Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-09-07
IFrom Our Regular Correspondent
Foreign Letter.
INTERL ,KEN, Switzerland. I
Hotel Victoria. Aug. %, 81.


Few popular decisions are more intrin-
sically fallacious than that entertained by
the majority Of Americans unfamiliar
with the continent, that the average table
d'hote abroad teens with triumphs of the
culinary art, and is, above all, character
lied by an agreeably bewildering variety
of dishes. one more appetizing than the
others. This illusory notion stimulates
many a lover of good cheer to incur the
cost and inconvenience of a foreign trip,
only to reap an abundant crop OF CASTRO
nomical disappointments. Throughout the
European mainland, in summer and au-
tumn haunts where tourists most do con-
gregate. table d'hote dinners, as a rule.
are cast in one and the same mould As
uniformly uneventful as the American
table. they are even less satisfactory, as
far as their capacity for minstering to
healthy appetite is concerned. In first
class foreign hotels. moreover, dinners oil
this sort are every whit rs expensive as
they are in American hotels OF similar
ranks First comes a thin, pale soup.
supremacy genteel, and of curiously
mawkish flavor. This non descript liquor.
languidIy floating in may be perceived a
few sickly looking farinaceaus tatters.
| known in commerce by the title of pate
d Italie," is the subtle invention of some
astute French table d'hote proprietor, upon
whose frugal mind, in the earlier days of
the institution, the exquisite expediency OF
quelling his clients appetite, at the very
inception of their repsst flashed with
dazzling briliancy That 80 cheap and
effective check upon public hunger
should have foundan enthusiastic welcome
upon every alien shore at the hands OF
admiring hotel keepers was no more than
what might have been expected by their
natural enemies of the tourists class. In
immediate sequence to the n,useating
broth come livii fish of unfamiliar
species and discouraging aspect, whose
utter tastelessness is atoned for by the
accompanying sauce of thick consstence
and bilious hue-bright yellow or low
toned green. Another inevitable accessory
of this dismal fish is the never foury
continental potato, cut into damp cubes
a very deadly Wand. Next comes the
compact and sodden iricandeau OF veal,
garn shed with slab pottage of boiled
,orrel, turnip tops, or. in lavishly admin
lstered hotels, real spinach. AS an
at, rnat i've to the fricandeau, a bristling
array of mutton outlets, displaying q
maximum of slender, shiny bone TO a
minimum of dark and sinewy flesh, is
RELY handed round. these i'll favored
md worse favored delicacies lead w
insinualingly to the roast" or piece o.
resistance, consisting invariably OF fowls
sptrsely bedecked with limp water cress
nd smitten into several splintery sections
by few sharp blows with kitchen hand
ax. 1t is in Germany that this dainty
may he enjoyed in its perfection, that is
from table d'hote keepers point OF view.
rhe Teuonic chicken was a brittle bird
reluctant while alive to acquire flesh
hut unrivaled in the production of osseous
substance and why tendon. Over.roasted
and prepared with Ratchet for dstribu.
non, this remarkable biped may fairly
claim to be the German hotel keepers
best friend, for it is at once cheap, nasty
nd uncommonly filing at the price.
1t We're supertluous to regard those
incidents of the average continental table
that succeed the spectral and stony fowl,
its point of elimination. Subsequent
events are rarely of much practical inter-
est, nulritiously considered. Any detailed
reference to the stock dessert, by which
-uch a repast is appropriately wound up,
could not but recall painful remembrances
to those whose daily lot it has been, durn Q
some sad summer tour through centra
Europe, to contemplate the grim mock.
cries of fruit, sweet meat and pastetceria
hat follow, hard at heel, upon Il course OF
malodorous cheese and pilid oleomarga.
| lHCs lIC vi u " pICul
foreign table d'hote are many and are
cumulative. Not The least agonizlug o.
hem is the ration of wine, too frequently
included among their nefarious claims
o public support. Anything more dis.
ressing to the palate and dolorous to the
inner man than the liquid furnished tc
| Ualinu AmpripanC nnHor tha 4,
plohibilive designations of win ordinarie'
or win du pays cannot be conceived BY
he most lugubrious imagination. Directly
! hawever, this malignant beverage is fore
gone for some tolerably drinkable substi
tute, the boosted cheapness of the table
) 'rhote dinner vanishes into thin air. AL
really god wines are no cheaper, if no
learer, in the countries of their growth
5 that is, when retailed by hotel keepers
than they are in the United States. On
he whole, it may be confidently assumed
hat the fresh fish and unassuming roas
Joint of an American table d'hote entities
1t to preference over the pretentious rub
Dish served at slinllar ENTERTAINMENT
abroad. Were the attractions Of foreigl
r holiday resorts limited to the quality o
heir hotels few Americans, after on
{ melancholy experience, would pay sec
I ond visit, at least for pleasure, to Germal
spas or Italian cities, famous for thei
architectural antiquities, galleries @
paintings Or picturesque surroundings
1t is in the wealth OF its recreative re
sources that the continent surpasses thi
country-not in the excellence or variet
= of its table d'hote dinners.
The Baltimore Anerican, commentin
a on the fact that Washington is the grave