p>In my crude and amateurish way I attacked those eggs, breaking into +them, not with the finesse the finished egg burglar would display, but +more like a yeggman attacking a safe. I spilt a good deal of the +insides of those eggs down over their outsides, producing a most +untidy effect; and when I did succeed in excavating a spoonful I +generally forgot to season it, or else it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> was full of bits of shell. +Altogether, the results were unsatisfactory and mussy. Rarely have I +eaten a breakfast which put so slight a subsequent strain upon my +digestive processes.</p> + +<p>Until noon I hung about, preoccupied and surcharged with inner +yearnings. There were plenty of things—important things, too, they +were—that I should have been doing; but I couldn't seem to fix my +mind upon any subject except food. The stroke of midday found me +briskly walking into a certain restaurant on the Strand that for many +decades has been internationally famous for the quality and the +unlimited quantity of its foods, and more particularly for its beef +and its mutton. If ever you visited London in peacetime you must +remember the place I mean.</p> + +<p>The carvers were middle-aged full-ported men, with fine ruddy +complexions, and moustaches of the Japanese weeping mulberry or +mammoth droop variety. On signal one of them would come promptly to +you where you sat, he shoving ahead of him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> a great trencher on +wheels, with a spirit lamp blazing beneath the platter to keep its +delectable burden properly hot. It might be that he brought to you a +noble haunch of venison or a splendid roast of pork or a vast leg of +boiled mutton; or, more likely yet, a huge joint of beef uprearing +like a delectable island from a sea of bubbling gravy, with an edging +of mashed potatoes creaming up upon its outer reefs.</p> + +<p>If, then, you enriched this person with a shilling, or even if you +didn't, he would take in his brawny right hand a knife with a blade a +foot long, and with this knife he would cut off from the joint a slice +about the size and general dimensions of a horseshoer's apron. And if +you cared for a second slice, after finishing the first one, the +carver felt complimented and there was no extra charge for it. It was +his delight to minister to you.</p> + +<p>But, alas, on this day when I came with my appetite whetted by my sea +voyage, and with an additional edge put upon it by the privations I +had undergone since <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> landing, there was to be had no beef at all! Of a +sudden this establishment, lacking its roast beef, became to me as the +tragedy of Hamlet, the melancholy Dane, would be with Hamlet and +Ophelia and her pa and the ghost and the wicked queen, and both the +gravediggers, all left out.</p> + +<p>When I had seated myself one of the carvers came to me and, with an +abased and apologetic air, very different from his jaunty manner of +yore, explained in a husky half whisper that I might have jugged hare +or I might have boiled codfish, or I might have one of the awful +dishes. Anyhow, that was what I understood him to say.</p> + +<p>This last had an especially daunting sound, but I suppose I was in a +morbid state, anyhow, by now; and so I made further inquiry and +ascertained from him that the restrictions applying to the sale of +meat did not apply to the more intimate organs of the butchered +animal, such as the liver and the heart, and, in the case of a cow, +the tripe. But the English, with characteristic bluntness, choose to +call one of these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> in its cooked state an offal dish—pronounced as +spelled and frequently tasting as pronounced.</p> + +<p>As one who had primed himself for a pound or so of the rib-roast +section of a grass-fed steer, I was not to be put off with one of the +critter's spare parts, as it were. Nor did the thought of codfish, and +especially boiled codfish, appeal to me greatly. I have no settled +antipathy to the desiccated tissues of this worthy deep-sea voyager +when made up into fish cakes. Moreover that young and adolescent +creature, commonly called a Boston scrod, which is a codfish whose +voice is just changing, is not without its attractions; but the +full-grown species is not a favourite of mine.</p> + +<p>To me there has ever been something depressing about an adult codfish. +Any one who has ever had occasion to take cod-liver oil—as who, +unhappily, has not?—is bound to appreciate the true feelings that +must inevitably come to a codfish as he goes to and fro in the deep +for years on a stretch, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> carrying that kind of a liver about with him +all the while.</p> + +<p>As a last resort I took the jugged hare; but jugged hare was not what +I craved. At eventide, returning to the same restaurant, I was +luckier. I found mutton on the menu; but, even so, yet another hard +blow awaited me. By reason of the meat-rationing arrangements a single +purchaser was restricted to so many ounces a week, and no more. The +portion I received in exchange for a corner clipped off my meat card +was but a mere reminder of what a portion in that house would have +been in the old days.</p> + +<p>There had been a time when a sincere but careless diner from up +Scotland way, down in London on a visit, would have carried away more +than that much on his necktie; which did not matter particularly then, +when food was plentiful; and, besides, usually he wore a pattern of +necktie which was improved by almost anything that was spilled upon +it. But it did matter to me that I had to dine on this hangnail pared +from a sheep.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>A few days later I partook of a fast at what was supposed to be a +luncheon, which the Lord Mayor of London attended, in company with +sundry other notables. Earlier readings had led me to expect an +endless array of spicy and succulent viands at any table a Lord Mayor +might grace with his presence. Such, though, was not the case here. We +had eggs for an <i>entrée</i>; and after that we had plain boiled turbot, +which to my mind is no great shakes of a fish, even when tuckered up +with sauces; and after that we had coffee and cigars; and finally we +had several cracking good speeches by members of a race whose men are +erroneously believed by some Americans to be practically inarticulate +when they get up on their feet and try to talk.</p> + +<p>There was a touch of tragedy mingled in with the comedy of the +situation in the spectacle of these Englishmen, belonging to a nation +of proverbially generous feeders, stinting themselves and cutting the +lardings and the sweetenings and the garnishments down to the limit +that there might be a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> greater abundance of solid sustenance +forthcoming for their fighting forces.</p> + +<p>I do not mean by this that there was any real lack of nourishing +provender in London or anywhere else in England that I went. The long +queues of waiting patrons in front of the butcher shops during the +first few days of my sojourn very soon disappeared when people learned +that they could be sure of getting meat of one sort or another, and at +a price fixed by law; which was a good thing too, seeing that thereby +the extortioner and the profiteer lost their chances to gain unduly +through the necessities of the populace. So far as I was able to +ascertain, nobody on the island actually suffered—except the present +writer of these lines; and he suffered chiefly because he could not +restrain himself from comparing the English foods of pre-war periods +with the English foods of the hour.</p> + +<p>If things were thus in England, what would they be in France? This was +the question I repeatedly put to myself. But when I got to France a +surprise awaited me. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> It was a surprise deferred, because for the +first week of my sojourn upon French soil I was the guest of the +British military authorities at a château maintained for the +entertainment of visiting Americans who bore special credentials from +the British Foreign Office.</p> + +<p>Here, because Britain took such good and splendid care to provide +amply for her men in uniform, there was a wide variety of good food +and an abundance of it for the guests and hosts alike. I figured, +though, that when I had passed beyond the zone of this gracious +hospitality there would be slim pickings. Not at all!</p> + +<p>In Paris there was to be had all the food and nearly all the sorts of +food any appetite, however fastidious, might crave. This was before +the French borrowed the card system of ration control in order to +govern the consumption of certain of the necessities. Of poultry and +of sea foods the only limits to what one might order were his interior +capacity and his purse. Of red meats there was seemingly a boundless +supply.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> + +<p>One reason for this plenitude lay in the fact that France, to a very +great extent, is a self-contained, self-supporting land, which England +distinctly is not; and another reason undoubtedly was that the French, +being more frugal and careful than their British or their American +brethren ever have been, make culinary use of a great deal of +healthful provender which the English-speaking races throw away. +Merely by glancing at the hors d'œuvres served at luncheon in a +medium-priced café in Paris one can get a good general idea of what +discriminating persons declined to eat at dinner the night before.</p> + +<p>The Parisian garbage collector must work by the day and not by the +job. On a piecework contract he would starve to death. And a third +reason was that all through the country the peasants, by request of +the Government, were slaughtering their surplus beeves and sheep and +swine, so there might be more forage for the army horses and more +grain available for the flour rations of the soldiers.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> + +<p>In Paris the bread was indifferently poor. An individual was +restricted to one medium-sized roll of bread at a meal. Butter was not +by any means abundant, and of sugar there was none to be had at all +unless the traveller had bethought him to slip a supply into the +country with him. The bulk of the milk supply was requisitioned for +babies and invalids and disabled soldiers. Cakes or pastries in any +form were absolutely prohibited in the public eating places, and, I +think, in private homes as well. But of beef and mutton and veal and +fowls, and the various products of the humble but widely versatile +pig, there was no end, provided you had the inclination plus the +price.</p> + +<p>And so, though the lack of sugar in one's food gave one an almost +constant craving for something sweet—and incidentally insured a host +of friends for anybody who came along with a box of American candy +under his arm or a few cakes of sweet chocolate in his pocket—one +might take his choice of a wide diversity of fare at any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> restaurant +of the first or second class, and keep well stayed.