The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-06-16
MEN WHO HAVE NO HOLIDAYS.
How the Professional Cooks OF New
York Are Enslaved by their Art
Their Uniform Sadness
tCopvriqht 1881

know what it means. never have holi-
day."
The speaker was large, red-faced man,
with a somewhat sad expression of counten-
ance.
He was an Alsatian, one of the noble
1 army of professional cooks who have con-
| descended TO lie ave their landed estates IN
Europe and come over here to tell benighted
| Americans what to eat and when 70 eat II
His salary is 81 900 year, and bis perqui-
sites from statesmen, fatigued society swells
and men-about-town, whose lives he had
saved time and again by inventing pick
me-up" lunches and indescribable dinners
that made existence bearable, made up 1t
probably to a snug $4,000.
Zach, nelnm sighed this heavy-w eight
martyr of the kitchen, II know not holt
days. Ever since | came to this country it
has been: August, please TO do this, or in
! vent that, or compose the other'-always TO
eat. On. you Americans are the greatest
eaters, You talk of the Breetish, but neinl
They have nothing like it,
"My friend Bailhe, he gets no holiday.
He prepares for the table Of Mrs. Orme
| Wilson. Bailhe has served lie Baron Reille
at Paris and Milford Vivien, and was the
chef at the cafe Chafon at Bordeaux, but
he was tempted to come here and get rich
Hal hai We all look at the money! and the
| SOi5nn giant neaFsu Ills IdJ SuOulueTs IN
something like lugubrious CONFUSION, for
certainly it had no resemblance to a
laugh.
'He gets the salary like the rest Of US, but,
holidayl nein. He cook and cook and cook
now in the city, aud now at Newport or
Cape May. Audrien Pons, too, who used
to cook for La Refine Isabella at Madrid,
and Baron Yugerlat of France-he likes it
not because he gets no holiday either. So
1 N.rfeh ID Fb1. oivac
| of the finest dinners laid On Fifth avenue,
aud whom Vanderbilt, your grand gourmet
| brought from Paris. Well, he gets three
| times more money than he could get in
Europe, but he is the slave of other mems
appetites Adolph Caller, too. has cooked
| for nobility and now caters to the appetite
of New York epicureau editor. Young
Henri Boulic is the slave of young mil
| lionaire of delicate gastronomic tastes, who
gives great many dinners. He is we'll
paid artist And so it Is with Schelcher and
| Weber, Frederic Hemmerle, who cooks
for another millionaire whose grandfather
sold cabbages for a living, and Gustave
Berand, who gets IS, 900 a year for pleasing
| the fastidious stomach of still another
Croesus, who sometimes spends IS, 900 on a
single dinner for a select party of friends II
But you do not mean, Nj. Berthelot,
that you work all the year round, without
Il break to vary the monotonyp
Not at all, mon ami" said the complain
ing chef. I'VE have our days OF duty,
like all other mortals, suppose; but for
annual holiday-ach well, we get it not.
There is the theater, the opera, the cirque,
for everybody but the cook. A party wants
to go to the play. Well, it is, August,
please have the dinner served at such an
hour, and we will go to the play imme-
diately afterward.' Or if not, then it is:
August, after the opera we shall have a
light lunch-merely a boaed fowl or a
capon, served cold and something else you
may devise to set off the table, you know,
August All this, of course, means a cold
dinner at IL O'Clock at night 1t makes no
matter at what hour they arrive or depart,
or where they are going, it is: August,
August, Augustn till my poor head racks
and l pray there were no more things to be
cooked in this world.
"Ah, mon ami! the heaven for the cooks
will be place where there are no dinners
to be served.
"Then comes the summer. Well, some
go abroad, some to the springs to Newport,
the capes. And August Where, you say,
does he go! He goes with them. Wealthy
people, mon ami, carry their cook about
with them just as they carry their check
| book. He is to be drawn on at sight, on
demand, to order, and without any prep
aratiops except such as he can make hi m
self. And then it is worse slavery
than in the town, for in the country house
one must be cooking forever, to satisfy
those voracious appetites men have when
they visit the mountains or the seashores
And now it is August, you may devise a
new jelly, or dressing to go with these
BIRDS wretched things which no one would
be able to sell in a city market. The most
absurd things are sent in to cook, and one
is nearly wild from the conflicting orders
Everybody wants to eat his or her own
particular dish and nobody can describe it
so the result-pah! can you wonder if it is a
failurea Yet they know not that / fail, y
he added, with a really comic grin at the
idea. Zone thing Is the same as another in
the country, if only the sauces and the wine
Zach! the ladies, bless them, they are not
the worst to please. We find tres dittcite
the old men-the fellows who have been
everywhere and seen almost everything
| They know wine, sauce, tilet, salad
and their jaded, wornout stomachs arr
daintier than those of the ladies. Still,
most of men are readily satisfied wit
something tlat is artistic and easily served
But the ladiesl Why, there is no woman il
New York fit to criticise her cook. They
know nothing of the mysteries of the cuts
lne. A table, beautifully set and smoothly
served, is everything.
j
the men who have never a holiday, are sad
when you think we ought to be merryl WI
have time for nothing else but TO cook. w
have no time even TO make love, to gallant
to amuse. AlaSI if fasting would only be
come the fashion, then we might have
holiday; but as it is, while everybody eats
we cannot be spared. We are the leas
appreciated of all artists, for no sooner
have we reared with great care and skill
beautiful structure, than men proceed tx
destroy it."
but you make big salaries, August. /
not that some compensation?
"Salariesn We eat and drink very little
we cooks, and our other wants are few
Would we resign that we might have tim,
to spend the money we earns If we buy
diamonds, we cannot show them, because
monsieur, there is a law Of societ,
which, while it permits your bar
Der, your hotel clerk and ever
your tailor, to disport himself in gem
and brilliants, forbids the mditre de cuts
inc from enjoying the privilege of making
an ass of himself. Yet in France, cool
who knows his art will sit with princes
but here you pay him well, imprison him
debar him from all enjoyment and disdaiI
him socially as an artist.
Monsieur, it is not wonderful that we
are sad" G. H. SANDIsoN.
IDEAL RAILWAY TRAVEL.
Charncav M DeDew's Views as IN