Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-04-27
THE FINE ART OF EATING.
E. WBITMORE,
Publisher and Proprietor.

Cincinnati Commercially
A pretty young lady the other day
treated herself in a restaurant to q
lunch which for artistic simplicity
cannot be surpassed. Most young
ladies with an inclination to lunch
would have called for an unknown
quantity of meringues and bakers
trash, ending with a heaping saucer
of ice cream. Not so this young
lady. She had a solid, rosy, well
nourished look about her which in
dicated, a priori, that she lived on
better things. Her lunch fulfilled
ones expectation. She sat down,
calmly looked over the bill of fare
from top to bottom, and then, ig-
nCring all creams, custards, meat
pies and mixed messes, quietly or
dered--brown bread and butter and
Young onions. She ate them in a
beautiful manner, too. 1t was
good to notice how daiutily she
tackled the tender, palo-green shoot,
dipped it into the tiny pyramid of
salt and conveyed it to her mouth.
She ate six of the tender, pale
green young onions, and enjoyed
them. She was fond of the onions,
and had none of that affected
squeamishnesS about eating them
which most young ladies display.
She ate them honestly, and her way
of doing it showed that she was
quite accustomed to the table man
ners of "good society"
The young woman with her
onions had the true idea of the fine
art of eating. 1t is to have only a
few dishes at a time, to have them
abundant in quantity, and of the
best quality. No epicurean would
consent to have dozen or fifteen
courses at his dinner, consisting of
mixed up and shaken together ma
terials from the four corners of the
earth. Such a dinner is alike de-
strnctive Of appetite, digestion and
all that is aesthetic in the art of eat
ing. It savors of the too,mpchness
of galvanized iron ornamentatioG
in architecture. The true epicure-
ans dinner will always be made up
of only few dishes, but those m
surpassed in material, cookery and
furnishings. Variety he has in
plenty, but he obtains it by having
fewer dishes at once, and 80 stretch
ing out the goods of the appetite
further through time rather than
by taxing French oook-books and
| his own brains, to discover for him
some new mixture. He always thus
has something good to look ahead
to for the next time, 80 to speak.
Much of the worry and work 'issh-
ioneble Americans make over they
cookery might DO avoided, and
much both of time and food mate
rial now wasted might be saved if
we understood better the fine art of
eating. 1t il . serious mistake
for cook to spend her time and
worry her brains preparing half a
dozen different dishes, which, after
all, are apt to be badly cooked,
when three excellent dishes will
answer better in every way The
halt dozen dishes may be snobbish,
but they are not really appetizing.
To broil steak, to make cup
of coffee, to bake a loaf Of bread,
white or brown, these be the three
foundation pillars Of all good cook
cry. The history of civilization,
civilized cookery as well, passes
from simplicity into Horidness, and
from foridness into simplicity
again, but it is the simplicity Of
true art. One kind OF rightly cooked
meat, vegetables ditto, two or three
dainty side dishes, and a pyramid
Of perfect, luscious fruit-no one
who really knew the true art of en-
ioying his food would accept any
thing more. And he would haze
different round OF dishes every
day for week, because there would
be so much to choose from.
AS was said, however, the found
alton of cookery will always be beef.
steak, coffee and bread, Our Eng
hsh friends make merry over our
I Il T. Al .f..1o.