</p> + +<p>In connection with the Paris restaurants I made a most interesting +discovery, which was that when France called up her available man +power at the time of the great mobilisation, the military heads +somehow overlooked one group who, for their sins, should have been +sent up where bullets and Huns were thickest. The slum gave up its +Apache—and a magnificent fighter he is said to have made too! And the +piratical cab drivers who formerly infested the boulevards must have +answered the summons almost to a man, because only a few of them are +left nowadays, and they mainly wear markings to prove they have served +in the ranks; but by a most reprehensible error of somebody in +authority the typical head waiters of the cafés were spared. I base +this assertion upon the fact that all of them appeared to be on duty +at the time of my latest visit. If there was a single absentee from +the ranks I failed to miss him.</p> + +<p>There they were, the same hawk-eyed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> banditti crew that one was +constantly encountering in the old days; and up to all the same old +tricks too—such as adding the date of the month and all the figures +of the year into the bill; and such as invariably recommending the +most expensive dishes to foreigners; and such as coming to one and +bending over one and smiling upon one and murmuring to one: "An' wot +will ze gentailman 'ave to-day?"—and then, before the gentailman can +answer, jumping right in and telling him what he is going to have, +always favouring at least three different kinds of meats for even the +lightest meal, and never less than two vegetables, and never once +failing to recommend a full bottle of the costliest wine on the +premises.</p> + +<p>Stress of war had not caused these gentry to forget or forgo a single +one of the ancient wiles that for half a century their kind has +practised upon American tourists and others who didn't care what else +they did with their money so long as they were given a chance to spend +it for something they didn't particularly want. Yep; those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> charged +with the responsibility of calling up the reserves certainly made a +big mistake back yonder in August of 1914. They practised +discrimination in the wrong quarter altogether. If any favouritism was +to be shown they should have taken the head waiters and left the +Apaches at home.</p> + +<p>Many's the hard battle that I had with these chaps in 1918. It never +failed—not one single, solitary time did it fail—that the +functionary who took my order first tried to tell me what my order was +going to be, and then, after a struggle, reluctantly consented to +bring me the things I wanted and insisted on having. Never once did he +omit the ceremony of impressing it upon me that he would regard it as +a deep favour if only I would be so good as to order a whole lobster. +I do not think there was anything personal in this; he recommended the +lobster because lobster was the most expensive thing he had in stock. +If he could have thought of anything more expensive than lobster he +would have recommended that.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> + +<p>I always refused—not that I harbour any grudge against lobsters as a +class, but because I object to being dictated to by a buccaneer with +flat feet, who wears a soiled dickey instead of a shirt, and who is +only waiting for a chance to overcharge me or short-change me, or give +me bad money, or something. If every other form of provender had +failed them the populace of Paris could have subsisted very +comfortably for several days on the lobsters I refused to buy in the +course of the spring and summer of last year. I'm sure of it.</p> + +<p>And when I had firmly, emphatically, yea, ofttimes passionately +declined the proffered lobster, he, having with difficulty mastered +his chagrin, would seek to direct my attention to the salmon, his +motive for this change in tactics being that salmon, though apparently +plentiful, was generally the second most expensive item upon the +regular menu. Salmon as served in Paris wears a different aspect from +the one commonly worn by it when it appears upon the table here.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> + +<p>Over there they cut the fish through amidships, in cross-sections, +and, removing the segment of spinal column, spread the portion flat +upon a plate and serve it thus; the result greatly resembling a pair +of miniature pink horse collars. A man who knew not the salmon in his +native state, or ordering salmon in France, would get the idea that +the salmon was bowlegged and that the breast had been sold to some one +else, leaving only the hind quarters for him.</p> + +<p>Harking back to lobsters, I am reminded of a tragedy to which I was an +eyewitness. Nearly every night for a week or more two of us dined at +the same restaurant on the Rue de Rivoli. On the occasion of our first +appearance here we were confronted as we entered by a large table +bearing all manner of special delicacies and cold dishes. Right in the +middle of the array was one of the largest lobsters I ever saw, +reposing on a couch of water cress and seaweed, arranged upon a +serviette. He made an impressive sight as he lay there prone upon his +stomach, fidgeting his feelers in a petulant way.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> + +<p>We two took seats near by. At once the silent signal was given +signifying, in the cipher code, "Americans in the house!" And the +<i>maître d'hôtel</i> came to where he rested and, grasping him firmly just +back of the armpits, picked him up and brought him over to us and +invited us to consider his merits. When we had singly and together +declined to consider the proposition of eating him in each of the +three languages we knew—namely, English, bad French, and profane—the +master sorrowfully returned him to his bed.</p> + +<p>Presently two other Americans entered and immediately after them a +party of English officers, and then some more Americans. Each time the +boss would gather up the lobster and personally introduce him to the +newcomers, just as he had done in our case, by poking the monster +under their noses and making him wriggle to show that he was really +alive and not operated by clockwork, and enthusiastically dilating +upon his superior attractions, which, he assured them, would be +enormously enhanced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> if only <i>messieurs</i> would agree forthwith to +partake of him in a broiled state. But there were no takers; and so +back again he would go to his place by the door, there to remain till +the next prospective victim arrived.</p> + +<p>We fell into the habit of going to this place in the evenings in order +to enjoy repetitions of this performance while dining. The lobster +became to us as an old friend, a familiar acquaintance. We took to +calling him Jess Willard, partly on account of his reach and partly on +account of his rugged appearance, but most of all because his manager +appeared to have so much trouble in getting him matched with anybody.</p> + +<p class="center"><a name="img3" id="img3"></a><img src="images/image_03.jpg" alt="HALF A DOZEN TIMES A NIGHT OR OFTENER HE TRAVELLED +UNDER ESCORT THROUGH THE DINING ROOM" width="600" height="411" /><br /> +<span class="caption">HALF A DOZEN TIMES A NIGHT OR OFTENER HE TRAVELLED +UNDER ESCORT THROUGH THE DINING ROOM</span></p> + +<p>Half a dozen times a night, or oftener, he travelled under escort +through the dining room, always returning again to his regular +station. Along about the middle of the week he began to fail visibly. +Before our eyes we saw him fading. Either the artificial life he was +leading or the strain of being turned down so often was telling upon +him. It preyed upon his mind, as we could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> discern by his morose +expression. It sapped his splendid vitality as well. No longer did he +expand his chest and wave his numerous extremities about when being +exhibited before the indifferent eyes of possible investors, but +remained inert, logy, gloomy, spiritless—a melancholy spectacle +indeed.</p> + +<p>It now required artificial stimulation to induce him to display even a +temporary interest in his surroundings. With a practised finger, his +keeper would thump him on the tenderer portions of his stomach, and +then he would wake up; but it was only for a moment. He relapsed again +into his lamentable state of depression and languor. By every outward +sign here was a lobster that fain would withdraw from the world. But +we knew that for him there was no opportunity to do so; on the hoof he +represented too many precious francs to be allowed to go into +retirement.</p> + +<p>Coming on Saturday night we realised that for our old friend the end +was nigh. His eyes were deeply set about two-thirds <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> of the way back +toward his head and with one listless claw he picked at the serviette. +The summons was very near; the dread inevitable impended.</p> + +<p>Sunday night he was still present, but in a greatly altered state. +During the preceding twenty-four hours his brave spirit had fled. They +had boiled him then; so now, instead of being green, he was a bright +and varnished red all over, the exact colour of Truck Six in the +Paducah Fire Department.</p> + +<p>We felt that we who had been sympathisers at the bedside during some +of his farewell moments owed it to his memory to assist in the last +sad rites. At a perfectly fabulous price we bought the departed and +undertook to give him what might be called a personal interment; but +he was a disappointment. He should have been allowed to take the veil +before misanthropy had entirely undermined his health and destroyed +his better nature, and made him, as it were, morbid. Like Harry Leon +Wilson's im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>mortal Cousin Egbert, he could be pushed just so far, and +no farther.</p> + +<p>Before I left Paris the city was put upon bread cards. The country at +large was supposed to be on bread rations too; but in most of the +smaller towns I visited the hotel keepers either did not know about +the new regulation or chose to disregard it. Certainly they generally +disregarded it so far as we were concerned. For all I know to the +contrary, though, they were restricting their ordinary patrons to the +ordained quantities and making an exception in the case of our people. +It may have been one of their ways of showing a special courtesy to +representatives of an allied race. It would have been characteristic +of these kindly provincial innkeepers to have done just that thing.</p> + +<p>Likewise, one could no longer obtain cheese in a first-grade Paris +restaurant or aboard a French dining car, though cheese was to be had +in unstinted quantity in the rural districts and in the Paris shops; +and, I believe, it was also procurable in the cafés <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> of the Parisian +working classes, provided it formed a part of a meal costing not more +than five francs, or some such sum. In a first-rate place it was, of +course, impossible to get any sort of meal for five francs, or ten +francs either; especially after the ten per cent luxury tax had been +tacked on.</p> + +<p>In March prices at the smarter café eating places had already +advanced, I should say, at least one hundred per cent above the +customary pre-war rates; and by midsummer the tariffs showed a second +hundred per cent increase in delicacies, and one of at least fifty per +cent in staples, which brought them almost up to the New York +standards. Outside of Paris prices continued to be moderate and fair.