Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-12-01
CATERING.
ANOTHER PECULIAR FEATURE OF NEW
YORK LIFE.
How Some People Manage to Live
CheapIy and Keep Up
Appearances.

Appearances.
Regular Correspondence of the SUNDAY UNION.
NEw YORK, November "a, 1889.
Now and then one may meet colored
man or boy having in one hand a basket,
in the other handle which is the con-
meeting link that keeps together a number
of oblong tin pans or dishes or boxes (call
them what you willy fitting closely one
above another. The New Yorker passes
on. 1t is one of the wonders on every
hand and repetition prevents surprise. A
surmise may perhaps cross the brain as to
what good cheer may be thus borne along,
as to whence it came and whittier it may
go. For long journeys, Sambo halls car,
and while rattling along one may also see
some cart bearing the sign; e.
Caterer"
IL is not, however, of caterers who pro-
vide supper parties, ETC.. that 1 write. 1t
is of the class who carry breakfasts, lunches
or dinners to one or more private individ-
uals who, tired Of everything, experienced
and submissive, have settled down to live
as they can, not as they would.
Those who provide them are exclusively
of the African race, er more accurately, who
display an African tinge in their COM
plexions. The business is as completely in
their hands as that of whitewashing. The
question seems absurd and it would appear
h11t hO tn
supply the daily needs of persons who, as
| have said, have composed themselves to
anything.
IT'S a curious phase of life-this cater
ing. Curious why meals should go bump
ing over cobble stones for a mile or two, be
lugged along car routes, toted (the old
Southern word seems to fit in Just here)
through pelting rains, through slush or
over slippery ice or heaped up SHOWS. How
much more reasonable to be provided for
in the house where enc lives or from next
door, or at all events, from the nearest
place at hand. So it appears on paper and
in theory. Practice says differently. Prac-
tice is always respectable and its voice
worthy OF hearing.
OF meals taken in the house where one
lives, an article has already been written
most unsatisfactory one, which pretending
to treat OF the subject, gave it,up as un-
treatable, and ended by leaving the reader
more mystifed than ever. One deduction,
however, might have been drawn and it
was-don't.
Meals from next door are indeed fire.
quently taken. But imagine woman
getting on street clothes three times day
and going out in all weathers To man,
the world of restaurants, hotels, and every
thing in general is open, and wherefore,
then, should he go pottering in and out of
next door or any near-by-door easements.
| do not deny that there are both men
and women who live in one house and eat
in another. They have always been Curl
GUS objects Of speculation, and have won
dered what they were made ESPECIALLY
the women These daily perigrinations
pay of course, or they would not be taken.
They pay n the sense of saving, but why
it should be cheaper to pay rent in one
domicile and table board in another, than
to manage it all under one roof, is prob
lem have never solved. Yet the fact re-
mains, and human beings potter twenty
one times week, to save those extra dol
lars
The average woman who has foresworn
boarding and cannot keep house in regu-
lar way, either makes up her mind to sur
reptitious and irregular cooking, or if not,
then of what advantage to her skirts and
shoes and bonnets, to have meals come to
her. A man if devoted, as in the first
ardor of courtship, may share them with
her; or a man Of more excellent temper
than any | have encountered may do like
wise. Or a man to whom dollar is a
dollar NAV share those meals on the score
of cheapness.
But in general, where catering comes in
as a feature, men had best go out. Women
being by nature more yielding, more
"handy," will twist and turn and accom-
modate themselves to the peculiarities of
this mode OF life. Above all, they will
endure almost anything rather than be
pestered TO 90 out.
Therefore, if conscientious, the woman
unfolds a lot Of papers and spreads them
over the landlady's carpet, lest the rim of
grease which generally marks the resting
place of that tin can should be perpetual
reminder of hot cans. Therefore she
spreads papers over the white tablecloth
to protect it from the little dishes placed
upon it. 1t strikes me at this moment,
vet | shrink from the task. A man,
should he peruse these lines, might imag-
inc some battle-worn flag, the worse for
many an encounter; a woman may recall
soma stray bit of crockery about the
kitchen, which has been thumped and
bumped and burned in ovens and burned
over again dozens of times, and set on
ranges and had other adventures in addi-
ton, and been coarse enough and strong
enough to stand it all. Caterers dishes
look like that. They need to look like it,
for what do they rot endure? Everything;
since every time they go out, they must go
out smoking hot
Heat, however, hurts only the dishes; it
is the pot-pourri on their outsides which
would hurt the table cloth and does hurt
the papers. In one way or another more
or less of what is on the inside may get
outside bv the time destination is reached
and acts not infrequently as a compound
which pastes the dish on the paper so that
she who would have the dish come to her
must contrariwise go to the dish.
4 tidy woman can, of course, reject with
disdain those weather-beaten platters and
have her OVID, making deft transference
and setting them on her snowy cloth, pre-
sent a meal fit for the fastidious. True
but think then of the extra dishes to be
washed afterwards. Provided the woman
has time, they are not to be thought of
but simply washed. l can, however,
hardly imagine woman with time living
in this way, but with such mighty ele-
ment all crooked things can be made plain
and rough places smoothed.
write of those who have not time, and
for them comes in the caterer In more
senses than one.
Such must atone, by sublimity Of
thought, for actual fact and let imagina,
tion supply what is denied in this hard
world OF reality History records the
story Of Marion in the swamps, who Of
fered his British visitor a meal of sweet
potato served on piae bark Night there
not have been a halo about those bark
plates that could put china to shame?
think so.
What high aspirations, what selfsacri-
fee may not lie at the root of the matter,
and invest the woman's apparent negli-