Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1878-11-05
Paris Letter.
CFrom our Regular correspondent.J
PARIS, Oct. 9th, 1878.


which they take intense delight, but the
practice of which is in commercial sense
wholly useless to them. happened many
years since to have acquired coloquial
knowledge of the ProveDcal dialect-it is
no mere patois can assure you-and ey.
cry other day my barber and his family
and | talk the langus doc together He
is poet--all the geps du midi are poets
and recites quatrains to me in the in
tervals of la barbe and the coup de peigne.
He confdes his sorrows to me- His eld-
est daughter, he tells me, is fast degener-
ating into Parisienne. This the young
lady stoutly denies; but l observe that
she is somewhat reluctant to call sun pay
san" "oun PAGAN to say "riprouchara"
instead Of "reprocher," and "giammai" in
lieu of ',jamais." "Paris," murmurs my
barber, "has no heart. Paris gives itself
airs. Lou manca natura She is all art
iicial. What would Paris think if, when
my days work was over, sat before my
shop door playing the guitar and singing
little cannon" | am in hopes that
these friendly folks will ask me to take
some bOnillabaisse with them some even
ing. Already the barber takes me,
think, for commercial traveller, and con-
doles with me on the hardness Of the times,
has invited me to partake OF 'oun verre
di cassis," at an adjoining wine shop, kept
by Provencal-an honest man from the
Collie St. Juan. might pick up grand
er acquaintance, you may opine, than a
barber who shaves, powders, and combs
you, "fxes" you with "brillantne' and
'vlnaige de toilette" all for the sum OF
FIVE cents, and offers to treat you to drink
into the bargain. l consider that my bar
Der aud his brown-skinned, black haired
family are all reminiscent to me Of the
Beloved Land-of the lapis.lazuli sky,
the ultramarine sea, the tawny shore, the
binding white cottages with the roofs Of
loose dusty tiles, the trellised vines, the
festooned olives, the gardens bursting
forth with oranges and figs and lemons.
Ay, and beyond all this the pleasant flow
Of the langus doe in the purb.lud little
street by the Passages des Pan,r.mas
watts me yet farther away--isrther through
the Mesogeian sea-farther, to 1.-THE Palms
and Temples Of the South" Kennst du
das Laud2 At all events. the barber and
his family, together with few bcgsars
whom have he'd brief couvetsc with,
are the most natural folks that have
met with during this last twenty weeks
sojourn in PARIS.
One Of the most remarkable places Of
public rejection in the Passages is very
dark gallery ont Of which you are sud-
denly shot with'u, any notice, so to speak,
into the Rue Montmarte. This b., the
RistoIaute del Matte Forestere. | is a
genuine Italian house. At this restaurant
they wi give you all the typical exam
pies of that which was once the very best,
but which, know not why, has within
recent years degenerated into, with the
exception of Spain, the worst cuisine in
Europe. l do not know any city in Italy
Rome and Milan always excepted where
one can dine with tolerable comfort. The
table dhotc at the Hotel Victoria, Venice,
used to be admirable; but that too has
degenerated. The condition OF Florence,
from a culinary point of view, is deplor-
able; and have never met with anybody
who has dined well, cuinarily speaking,
at Bologna or at Genoa. And yet, when
Cardinal Campeggio come to England
more than three hundred years ago on the
Catherine Of Aragou divorce business, the
Italian Peninsula was renowned above all
other countries for its refined and succu-
lent school of cookery. His Holiness the
Pope took the greatest interest in the
national art, and instructed his envoy to
draw up a infinitely exhaustive report Of
the state of cookery in England. Cardi-
nal Campeggios report was remarkably
succinct, being comprised in two words i;
Niente affatto. There was nothing what
ever to report about touching English
cookery. At the Ristorante del Matte
Forestiere you will find Italian cookery Of
better kind than you can hope to meet
with in Italy itself at the present day.
The risotto-boiled rice accommodated
with oil, cheese aud saffron-is as succu-
lent as it is wholesome The ravioli and
the polpetti, the lasange and the stuftate,
are all good; and they have at least a
dozen ways Of dressing macaronl. Final
ly, they are very great at this restaurant
in the art Of preparing uccellinl-small
birds, such as quails, larks, thrushes, BEG
cafci, and so on, which are roasted with
blankets of fat bacon and vine leaves over
their plump little breasts, and served in a
hollow circle of polenta boiled to paste.
But that it is wicked to eat little birds, |
should say that their uccellini were deli
cious; in any case L am afraid that some
thousands of grives. mauviettes, CABLES,
aud beccafci are brought every week to
the Halles centrales, principally from the
south of France and from the shores Of
the Lakes of Como and Garda. The
grives are taken in the largest numbers in
the vineyards The little creatures peck
at the ripened grapes until they get tipsy,
and then the fowler comes and snares
them-a fate that occasionally happens to
other creatures besides grives. Perhaps
it is not naughtier to eat these small birds
than to wear them stuffed and with their
wings outspread, in lady's bonnet. Bird
hats and feather bonnets are all the rage