</p> + +<p>Just as I was about starting on my last trip to the Front before +sailing for home, official announcement was made that dog biscuits +would shortly be advanced in price to a well-nigh prohibitive figure. +So I presume that very shortly thereafter the head waiters began +offering dog biscuits to American guests. I knew they would do so, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> just as soon as a dog biscuit cost more than a lobster did.</p> + +<p>Until this trip I never appreciated what a race of perfect cooks the +French are. I thought I did, but I didn't. One visiting the big cities +or stopping at show places and resorts along the main lines of motor +and rail travel in peacetime could never come to a real and due +appreciation of the uniformly high culinary expertness of the populace +in general. I had to take campaigning trips across country into +isolated districts lying well off the old tourist lanes to learn the +lesson. Having learned it, I profited by it.</p> + +<p>No matter how small the hamlet or how dingy appearing the so-called +hotel in it might be, we were sure of getting satisfying food, cooked +agreeably and served to us by a friendly, smiling little French +maiden, and charged for at a most reasonable figure, considering that +generally the town was fairly close up to the fighting lines and the +bringing in of supplies for civilians' needs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> was frequently +subordinated to the handling of military necessities.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the place might be almost within range of the big guns and +subjected to bombing outrages by enemy airmen, but somehow the local +Boniface managed to produce food ample for our desires, and most +appetising besides. His larder might be limited, but his good nature, +like his willingness and his hospitality, was boundless.</p> + +<p>I predict that there is going to be an era of better cooking in +America before very long. Our soldiers, returning home, are going to +demand a tastier and more diversified fare than many of them enjoyed +before they put on khaki and went overseas; and they are going to get +it, too. Remembering what they had to eat under French roofs, they +will never again be satisfied with meats fried to death, with soggy +vegetables, with underdone breads.</p> + +<p>Sometimes as we went scouting about on our roving commission to see +what we might see, at mealtime we would enter a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> community too small +to harbour within it any establishment calling itself a hotel. In such +a case this, then, would be our procedure: We would run down to the +railroad crossing and halt at the door of the inevitable <i>Café de la +Station</i>, or, as we should say in our language, the Last Chance +Saloon; and of the proprietor we would inquire the name and +whereabouts of some person in the community who might be induced, for +a price, to feed a duet or a trio of hungry correspondents.</p> + +<p>At first, when we were green at the thing, we sometimes tried to +interrogate the local gendarme; but complications, misunderstandings, +and that same confusion of tongues which spoiled so promising a +building project one time at the Tower of Babel always ensued. Central +Europe has a very dense population, as the geographies used to tell +us; but the densest ones get on the police force.</p> + +<p>So when by bitter experience we had learned that the gendarme never by +any chance could get our meaning and that we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> never could understand +his gestures, we hit upon the wise expedient of going right away to +the Last Chance for information.</p> + +<p>At the outset I preferred to let one of my companions conduct the +inquiry; but presently it dawned upon me that my mode of speech gave +unbounded joy to my provincial audiences, and I decided that if a +little exertion on my part brought a measure of innocent pleasure into +the lives of these good folks it was my duty, as an Ally, to oblige +whenever possible.</p> + +<p>I came to realise that all these years I have been employing the wrong +vehicle when I strive to dash off whimsicalities, because frequently +my very best efforts, as done in English, have fallen flat. But when +in some remote village I, using French, uttered the simplest and most +commonplace remark to a French tavern keeper, with absolutely no +intent or desire whatsoever, mind you, to be humorous or facetious, +invariably he would burst instantly into peals of unbridled merriment.</p> + +<p>Frequently he would call in his wife or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> some of his friends to help +him laugh. And then, when his guffaws had died away into gentle +chuckles, he would make answer; and if he spoke rapidly, as he always +did, I would be swept away by the freshets of his eloquence and left +gasping far beyond my depth.</p> + +<p>That was why, when I went to a revue in Paris, I hoped they'd have +some good tumbling on the bill.</p> + +<p>I understand French, of course, curiously enough, but not as spoken. I +likewise have difficulty in making out its meaning when I read it; but +in other regards I flatter myself that my knowledge of the language is +quite adequate. Certainly, as I have just stated, I managed to create +a pleasant sensation among my French hearers when I employed it in +conversation.</p> + +<p>As I was saying, the general rule was that I should ask the name and +whereabouts of a house in the town where we might procure victuals; +and then, after a bit, when the laughing had died down, one of my +com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>panions would break in and find out what we wanted to know.</p> + +<p>The information thus secured probably led us to a tiny cottage of +mud-daubed wattles. Our hostess there might be a shapeless, wrinkled, +clumsy old woman. Her kitchen equipment might be confined to an open +fire and a spit, and a few battered pots.</p> + +<p>Her larder might be most meagrely circumscribed as to variety, and +generally was. But she could concoct such savoury dishes for us—such +marvellous, golden-brown fried potatoes; such good soups; such savoury +omelets; such toothsome fragrant stews! Especially such stews!</p> + +<p>For all we knew—or cared—the meat she put into her pot might have +been horse meat and the garnishments such green things as she had +plucked at the roadside; but the flavour of the delectable broth cured +us of any inclinations to make investigation as to the former stations +in life of its basic constituents. I am satisfied that, chosen at +random, almost any peasant housewife of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> France can take an old Palm +Beach suit and a handful of potherbs and, mingling these together +according to her own peculiar system, turn out a ragout fit for a +king. Indeed, it would be far too good for some kings I know of.</p> + +<p>And if she had a worn-out bath sponge and the cork of a discarded +vanilla-extract bottle she, calling upon her hens for a little help in +the matter of eggs, could produce for dessert a delicious meringue, +with floating-island effects in it. I'd stake my life on her ability +to deliver.</p> + +<p>If, on such an occasion as the one I have sought to describe, we were +perchance in the south of France or in the Côte-d'Or country, lying +over toward the Swiss border, we could count upon having a bait of +delicious strawberries to wind up with. But if perchance we had fared +into one of the northeastern provinces we were reasonably certain the +meal would be rounded out with helpings of a certain kind of cheese +that is indigenous to those parts. It comes in a flat cake, which +invariably is all caved <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> in and squashed out, as though the +cheese-maker had sat upon it while bringing it into the market in his +two-wheeled cart.</p> + +<p>Likewise, when its temperature goes up, it becomes more of a liquid +than a solid; and it has an aroma by virtue of which it secures the +attention and commands the respect of the most casual passer-by. It is +more than just cheese. I should call it mother-of-cheese. It is to +other and lesser cheeses as civet cats are to canary birds—if you get +what I mean; and in its company the most boisterous Brie or the most +vociferous Camembert you ever saw becomes at once deaf and dumb.</p> + +<p>Its flavour is wonderful. Mainly it is found in ancient Normandy; and, +among strangers, eating it—or, when it is in an especially fluid +state, drinking it—comes under the head of outdoor sports. But the +natives take it right into the same house with themselves.</p> + +<p>And, no matter where we were—in Picardy, in Brittany, in the Vosges +or the Champagne, as the case might be—we had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> wonderful crusty bread +and delicious butter and a good light wine to go along with our meal. +We would sit at a bare table in the smoky cluttered interior of the +old kitchen, with the rafters just over our heads, and with the broken +tiles—or sometimes the bare earthen floor—beneath our feet, and +would eat our fill.</p> + +<p>More times than once or twice or thrice I have known the mistress of +the house at settlement time to insist that we were overpaying her. +From a civilian compatriot she would have exacted the last sou of her +just due; but, because we were Americans and because our country had +sent its sons overseas to help her people save France, she, a +representative of the most canny and thrifty class in a country known +for the thriftiness of all its classes, hesitated to accept the full +amount of the sum we offered her in payment.</p> + +<p>She believed us, of course, to be rich—in the eyes of the European +peasant all Americans are rich—and she was poor and hard put to it to +earn her living; but here was a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> chance for her to show in her own way +a sense of what she, as a Frenchwoman, felt for America. Somehow, the +more you see of the French, the less you care for the Germans.</p> + +<p>Moving on up a few miles nearer the trenches, we would run into our +own people; and then we were sure of a greeting, and a chair apiece +and a tin plate and a tin cup apiece at an American mess. I have had +chuck with privates and I have had chow with noncoms; I have had grub +with company commanders and I have dined with generals—and always the +meal was flavoured with the good, strong man-talk of the real +he-American.</p> + +<p>The food was of the best quality and there was plenty of it for all, +and some to spare. One reason—among others—why the Yank fought so +well was because he was so well fed between fights.</p> + +<p>The very best meals I had while abroad were vouchsafed me during the +three days I spent with a front-line regiment as a guest of the +colonel of one of our negro out +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> fits. To this colonel a French +general, out of the goodness of his heart, had loaned his cook, a +whiskered poilu, who, before he became a whiskered poilu, had been the +chef in the castle of one of the richest men in Europe.