Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1882-10-26
HOW AMERICANS EAT.
1t HarrOWs up the Soul of an English
Traveller.

/ 1t was in the Ogden retreShment room,
waiting for the train for San Francisco, writes
correspondent of the New York World,
that saw performance that filled me with
astOnishment and dismay. 1t was man
eating his dinner And here let me remark,
with all possible courtesy, that the American
is the most reprehensible eater [ have ever
seen. In the first place, the knives are pur-
posely made blunt-the bacl, and front OF
the blade being often of the same sharp
ness"-tO enable him to eat gravy with it.
The result is that the fork (which ought to
be used simply to hold the meat steady on
the plate while being cut with the knife) has
to be used with great force to wrench off
fragments of food. The object of the fork
is thus materially abused, for he holds the
meat down with the knife and tears it into
bits with his fork!
Bending over the table, he sticks his fork
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 piece of bacon. While
the one is going up to his mouth the other
is reaching out for something else He never
apparently chews his food, but dabs and
pecks at the dishes one after the other with
rapidity which merely as a juggling trick
might be performed in London to crowded
houses every day, and an impartiality that,
considered as dining" is as savage as any
meal of red Indians or of BasutOs. Dab-bab,
peck-peck, grunt, growl and snort The
spoon strikes in every now and then. and a
quick, sucking up noise announces the disap
pearance of a mouthful Of huckleberries on
the top of a bit of bacon, or a spoonful of
custard pie on the heels of radish.
1t is perfectly prodigious. 1t defies CO.
herent description. But how on earth does
he swallow it? Every now and then he
shuts his eye and strains his throat. This l
suppose is when he swallows, for l have seen
children getting rid of cake with the same
sort of spasm. Yet the rapidity with which
he shovels in his food is a wonder to me,
seeing that he has not got any pouch" like
the monkey or pelican. Does he keep his
miscellaneous food in q "crop" like pigeon
or preliminary stomach like a COW, and chew
his 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
man likes to eat mouthfuls of huckleberries,
bacon, apple-pie, picked mackerel, peas,
mutton, gherkins, oysters, radishes, tomatoes,
custard and poached eggs this is bona fide
meal copied from my notebook on the spot)
in indiscriminate confusion, it has nothing
whatever to do with me.
Now, reader, don't say no. For have
been carefully studying Americans at their
food (all over the West, at any rate and
what say is strictly correct. This abuse of
knife and fork, then,' necessitates an extra
ordinary amount of elbow room, for, in fore
ing apart tough slice of beef, the elbows
have to stick out as spare as possible, and the
consequence is, as the proprietor of the hotel
told me, only four Americans can eat in
space in which six Englishmen can dine
comfortably. The latter, when feeding, keep
their elbows to their sides; the former square
them out on a line with the shoulders and at
right angles with 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 trav-
elers 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.