New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-05-12
sALOOr LIVING IN NEw.YORK.

That purblind but benevolent port doctor who pre-
serbed plain boiled rice and sublimatcd hominy a
dietary against Cholera did not calculate upon aggra-
waiting either the temper dstemper OF the patient
public. But it is notifying to be recommended to
eat any plain.boiled article when such thing 10 not
extan and the case is heightened to positive panic
when the mild vegetarianism OF this advice Is set OIL
against the imagined torment and scorponlzing OF
the Cholera IL is to be told to eat bread from the
bread.ree, or to drink pure Orange County milk or
you are a dead man. One-half Of miscellaneous
society escape the dilemma much as the good-naured
Mr. Mcawber got over puzzle in his quotation from
Burns. That candid and cherubc character, as the
public remember, was not aware what "gowans
might be, but if feasible would certainly have had
pull at them. Now, the fact is that when common
society resolves itself into hydraheaied eater, 1t
ignores AL meaning aud scope Of the rural term plain
boiling great par, OF those who practice the art
aud mystery Of eating IN great city. do not know
such an article as plainboiled rice. With those
whose business II would be to plain-bol in given
crisis, such thing is not feasible.
The key 70 most Of this perplexty is found in very
short statistics. Five hundred thousand of the people
of New-York, and-shall We say of Brookyn-in-
GLIDING all those homeless monographs who have
their wake in New-York and sleep elsewhere are floor
tenants, boarders, dodgers to adopt an appalling
generic term, Tsnemsnters. Leaving the boarders to
boarlers commons. We approach that vast remainder
Of the myriad moving life which, every day, in sort
Of orphanagc from house and home, casts itself by
thousand different ways and wreaks Ats hunger on the
saloons. There, busy, hungry, hasty New-iork-the
nnumerable caravan that goes to dnner-iS fed at all
hours on sight ana on demand. Having regard of all
classes Of these feeiersalage, let Us say that some
where near 100000 walking appetites invade the
saloons to breakfast, dine, sup, or lunch. Halt the
boarders might be included among random livers as
constituents of the Social Bedounism; but suspect
that tho regular irregular dnerout has the best OF the
bargain as to what he shall eat, and if We were
in doubt on few points Mr. Thomas b. Gums
Boarding house Physiology" would enlighten U.S.
Who knows who dimes at homc' Who does not
take meal abroad Who that has dined at saloon
boarding house, or hotel has caught glimpse Of a
passing dish known as plainboiled rice or hominy :
Better or worse STILL what hardy cook (FMpl of NJ
Felix Blot or otherwsc) will give us an acceptable
definition of plain -boilingl Tie catechsm must be
given up. Plainly, there are no plainboilers. Ape.
tite ike taste has become sensational as our
mon sory-writers and readers, and some ofou news
papers. The school of simplicity is dismissed from
the kitchen as well as the study. There is nothing
left to satisfy craving for the plain and pure in art
the gastronomic poetry Of plainboiled hominy with
out pork, of vegetables unsauced and ungreased-
nothing to exchange with the Wordsworthan feeling
in verse, or the -Raphelite in art, afford yege
table pasturage for those New England thinkers who
10, opJ rio
cooks labor only for the day, and not for all tme So
instead Of building up for us good solid walls OF
sound digestion-a home for the virtues and a school
for the neryes-is it the fact that the public cook
treats the bodies of men as if they were no better
than some of our houses-vTombs prisons to wall
in all manner of dismal affections and leaden-
eyed despars, to cherish the phantom dyspep-
STA that walks in daylight over the table
cloth, and sneers at us from the dinner-plae.
Partly it must be So The Undergraduates declare it;
the yegetarians and all the purist school OF humble
living, in slow procession of meek appcttes avow it
as strenuously as possible. STILL vegetaraniSm makes
little progress, and tho slaughter-house and cookery
reek, in short with blood. But when cholera and
the doctors arc seeming quarantine then the grave
advice Of diet with vegetable qualification is set
down in programme Hominy must have merits not
patent to the 0eshy eye and bread and turnps health
full essences unknown to beef Besides, the pro-
gramme against cholera cannot be anything else than
apronunciamento against sauces, manages, ricassees,
sweet bitter sour and sayory mixtures of the Amer-
can African French Irish and German sets of cookery
The bull is not leyeled at beef alone, but at such
comet as NewYofk saloon keepersb bill of fare. The
mob Of presumed patients ask for dinner, and not
prescription and if anybody is to DO cured, our saloons
must DO cured fySt.