</p> + +<p>This genius cooked the midday meals and the dinners; but, because no +Frenchman can understand why any one should require for breakfast +anything more solid than a dry roll and a dab of honey, the +preparation of the morning meal was intrusted to a Southern black boy, +who, I may say, was a regular skillet hound. And this gifted youth +wrestled with the matutinal ham and eggs and flipped the flapjacks for +the headquarters mess.</p> + +<p>On a full Southern breakfast and a wonderful French luncheon and +dinner a grown man can get through the day very, very well indeed, as +I bear witness.</p> + +<p>Howsomever, as spring wore into summer and summer ran its course, I +began to long with a constantly increasing longing for certain +distinctive dishes to be found no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>where except in my native clime; +brook trout, for example, and roasting ears, and—Oh, lots of things! +So I came home to get them.</p> + +<p>And, now that I've had them, I often catch myself in the act of +thoughtfully dwelling upon the fond remembrances of those spicy +fragrant stews eaten in peasant kitchens, and those army doughnuts, +and those slices of bacon toasted at daybreak on the lids of mess kits +in British dugouts.</p> + +<p>I suppose they call contentment a jewel because it is so rare.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<table summary="List of Books"> +<tr><td class="center"><b>BY IRVIN S. COBB</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="center"> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:13em"><b>FICTION</b></span></td> +</tr> +<tr><td ><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Those Times and These</span></span></td> +</tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Local Color</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Old Judge Priest</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Fibble, D.D.</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Back Home</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">The Escape of Mr. Trimm</span></span></td></tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:13em"><b>WIT AND HUMOR</b></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">"Speaking of Operations—"</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Europe Revised</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Roughing It De Luxe</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Cobb's Bill of Fare</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Cobb's Anatomy</span></span></td></tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:13em"><b>MISCELLANY</b></span></td></tr> + + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">The Thunders of Silence</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">"Speaking of Prussians—"</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left:14em"><span class="smcap">Paths of Glory</span></span></td></tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="center"><b>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</b></td></tr> +<tr><td class="center" ><b>NEW YORK</b></td></tr> +</table> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Eating in Two or Three Languages, by Irvin S. Cobb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES *** + +***** This file should be named 18526-h.htm or 18526-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/5/2/18526/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship, Sankar +Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +of Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Cobb + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Eating in Two or Three Languages + +Author: Irvin S. Cobb + +Release Date: June 7, 2006 [EBook #18526] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship, Sankar +Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +of Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + + + + + + + + + [Illustration: NO RED MEATS, BUT ONLY SEA FOODS] + + + _Eating_ + + _in Two or Three_ + + _Languages_ + + + + _By_ + + _Irvin S. Cobb_ + + _Author of_ + _"Paths of Glory," "Those Times and These," etc._ + + + + + _New York_ + _George H. Doran Company_ + + +COPYRIGHT, 1919, +BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + +COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + + * * * * * + + +TO + +B.B. McALPIN, ESQUIRE, + +WHO KNOWS A LOT + +ABOUT EATING + + * * * * * + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +No Red Meats, but Only Sea Foods. _Frontispiece_ + +"Herb, Stand Back! Stand Well Back to Avoid Being Splashed!" + +Half a Dozen Times a Night or Oftener He Travelled under Escort +through the Room + + + + +_Eating in Two or Three Languages_ + + +On my way home from overseas I spent many happy hours mapping out a +campaign. To myself I said: "The day I land is going to be a great day +for some of the waiters and a hard day on some of the cooks. Persons +who happen to be near by when I am wrestling with my first ear of +green corn will think I am playing on a mouth organ. My behaviour in +regard to hothouse asparagus will be reminiscent of the best work of +the late Bosco. In the matter of cantaloupes I rather fancy I shall +consume the first two on the half shell, or _au naturel_, as we +veteran correspondents say; but the third one will contain about as +much vanilla ice cream as you could put in a derby hat. + +[Illustration: "HERB, STAND BACK! STAND WELL BACK TO AVOID BEING +SPLASHED!"] + +"And when, as I am turning over my second piece of fried chicken, with +Virginia ham, if H. Hoover should crawl out from under it, and, +shaking the gravy out of his eyes, should lift a warning hand, I shall +say to him: 'Herb,' I shall say, 'Herb, stand back! Stand well back +to avoid being splashed, Herb. Please desist and do not bother me now, +for I am busy. Kindly remember that I am but just returned from over +there and that for months and months past, as I went to and fro across +the face of the next hemisphere that you'll run into on the left of +you if you go just outside of Sandy Hook and take the first turn to +the right, I have been storing up a great, unsatisfied longing for the +special dishes of my own, my native land. Don't try, I pray you, to +tell me a patriot can't do his bit and eat it too, for I know better. + +"'Shortly I may be in a fitter frame of mind to listen to your +admonitions touching on rationing schemes; but not to-day, and +possibly not to-morrow either, Herb. At this moment I consider food +regulations as having been made for slaves and perhaps for the run of +other people; but not for me. As a matter of fact, what you may have +observed up until now has merely been my preliminary attack--what you +might call open warfare, with scouting operations. But when they +bring on the transverse section of watermelon I shall take these two +trenching tools which I now hold in my hands, and just naturally start +digging in. I trust you may be hanging round then; you'll certainly +overhear something.' + +"'Kindly pass the ice water. That's it. Thank you. Join me, won't you, +in a brimming beaker? It may interest you to know that I am now on my +second carafe of this wholesome, delicious and satisfying beverage. +Where I have lately been, in certain parts of the adjacent continent, +there isn't any ice, and nobody by any chance ever drinks water. +Nobody bathes in it either, so far as I have been able to note. You'll +doubtless be interested in hearing what they do do with it over on +that side. It took me months to find out. + +"'Then finally, one night in a remote interior village, I went to an +entertainment in a Y.M.C.A. hut. A local magician came out on the +platform; and after he had done some tricks with cards and +handkerchiefs which were so old that they were new all over again, he +reached up under the tails of his dress coat and hauled out a big +glass globe that was slopping full of its crystal-pure fluid contents, +with a family of goldfish swimming round and round in it, as happy as +you please. + +"'So then, all in a flash, the answer came and I knew the secret of +what the provincials in that section of Europe do with water. They +loan it to magicians to keep goldfish in. But I prefer to drink a +little of it while I am eating and to eat a good deal while I am +drinking it; both of which, I may state, I am now doing to the best of +my ability, and without let or hindrance, Herb.'" + +To be exactly correct about it, I began mapping out this campaign long +before I took ship for the homeward hike. The suggestion formed in my +mind during those weeks I spent in London, when the resident +population first went on the food-card system. You had to have a meat +card, I think, to buy raw meat in a butcher shop, and you had to have +another kind of meat card, I know, to get cooked meat in a +restaurant; and you had to have a friend who was a smuggler or a +hoarder to get an adequate supply of sugar under any circumstances. +Before I left, every one was carrying round a sheaf of cards. You +didn't dare go fishing if you had mislaid your worm card. + +The resolution having formed, it budded and grew in my mind when I was +up near the Front gallantly exposing myself to the sort of +table-d'hote dinners that were available then in some of the lesser +towns immediately behind the firing lines; and it kept right on +growing, so that by the time I was ready to sail it was full sized. En +route, I thought up an interchangeable answer for two of the oldest +conundrums of my childhood, one of them being: "Round as a biscuit, +busy as a bee; busiest thing you ever did see," and the other, "Opens +like a barn door, shuts like a trap; guess all day and you can't guess +that." In the original versions the answer to the first was "A watch," +and to the second, "A corset"--if I recall aright But the joint +answer I worked out was as follows: "My face!" + +Such was the pleasing program I figured out on shipboard. But, as is +so frequently the case with the most pleasing things in life, I found +the anticipation rather outshone the realisation. Already I detect +myself, in a retrospective mood, hankering for the savoury _ragouts_ +we used to get in peasant homes in obscure French villages, and for +the meals they gave us at the regimental messes of our own forces, +where the cooking was the home sort and good honest American slang +abounded. + +They called the corned beef Canned Willie; and the stew was known +affectionately as Slum, and the doughnuts were Fried Holes. When the +adjutant, who had been taking French lessons, remarked "What the _la_ +hell does that _sacre-blew_ cook mean by serving forty-fours at every +meal?" you gathered he was getting a mite tired of baked army beans. +And if the lieutenant colonel asked you to pass him the Native Sons +you knew he meant he wanted prunes. It was a great life, if you +didn't weaken--and nobody did. + +But, so far as the joys of the table are concerned, I think I shall be +able to wait for quite a spell before I yearn for another whack at +English eating. I opine Charles Dickens would be a most unhappy man +could he but return to the scenes he loved and wrote about. + +Dickens, as will be recalled, specialised in mouth-watering +descriptions of good things and typically British things to eat--roast +sucking pigs, with apples in their snouts; and baked goose; and suety +plum puddings like speckled cannon balls; and cold game pies as big +round as barrel tops--and all such. He wouldn't find these things +prevailing to any noticeable extent in his native island now. Even the +kidney, the same being the thing for which an Englishman mainly raises +a sheep and which he always