Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-05
HOW AMERICANS EAT.
An Engiist,man Criticizes the Way We Eat
in the Ear West.


in the Ear West.
GSan Francisco Letter in the New York World.l
1t was in the Ogden refreshments
room, waiting for the train for San
Francisco, that I saw a performance
that filed me with establishment and
d1smay. 1t was man eating his din
ner. And let me here remark, with all
possible courtesy, that the American is
the most reprehensible eater have ever
seen. In the first place, the knives are
purposely made blunt back and
the front of the blade being often Of the
same sharpness enable him to eat
gravy with it. The result is that the
cork (Which ought to be used simply to
hold the meat steady on the plate while
beng cut with the lnife) has to be used
with great force to wrench off fragments
OF food. The object of the two instru-
ments IS thus materially absurd, for he
holds the meat down with the knife and
tears it into bits with his fork! Now.
reader, don't say no. For I have
been carefully studying Americans
at their food (all over the West at
any rate), and what I say is strictly
correct. This abuse of knife and
fork. then, necessitates an extraor-
d. - amount of elbow room, for in
toroi-,-I, apart tough slice of beef tie
ellis have to stick out as square as
possible. and the consequence is, as tho
lroG'ietor OF a hotel told me, only four
-.a'>licans can eat in space in which
slx GnSlishmen will dine comfortably.
The latter when feeding keep their
elbows to their sides. The American
orders dozen portions" of as many
eatables, and the whole of his meal,
after the filthy fashion of the "eating
houses" at which travellers are fed, IS
put before him at once. To eat the
dozen or SO different things he has
ordered he has only one knife and fork
and one teaspoon. Bending over the
table, he sticks his folk into picked
gherkin, and, while munching this, casts
one rapid, hawk-like glance over the
spread viands, and then proceeds to eat.
Mehercule! what sight it is He dabs
his knife into the gravy of the steak,
and picks up with his fork q piece of
bacon. While the one is going up to
his mouth the other is reaching out for
something else. Henever, apparently,
chews his food, but dabs and pecks at
the dishes one after the other with
rapidly which merely as a Juggling
trick might be performed in London to
crowded houses every day, and
an 1mpartiality that, considered
as "diaaiaag," is as savage
as any meal of Red Indians or of Basu-
tos. Dab-dab, peck-pecl, grunt, growl
and snort! The spoon strikes in every
now and then, and quick, sucking-up
noise announces the disappearance of a
mouthful of huckleberries on the top of
bit of bacon, OF a spoonful Of crlstard
pie on the heels of a radish. It is per-
fectly prodigious. It defies coherent
description. But how on earth does he
swallow it? Every now and then he
SHIFTS his eyes and strains his throat.
This, I suppose, is when he swallows,
for [ have seen children getting rid of
cake with the same sort of spasm. Yet
the rapidity with which he shovels in
his food is wonder to me, seeing that
he has not got any pouch" like the
monkey or the pelican. Does he keep
his miscellaneous food in "crop" like
a pigeon, OF preliminary stomach like
the COW, and "chew the cud" afterward
at his leisure? confess [ am beaten
by it. The mixture Of his food, if it
pleases him, does not annoy me, for if a
man likes to eat mouthfuls of huckle-
berries, bacon, apple pie, picked mack
erel, peas, mutton, gherkins, oysters,
radishes, tomatoes, custard and poached
eggs fhis is bona-fide meal, copied
from my note book on the spoD in in
discriminate confusion, it has nothing to
DO with me.