San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-12-28
ANGLoMANlA IN EATING.
Some Plain Talk About the Finicky Ways
of Overly Dainty People.

The Ambassadors are afraid TO use their
fingers to eat with, especially the English.
Thanks to this hesitation, ave seen In the
course of my travels IN tue Did world many
distressing sights I have seen lady at
tempt to eat crawiish CecrevisSel with knife
and fork, and abandon the attempt in de-
spair have also seen men in the same fix.
| have seen-oh, barbarous and cruel spec
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., otherwise apparently
civilized, cut of the points of asparagus, and
eat these points only with fork, thus lcav'
ing the best part of the vegetable on their
plates As for artichokes, they generally
utterly defeat the attacks of those who trust
only to the knife and fork.
Fingers must be used for eating certain
things, notably asparagus, artichokes, fruit,
olives, radishes, pastry, and even small fried
fish: in short, everything which will not dirty
or grease the fingers may be eaten with the
fingers. For my own part, prefer to eat
lettuce salad with my fingers rather than
with fork, and Queen Marie Antoinette and
other ladies of the Eighteenth century were
of my way of thinking. If the ladies could
ONLY see how pretty is their gesture when
their diaphanous forefinger and thumb grasps
a leaf of delicate green lettuce, and raises
that leaf from the porcelain plate to their
rosy lips, they would all Immediately take to
eating salad a la Marie Antoinette. Only
bear in mind, good ladies, that if you do wish
to eat lettuce salad with your fingers you must
mix your salad with oil and vinegar, and not
with that abominable ready made white
salad dressing" to look upon which is nau-
seating.
May heaven preserve us from excessive An.
gloInania in matters of table service and eat
ing. The English tend to complicate the eat
ing tools far too much. They have too many
forks for comfort, and the forms of them are
to- quaint for practical utility. Certainly
silver dessert knives and forks are very good
in their way, because they are not susceptible
TO the action of fruit acids, but it is vain and
clumsy to attempt to make too exclusive use
of the knife and fork in eating fruit. Don't
initiate for instance, certain ultra correct
English damsels who eat cherries with fork
and swallow the stones because they are toe
modest or rather too asinine, TO spit them
out on to the plate Eating is not a thing to
be ashamed of. To thoroughly enjoy peach
you must bite it, and feel the juicy per. umed
flesh melt in your mouth. But let the Anglo
maniacs say what they please, there is no ne
cessity of sticking fork into the peach, and
peeling it while so impaled, as if it were an
i'll favored and foul object.
A peach is as beautiful to the touch as it is
to the eye; peach held between human fin
gers has its beauty enhanced by the beauty
of the fingers. However dainty and ornate
the silver dessert knife and fork may be, it
always irritates me to see people cut up their
peaches, or pears, or apricots, or what not,
into cubes and paralle!opipeds, as if dessert
were a branch of comic sections. Initiate
Marie Antoinette, ladies; use your fingers
more freely; eat decently, of course, but do
not be the slave of silly Anglomania or New
port crazes. To eat pear or an apple con-
veniently, cut it into quarters, and peel each
quarter in turn as you eat it The peach,
too, can be cut into quarters, if the eater is
timid Apricots do not need peeling, nor
plums either Would you be bold enough to
peel fresh fg, or to touch such delicate
fruit even with the purest silver Instruments
Theodore Child in Harper's Bear