did know how to serve up better than any +one else on earth, somehow doesn't seem to be the kidney it once upon +a time was when it had the proper sorts of trimmings and sauces to go +with it. + +At this time England is no place for the epicure. In peacetime English +cooks, as a rule, were not what you would call versatile; their range, +as it were, was limited. Once, seeking to be blithesome and light of +heart, I wrote an article in which I said there were only three +dependable vegetables on the average Englishman's everyday +menu--boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, and a second helping of the +boiled potatoes. + +That was an error on my part; I was unintentionally guilty of the +crime of underestimation. I should have added a fourth to the list of +stand-bys--to wit: the vegetable marrow. For some reason, possibly +because they are a stubborn and tenacious race, the English persist in +looking upon the vegetable marrow as an object designed for human +consumption, which is altogether the wrong view to take of it. As a +foodstuff this article hasn't even the merit that attaches to stringy +celery. You do not derive much nourishment from stale celery, but +eating at it polishes the teeth and provides a healthful form of +exercise that gives you an appetite for the rest of the meal. + +From the vegetable marrow you derive no nourishment, and certainly you +derive no exercise; for, being a soft, weak, spiritless thing, it +offers no resistance whatever, and it looks a good deal like a streak +of solidified fog and tastes like the place where an indisposed carrot +spent the night. Next to our summer squash it is the feeblest +imitation that ever masqueraded in a skin and called itself a +vegetable. Yet its friends over there seem to set much store by it. + +Likewise the English cook has always gone in rather extensively for +boiling things. When in doubt she boiled. But it takes a lot of +retouching to restore to a piece of boiled meat the juicy essences +that have been simmered and drenched out of it. Since the English +people, with such admirable English thoroughness, cut down on fats and +oils and bacon garnishments, so that the greases might be conserved +for the fighting forces; and since they have so largely had to do +without imported spices and condiments, because the cargo spaces in +the ships coming in were needed for military essentials, the boiled +dishes of England appear to have lost most of their taste. + +You can do a lot of browsing about at an English table these days and +come away ostensibly filled; but inside you there will be a persistent +unsatisfied feeling, all the same, which is partly due, no doubt, to +the lack of sweetening and partly due to the lack of fats, but due +most of all, I think, to a natural disappointment in the results. In +the old times a man didn't feel that he had dined well in England +unless for an hour or two afterward he had the comfortable gorged +sensation of a python full of pigeons. + +I shall never forget the first meals I had on English soil, this +latest trip. At the port where we landed, in the early afternoon of a +raw day, you could get tea if you cared for tea, which I do not; but +there was no sugar--only saccharine--to sweeten it with, and no rich +cream, or even skim milk, available with which to dilute it. The +accompanying buns had a flat, dry, floury taste, and the portions of +butter served with them were very homoeopathic indeed as to size and +very oleomargarinish as to flavour. + +Going up to London we rode in a train that was crowded and darkened. +Brilliantly illuminated trains scooting across country offered an +excellent mark for the aim of hostile air raiders, you know; so in +each compartment the gloom was enhanced rather than dissipated by two +tiny pin points of a ghastly pale-blue gas flame. I do not know why +there should have been two of these lights, unless it was that the +second one was added so that by its wan flickerings you could see the +first one, and vice versa. + +During the trip, which lasted several hours longer than the scheduled +running time, we had for refreshments a few gnarly apples, purchased +at a way station; and that was all. Recalling the meals that formerly +had been served aboard the boat trains of this road, I realised I was +getting my preliminary dose of life on an island whose surrounding +waters were pestered by U-boats and whose shipping was needed for +transport service. But I pinned my gastronomic hopes on London, that +city famed of old for the plenteous prodigality of its victualling +facilities. In my ignorance I figured that the rigours of rationing +could not affect London to any very noticeable extent. A little +trimming down here and there, an enforced curtailment in this +direction and that--yes, perhaps so; but surely nothing more serious. + +Immediately on arrival we chartered a taxicab--a companion and I did. +This was not so easy a job as might be imagined by one who formed his +opinions on past recollections of London, because, since gasoline was +carefully rationed there, taxis were scarce where once they had been +numerous. Indeed, I know of no city in which, in antebellum days, +taxis were so numerously distributed through almost every quarter of +the town as in London. At any busy corner there were almost as many +taxicabs waiting and ready to serve you as there are taxicabs in New +York whose drivers are cruising about looking for a chance to run over +you. The foregoing is still true of New York, but did not apply to +London in war time. + +Having chartered our cab, much to the chagrin of a group of our fellow +travellers who had wasted precious time getting their heavy luggage +out of the van, we rode through the darkened streets to a hotel +formerly renowned for the scope and excellence of its cuisine. We +reached there after the expiration of the hour set apart under the +food regulations for serving dinner to the run of folks. But, because +we were both in uniform--he as a surgeon in the British Army, and I as +a correspondent--and because we had but newly finished a journey by +rail, we were entitled, it seemed, to claim refreshment. + +However, he, as an officer, was restricted to a meal costing not to +exceed six shillings--and six shillings never did go far in this +hotel, even when prices were normal. Not being an officer but merely a +civilian disguised in the habiliments of a military man, I, on the +other hand, was bound by no such limitations, but might go as far as I +pleased. So it was decided that I should order double portions of +everything and surreptitiously share with him; for by now we were +hungry to the famishing point. + +We had our minds set on a steak--a large thick steak served with +onions, Desdemona style--that is to say, smothered. It was a pretty +thought, a passing fair conception--but a vain one. + +"No steaks to-night, sir," said the waiter sorrowfully. + +"All right, then," one of us said. "How about chops--fat juicy chops?" + +"Oh, no, sir; no chops, sir," he told us. + +"Well then, what have you in the line of red meats?" + +He was desolated to be compelled to inform us that there were no red +meats of any sort to be had, but only sea foods. So we started in with +oysters. Personally I have never cared deeply for the European oyster. +In size he is anaemic and puny as compared with his brethren of the +eastern coast of North America; and, moreover, chronically he is +suffering from an acute attack of brass poisoning. The only way by +which a novice may distinguish a bad European oyster from a good +European oyster is by the fact that a bad one tastes slightly better +than a good one does. In my own experience I have found this to be the +one infallible test. + +We had oysters until both of us were full of verdigris, and I, for +one, had a tang in my mouth like an antique bronze jug; and then we +proceeded to fish. We had fillets of sole, which tasted as they +looked--flat and a bit flabby. Subsequently I learned that this lack +of savour in what should be the most toothsome of all European fishes +might be attributed to an insufficiency of fat in the cooking; but at +the moment I could only believe the trip up from Dover had given the +poor thing a touch of car sickness from which he had not recovered +before he reached us. + +After that we had lobsters, half-fare size, but charged for at the +full adult rates. And, having by now exhausted our capacity for sea +foods, we wound up with an alleged dessert in the shape of three +drowned prunes apiece, the remains being partly immersed in a palish +custardlike composition that was slightly sour. + +"Never mind," I said to my indignant stomach as we left the +table--"Never mind! I shall make it all up to you for this +mistreatment at breakfast to-morrow morning. We shall rise early--you +and I--and with loud gurgling cries we shall leap headlong into one of +those regular breakfasts in which the people of this city and nation +specialise so delightfully. Food regulators may work their ruthless +will upon the dinner trimmings, but none would dare to put so much as +the weight of one impious finger upon an Englishman's breakfast table +to curtail its plenitude. Why, next to Magna Charta, an Englishman's +breakfast is his most sacred right." + +This in confidence was what I whispered to my gastric juices. You see, +being still in ignorance of the full scope of the ration scheme in +its application to the metropolitan district, and my disheartening +experience at the meal just concluded to the contrary notwithstanding, +I had my thoughts set upon rashers of crisp Wiltshire bacon, and broad +segments of grilled York ham, and fried soles, and lovely plump +sausages bursting from their jackets, and devilled kidneys paired off +on a slice of toast, like Noah and his wife crossing the gangplank +into the Ark. + +Need I prolong the pain of my disclosures by longer withholding the +distressing truth that breakfast next morning was a failure too? To +begin with, I couldn't get any of those lovely crisp crescent rolls +that accord so rhythmically with orange marmalade and strawberry jam. +I couldn't get hot buttered toast either, but only some thin hard +slabs of war bread, which seemingly had been dry-cured in a kiln. I +could have but a very limited amount of sugar--a mere pinch, in fact; +and if I used it to tone up my coffee there would be none left for +oatmeal porridge. Moreover, this dab of sugar was to be my full day's +allowance, it seemed. There was no cream for the porridge either, but, +instead, a small measure of skimmed milk so pale in colour that it had +the appearance of having been diluted with moonbeams. + +Furthermore, I was informed that prior to nine-thirty I could have no +meat of any sort, the only exceptions to this cruel rule being +kippered herrings and bloaters; and in strict confidence the waiter +warned me that, for some mysterious reason, neither the kippers nor +the bloaters seemed to be up to their oldtime mark of excellence just +now. From the same source I gathered that it would be highly +inadvisable to order fried eggs, because of the lack of sufficient fat +in which to cook them. So, as a last resort, I ordered two eggs, +soft-boiled. They were served upended, English-fashion, in little +individual cups, the theory being that in turn I should neatly scalp +the top off of each egg with my spoon and then scoop out the contents +from Nature's own container. + +Now Englishmen are born with the faculty to perform this difficult +achievement; they inherit it. But I have known only one American who +could perform the feat with neatness and despatch; and, as he had +devoted practically all his energies to mastering this difficult alien +art, he couldn't do much of anything else, and, except when eggs were +being served in the original packages, he was practically a total loss +in society. He was a variation of the breed who devote their lives to +producing a perfect salad dressing; and you must know what sad affairs +those persons are when not engaged in following their lone talent. +Take them off of salad dressings and they are just naturally null and +void. + +In my crude and amateurish way I attacked those eggs, breaking into +them, not with the finesse the finished egg burglar would display, but +more like a yeggman attacking a safe. I spilt a good deal of the +insides of those eggs down over their outsides, producing a most +untidy effect; and when I did succeed in excavating a spoonful I +generally forgot to season it, or else it was full of bits of shell. +Altogether, the results were unsatisfactory and mussy. Rarely have I +eaten a breakfast which put so slight a subsequent strain upon my +digestive processes. + +Until noon I hung about, preoccupied and surcharged with inner +yearnings. There were plenty of things--important things, too, they +were--that I should have been doing; but I couldn't seem to fix my +mind upon any subject except food. The stroke of midday found me +briskly walking into a certain restaurant on the Strand that for many +decades has been internationally famous for the quality and the +unlimited quantity of its foods, and more particularly for its beef +and its mutton. If ever you visited London in peacetime you must +remember the place I mean. + +The carvers were middle-aged full-ported men, with fine ruddy +complexions, and moustaches of the Japanese weeping mulberry or +mammoth droop variety. On signal one of them would come promptly to +you where you sat, he shoving ahead of him a great trencher on +wheels, with a spirit lamp blazing beneath the platter to keep its +delectable burden properly hot. It might be that he brought to you a +noble haunch of venison or a splendid roast of pork or a vast leg of +boiled mutton; or, more likely yet, a huge joint of beef uprearing +like a delectable island from a sea of bubbling gravy, with an edging +of mashed potatoes creaming up upon its outer reefs. + +If, then, you enriched this person with a shilling, or even if you +didn't, he would take in his brawny right hand a knife with a blade a +foot long, and with this knife he would cut off from the joint a slice +about the size and general dimensions of a horseshoer's apron. And if +you cared for a second slice, after finishing the first one, the +carver felt complimented and there was no extra charge for it. It was +his delight to minister to you. + +But, alas, on this day when I came with my appetite whetted by my sea +voyage, and with an additional edge put upon it by the privations I +had undergone since landing, there was to be had no beef at all! Of a +sudden this establishment, lacking its roast beef, became to me as the +tragedy of Hamlet, the melancholy Dane, would be with Hamlet and +Ophelia and her pa and the ghost and the wicked queen, and both the +gravediggers, all left out. + +When I had seated myself one of the carvers came to me and, with an +abased and apologetic air, very different from his jaunty manner of +yore, explained in a husky half whisper that I might have jugged hare +or I might have boiled codfish, or I might have one of the awful +dishes. Anyhow, that was what I understood him to say. + +This last had an especially daunting sound, but I suppose I was in a +morbid state, anyhow, by now; and so I made further inquiry and +ascertained from him that the restrictions applying to the sale of +meat did not apply to the more intimate organs of the butchered +animal, such as the liver and the heart, and, in the case of a cow, +the tripe. But the English, with characteristic bluntness, choose to +call one of these in its cooked state an offal dish--pronounced as +spelled and frequently tasting as pronounced. + +As one who had primed himself for a pound or so of the rib-roast +section of a grass-fed steer, I was not to be put off with one of the +critter's spare parts, as it were. Nor did the thought of codfish, and +especially boiled codfish, appeal to me greatly. I have no settled +antipathy to the desiccated tissues of this worthy deep-sea voyager +when made up into fish cakes. Moreover that young and adolescent +creature, commonly called a Boston scrod, which is a codfish whose +voice is just changing, is not without its attractions; but the +full-grown species is not a favourite of mine. + +To me there has ever been something depressing about an adult codfish. +Any one who has ever had occasion to take cod-liver oil--as who, +unhappily, has not?--is bound to appreciate the true feelings that +must inevitably come to a codfish as he goes to and fro in the deep +for years on a stretch, carrying that kind of a liver about with him +all the while. + +As a last resort I took the jugged hare; but jugged hare was not what +I craved. At eventide, returning to the same restaurant, I was +luckier. I found mutton on the menu; but, even so, yet another hard +blow awaited me. By reason of the meat-rationing arrangements a single +purchaser was restricted to so many ounces a week, and no more. The +portion I received in exchange for a corner clipped off my meat card +was but a mere reminder of what a portion in that house would have +been in the old days. + +There had been a time when a sincere but careless diner from up +Scotland way, down in London on a visit, would have carried away more +than that much on his necktie; which did not matter particularly then, +when food was plentiful; and, besides, usually he wore a pattern of +necktie which was improved by almost anything that was spilled upon +it. But it did matter to me that I had to dine on this hangnail pared +from a sheep. + +A few days later I partook of a fast at what was supposed to be a +luncheon, which the Lord Mayor of London attended, in company with +sundry other notables. Earlier readings had led me to expect an +endless array of spicy and succulent viands at any table a Lord Mayor +might grace with his presence. Such, though, was not the case here. We +had eggs for an _entree_; and after that we had plain boiled turbot, +which to my mind is no great shakes of a fish, even when tuckered up +with sauces; and after that we had coffee and cigars; and finally we +had several cracking good speeches by members of a race whose men are +erroneously believed by some Americans to be practically inarticulate +when they get up on their feet and try to talk. + +There was a touch of tragedy mingled in with the comedy of the +situation in the spectacle of these Englishmen, belonging to a nation +of proverbially generous feeders, stinting themselves and cutting the +lardings and the sweetenings and the garnishments down to the limit +that there might be a greater abundance of solid sustenance +forthcoming for their fighting forces. + +I do not mean by this that there was any real lack of nourishing +provender in London or anywhere else in England that I went. The long +queues of waiting patrons in front of the butcher shops during the +first few days of my sojourn very soon disappeared when people learned +that they could be sure of getting meat of one sort or another, and at +a price fixed by law; which was a good thing too, seeing that thereby +the extortioner and the profiteer lost their chances to gain unduly +through the necessities of the populace. So far as I was able to +ascertain, nobody on the island actually suffered--except the present +writer of these lines; and he suffered chiefly because he could not +restrain himself from comparing the English foods of pre-war periods +with the English foods of the hour. + +If things were thus in England, what would they be in France? This was +the question I repeatedly put to myself. But when I got to France a +surprise awaited me. It was a surprise deferred, because for the +first week of my sojourn upon French soil I was the guest of the +British military authorities at a chateau maintained for the +entertainment of visiting Americans who bore special credentials from +the British Foreign Office. + +Here, because Britain took such good and splendid care to provide +amply for her men in uniform, there was a wide variety of good food +and an abundance of it for the guests and hosts alike. I figured, +though, that when I had passed beyond the zone of this gracious +hospitality there would be slim pickings. Not at all! + +In Paris there was to be had all the food and nearly all the sorts of +food any appetite, however fastidious, might crave. This was before +the French borrowed the card system of ration control in order to +govern the consumption of certain of the necessities. Of poultry and +of sea foods the only limits to what one might order were his interior +capacity and his purse. Of red meats there was seemingly a boundless +supply. + +One reason for this plenitude lay in the fact that France, to a very +great extent, is a self-contained, self-supporting land, which England +distinctly is not; and another reason undoubtedly was that the French, +being more frugal and careful than their British or their American +brethren ever have been, make culinary use of a great deal of +healthful provender which the English-speaking races throw away. +Merely by glancing at the hors d'oeuvres served at luncheon in a +medium-priced cafe in Paris one can get a good general idea of what +discriminating persons declined to eat at dinner the night before. + +The Parisian garbage collector must work by the day and not by the +job. On a piecework contract he would starve to death. And a third +reason was that all through the country the peasants, by request of +the Government, were slaughtering their surplus beeves and sheep and +swine, so there might be more forage for the army horses and more +grain available for the flour rations of the soldiers. + +In Paris the bread was indifferently poor. An individual was +restricted to one medium-sized roll of bread at a meal. Butter was not +by any means abundant, and of sugar there was none to be had at all +unless the traveller had bethought him to slip a supply into the +country with him. The bulk of the milk supply was requisitioned for +babies and invalids and disabled soldiers. Cakes or pastries in any +form were absolutely prohibited in the public eating places, and, I +think, in private homes as well. But of beef and mutton and veal and +fowls, and the various products of the humble but widely versatile +pig, there was no end, provided you had the inclination plus the +price. + +And so, though the lack of sugar in one's food gave one an almost +constant craving for something sweet--and incidentally insured a host +of friends for anybody who came along with a box of American candy +under his arm or a few cakes of sweet chocolate in his pocket--one +might take his choice of a wide diversity of fare at any restaurant +of the first or second class, and keep well stayed. + +In connection with the Paris restaurants I made a most interesting +discovery, which was that when France called up her available man +power at the time of the great mobilisation, the military heads +somehow overlooked one group who, for their sins, should have been +sent up where bullets and Huns were thickest. The slum gave up its +Apache--and a magnificent fighter he is said to have made too! And the +piratical cab drivers who formerly infested the boulevards must have +answered the summons almost to a man, because only a few of them are +left nowadays, and they mainly wear markings to prove they have served +in the ranks; but by a most reprehensible error of somebody in +authority the typical head waiters of the cafes were spared. I base +this assertion upon the fact that all of them appeared to be on duty +at the time of my latest visit. If there was a single absentee from +the ranks I failed to miss him. + +There they were, the same hawk-eyed banditti crew that one was +constantly encountering in the old days; and up to all the same old +tricks too--such as adding the date of the month and all the figures +of the year into the bill; and such as invariably recommending the +most expensive dishes to foreigners; and such as coming to one and +bending over one and smiling upon one and murmuring to one: "An' wot +will ze gentailman 'ave to-day?"--and then, before the gentailman can +answer, jumping right in and telling him what he is going to have, +always favouring at least three different kinds of meats for even the +lightest meal, and never less than two vegetables, and never once +failing to recommend a full bottle of the costliest wine on the +premises. + +Stress of war had not caused these gentry to forget or forgo a single +one of the ancient wiles that for half a century their kind has +practised upon American tourists and others who didn't care what else +they did with their money so long as they were given a chance to spend +it for something they didn't particularly want. Yep; those charged +with the responsibility of calling up the reserves certainly made a +big mistake back yonder in August of 1914. They practised +discrimination in the wrong quarter altogether. If any favouritism was +to be shown they should have taken the head waiters and left the +Apaches at home. + +Many's the hard battle that I had with these chaps in 1918. It never +failed--not one single, solitary time did it fail--that the +functionary who took my order first tried to tell me what my order was +going to be, and then, after a struggle, reluctantly consented to +bring me the things I wanted and insisted on having. Never once did he +omit the ceremony of impressing it upon me that he would regard it as +a deep favour if only I would be so good as to order a whole lobster. +I do not think there was anything personal in this; he recommended the +lobster because lobster was the most expensive thing he had in stock. +If he could have thought of anything more expensive than lobster he +would have recommended that. + +I always refused--not that I harbour any grudge against lobsters as a +class, but because I object to being dictated to by a buccaneer with +flat feet, who wears a soiled dickey instead of a shirt, and who is +only waiting for a chance to overcharge me or short-change me, or give +me bad money, or something. If every other form of provender had +failed them the populace of Paris could have subsisted very +comfortably for several days on the lobsters I refused to buy in the +course of the spring and summer of last year. I'm sure of it. + +And when I had firmly, emphatically, yea, ofttimes passionately +declined the proffered lobster, he, having with difficulty mastered +his chagrin, would seek to direct my attention to the salmon, his +motive for this change in tactics being that salmon, though apparently +plentiful, was generally the second most expensive item upon the +regular menu. Salmon as served in Paris wears a different aspect from +the one commonly worn by it when it appears upon the table here. + +Over there they cut the fish through amidships, in cross-sections, +and, removing the segment of spinal column, spread the portion flat +upon a plate and serve it thus; the result greatly resembling a pair +of miniature pink horse collars. A man who knew not the salmon in his +native state, or ordering salmon in France, would get the idea that +the salmon was bowlegged and that the breast had been sold to some one +else, leaving only the hind quarters for him. + +Harking back to lobsters, I am reminded of a tragedy to which I was an +eyewitness. Nearly every night for a week or more two of us dined at +the same restaurant on the Rue de Rivoli. On the occasion of our first +appearance here we were confronted as we entered by a large table +bearing all manner of special delicacies and cold dishes. Right in the +middle of the array was one of the largest lobsters I ever saw, +reposing on a couch of water cress and seaweed, arranged upon a +serviette. He made an impressive sight as he lay there prone upon his +stomach, fidgeting his feelers in a petulant way. + +We two took seats near by. At once the silent signal was given +signifying, in the cipher code, "Americans in the house!" And the +_maitre d'hotel_ came to where he rested and, grasping him firmly just +back of the armpits, picked him up and brought him over to us and +invited us to consider his merits. When we had singly and together +declined to consider the proposition of eating him in each of the +three languages we knew--namely, English, bad French, and profane--the +master sorrowfully returned him to his bed. + +Presently two other Americans entered and immediately after them a +party of English officers, and then some more Americans. Each time the +boss would gather up the lobster and personally introduce him to the +newcomers, just as he had done in our case, by poking the monster +under their noses and making him wriggle to show that he was really +alive and not operated by clockwork, and enthusiastically dilating +upon his superior attractions, which, he assured them, would be +enormously enhanced if only _messieurs_ would agree forthwith to +partake of him in a broiled state. But there were no takers; and so +back again he would go to his place by the door, there to remain till +the next prospective victim arrived. + +We fell into the habit of going to this place in the evenings in order +to enjoy repetitions of this performance while dining. The lobster +became to us as an old friend, a familiar acquaintance. We took to +calling him Jess Willard, partly on account of his reach and partly on +account of his rugged appearance, but most of all because his manager +appeared to have so much trouble in getting him matched with anybody. + +[Illustration: HALF A DOZEN TIMES A NIGHT OR OFTENER HE TRAVELLED +UNDER ESCORT THROUGH THE DINING ROOM] + +Half a dozen times a night, or oftener, he travelled under escort +through the dining room, always returning again to his regular +station. Along about the middle of the week he began to fail visibly. +Before our eyes we saw him fading. Either the artificial life he was +leading or the strain of being turned down so often was telling upon +him. It preyed upon his mind, as we could discern by his morose +expression. It sapped his splendid vitality as well. No longer did he +expand his chest and wave his numerous extremities about when being +exhibited before the indifferent eyes of possible investors, but +remained inert, logy, gloomy, spiritless--a melancholy spectacle +indeed. + +It now required artificial stimulation to induce him to display even a +temporary interest in his surroundings. With a practised finger, his +keeper would thump him on the tenderer portions of his stomach, and +then he would wake up; but it was only for a moment. He relapsed again +into his lamentable state of depression and languor. By every outward +sign here was a lobster that fain would withdraw from the world. But +we knew that for him there was no opportunity to do so; on the hoof he +represented too many precious francs to be allowed to go into +retirement. + +Coming on Saturday night we realised that for our old friend the end +was nigh. His eyes were deeply set about two-thirds of the way back +toward his head and with one listless claw he picked at the serviette. +The summons was very near; the dread inevitable impended. + +Sunday night he was still present, but in a greatly altered state. +During the preceding twenty-four hours his brave spirit had fled. They +had boiled him then; so now, instead of being green, he was a bright +and varnished red all over, the exact colour of Truck Six in the +Paducah Fire Department. + +We felt that we who had been sympathisers at the bedside during some +of his farewell moments owed it to his memory to assist in the last +sad rites. At a perfectly fabulous price we bought the departed and +undertook to give him what might be called a personal interment; but +he was a disappointment. He should have been allowed to take the veil +before misanthropy had entirely undermined his health and destroyed +his better nature, and made him, as it were, morbid. Like Harry Leon +Wilson's immortal Cousin Egbert, he could be pushed just so far, and +no farther. + +Before I left Paris the city was put upon bread cards. The country at +large was supposed to be on bread rations too; but in most of the +smaller towns I visited the hotel keepers either did not know about +the new regulation or chose to disregard it. Certainly they generally +disregarded it so far as we were concerned. For all I know to the +contrary, though, they were restricting their ordinary patrons to the +ordained quantities and making an exception in the case of our people. +It may have been one of their ways of showing a special courtesy to +representatives of an allied race. It would have been characteristic +of these kindly provincial innkeepers to have done just that thing. + +Likewise, one could no longer obtain cheese in a first-grade Paris +restaurant or aboard a French dining car, though cheese was to be had +in unstinted quantity in the rural districts and in the Paris shops; +and, I believe, it was also procurable in the cafes of the Parisian +working classes, provided it formed a part of a meal costing not more +than five francs, or some such sum. In a first-rate place it was, of +course, impossible to get any sort of meal for five francs, or ten +francs either; especially after the ten per cent luxury tax had been +tacked on. + +In March prices at the smarter cafe eating places had already +advanced, I should say, at least one hundred per cent above the +customary pre-war rates; and by midsummer the tariffs showed a second +hundred per cent increase in delicacies, and one of at least fifty per +cent in staples, which brought them almost up to the New York +standards. Outside of Paris prices continued to be moderate and fair. + +Just as I was about starting on my last trip to the Front before +sailing for home, official announcement was made that dog biscuits +would shortly be advanced in price to a well-nigh prohibitive figure. +So I presume that very shortly thereafter the head waiters began +offering dog biscuits to American guests. I knew they would do so, +just as soon as a dog biscuit cost more than a lobster did. + +Until this trip I never appreciated what a race of perfect cooks the +French are. I thought I did, but I didn't. One visiting the big cities +or stopping at show places and resorts along the main lines of motor +and rail travel in peacetime could never come to a real and due +appreciation of the uniformly high culinary expertness of the populace +in general. I had to take campaigning trips across country into +isolated districts lying well off the old tourist lanes to learn the +lesson. Having learned it, I profited by it. + +No matter how small the hamlet or how dingy appearing the so-called +hotel in it might be, we were sure of getting satisfying food, cooked +agreeably and served to us by a friendly, smiling little French +maiden, and charged for at a most reasonable figure, considering that +generally the town was fairly close up to the fighting lines and the +bringing in of supplies for civilians' needs was frequently +subordinated to the handling of military necessities. + +Indeed, the place might be almost within range of the big guns and +subjected to bombing outrages by enemy airmen, but somehow the local +Boniface managed to produce food ample for our desires, and most +appetising besides. His larder might be limited, but his good nature, +like his willingness and his hospitality, was boundless. + +I predict that there is going to be an era of better cooking in +America before very long. Our soldiers, returning home, are going to +demand a tastier and more diversified fare than many of them enjoyed +before they put on khaki and went overseas; and they are going to get +it, too. Remembering what they had to eat under French roofs, they +will never again be satisfied with meats fried to death, with soggy +vegetables, with underdone breads. + +Sometimes as we went scouting about on our roving commission to see +what we might see, at mealtime we would enter a community too small +to harbour within it any establishment calling itself a hotel. In such +a case this, then, would be our procedure: We would run down to the +railroad crossing and halt at the door of the inevitable _Cafe de la +Station_, or, as we should say in our language, the Last Chance +Saloon; and of the proprietor we would inquire the name and +whereabouts of some person in the community who might be induced, for +a price, to feed a duet or a trio of hungry correspondents. + +At first, when we were green at the thing, we sometimes tried to +interrogate the local gendarme; but complications, misunderstandings, +and that same confusion of tongues which spoiled so promising a +building project one time at the Tower of Babel always ensued. Central +Europe has a very dense population, as the geographies used to tell +us; but the densest ones get on the police force. + +So when by bitter experience we had learned that the gendarme never by +any chance could get our meaning and that we never could understand +his gestures, we hit upon the wise expedient of going right away to +the Last Chance for information. + +At the outset I preferred to let one of my companions conduct the +inquiry; but presently it dawned upon me that my mode of speech gave +unbounded joy to my provincial audiences, and I decided that if a +little exertion on my part brought a measure of innocent pleasure into +the lives of these good folks it was my duty, as an Ally, to oblige +whenever possible. + +I came to realise that all these years I have been employing the wrong +vehicle when I strive to dash off whimsicalities, because frequently +my very best efforts, as done in English, have fallen flat. But when +in some remote village I, using French, uttered the simplest and most +commonplace remark to a French tavern keeper, with absolutely no +intent or desire whatsoever, mind you, to be humorous or facetious, +invariably he would burst instantly into peals of unbridled merriment. + +Frequently he would call in his wife or some of his friends to help +him laugh. And then, when his guffaws had died away into gentle +chuckles, he would make answer; and if he spoke rapidly, as he always +did, I would be swept away by the freshets of his eloquence and left +gasping far beyond my depth. + +That was why, when I went to a revue in Paris, I hoped they'd have +some good tumbling on the bill. + +I understand French, of course, curiously enough, but not as spoken. I +likewise have difficulty in making out its meaning when I read it; but +in other regards I flatter myself that my knowledge of the language is +quite adequate. Certainly, as I have just stated, I managed to create +a pleasant sensation among my French hearers when I employed it in +conversation. + +As I was saying, the general rule was that I should ask the name and +whereabouts of a house in the town where we might procure victuals; +and then, after a bit, when the laughing had died down, one of my +companions would break in and find out what we wanted to know. + +The information thus secured probably led us to a tiny cottage of +mud-daubed wattles. Our hostess there might be a shapeless, wrinkled, +clumsy old woman. Her kitchen equipment might be confined to an open +fire and a spit, and a few battered pots. + +Her larder might be most meagrely circumscribed as to variety, and +generally was. But she could concoct such savoury dishes for us--such +marvellous, golden-brown fried potatoes; such good soups; such savoury +omelets; such toothsome fragrant stews! Especially such stews! + +For all we knew--or cared--the meat she put into her pot might have +been horse meat and the garnishments such green things as she had +plucked at the roadside; but the flavour of the delectable broth cured +us of any inclinations to make investigation as to the former stations +in life of its basic constituents. I am satisfied that, chosen at +random, almost any peasant housewife of France can take an old Palm +Beach suit and a handful of potherbs and, mingling these together +according to her own peculiar system, turn out a ragout fit for a +king. Indeed, it would be far too good for some kings I know of. + +And if she had a worn-out bath sponge and the cork of a discarded +vanilla-extract bottle she, calling upon her hens for a little help in +the matter of eggs, could produce for dessert a delicious meringue, +with floating-island effects in it. I'd stake my life on her ability +to deliver. + +If, on such an occasion as the one I have sought to describe, we were +perchance in the south of France or in the Cote-d'Or country, lying +over toward the Swiss border, we could count upon having a bait of +delicious strawberries to wind up with. But if perchance we had fared +into one of the northeastern provinces we were reasonably certain the +meal would be rounded out with helpings of a certain kind of cheese +that is indigenous to those parts. It comes in a flat cake, which +invariably is all caved in and squashed out, as though the +cheese-maker had sat upon it while bringing it into the market in his +two-wheeled cart. + +Likewise, when its temperature goes up, it becomes more of a liquid +than a solid; and it has an aroma by virtue of which it secures the +attention and commands the respect of the most casual passer-by. It is +more than just cheese. I should call it mother-of-cheese. It is to +other and lesser cheeses as civet cats are to canary birds--if you get +what I mean; and in its company the most boisterous Brie or the most +vociferous Camembert you ever saw becomes at once deaf and dumb. + +Its flavour is wonderful. Mainly it is found in ancient Normandy; and, +among strangers, eating it--or, when it is in an especially fluid +state, drinking it--comes under the head of outdoor sports. But the +natives take it right into the same house with themselves. + +And, no matter where we were--in Picardy, in Brittany, in the Vosges +or the Champagne, as the case might be--we had wonderful crusty bread +and delicious butter and a good light wine to go along with our meal. +We would sit at a bare table in the smoky cluttered interior of the +old kitchen, with the rafters just over our heads, and with the broken +tiles--or sometimes the bare earthen floor--beneath our feet, and +would eat our fill. + +More times than once or twice or thrice I have known the mistress of +the house at settlement time to insist that we were overpaying her. +From a civilian compatriot she would have exacted the last sou of her +just due; but, because we were Americans and because our country had +sent its sons overseas to help her people save France, she, a +representative of the most canny and thrifty class in a country known +for the thriftiness of all its classes, hesitated to accept the full +amount of the sum we offered her in payment. + +She believed us, of course, to be rich--in the eyes of the European +peasant all Americans are rich--and she was poor and hard put to it to +earn her living; but here was a chance for her to show in her own way +a sense of what she, as a Frenchwoman, felt for America. Somehow, the +more you see of the French, the less you care for the Germans. + +Moving on up a few miles nearer the trenches, we would run into our +own people; and then we were sure of a greeting, and a chair apiece +and a tin plate and a tin cup apiece at an American mess. I have had +chuck with privates and I have had chow with noncoms; I have had grub +with company commanders and I have dined with generals--and always the +meal was flavoured with the good, strong man-talk of the real +he-American. + +The food was of the best quality and there was plenty of it for all, +and some to spare. One reason--among others--why the Yank fought so +well was because he was so well fed between fights. + +The very best meals I had while abroad were vouchsafed me during the +three days I spent with a front-line regiment as a guest of the +colonel of one of our negro outfits. To this colonel a French +general, out of the goodness of his heart, had loaned his cook, a +whiskered poilu, who, before he became a whiskered poilu, had been the +chef in the castle of one of the richest men in Europe. + +This genius cooked the midday meals and the dinners; but, because no +Frenchman can understand why any one should require for breakfast +anything more solid than a dry roll and a dab of honey, the +preparation of the morning meal was intrusted to a Southern black boy, +who, I may say, was a regular skillet hound. And this gifted youth +wrestled with the matutinal ham and eggs and flipped the flapjacks for +the headquarters mess. + +On a full Southern breakfast and a wonderful French luncheon and +dinner a grown man can get through the day very, very well indeed, as +I bear witness. + +Howsomever, as spring wore into summer and summer ran its course, I +began to long with a constantly increasing longing for certain +distinctive dishes to be found nowhere except in my native clime; +brook trout, for example, and roasting ears, and--Oh, lots of things! +So I came home to get them. + +And, now that I've had them, I often catch myself in the act of +thoughtfully dwelling upon the fond remembrances of those spicy +fragrant stews eaten in peasant kitchens, and those army doughnuts, +and those slices of bacon toasted at daybreak on the lids of mess kits +in British dugouts. + +I suppose they call contentment a jewel because it is so rare. + + * * * * * + + +BY IRVIN S. COBB + +FICTION + +THOSE TIMES AND THESE +LOCAL COLOR +OLD JUDGE PRIEST +FIBBLE, D.D. +BACK HOME +THE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM + +WIT AND HUMOR + +"SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS--" +EUROPE REVISED +ROUGHING IT DE LUXE +COBB'S BILL OF FARE +COBB'S ANATOMY + +MISCELLANY + +THE THUNDERS OF SILENCE +"SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS--" +PATHS OF GLORY + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY +NEW YORK + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Eating in Two or Three Languages, by Irvin S. 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