Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1890-08-30
NEW ENGLAND COOKING.
The Yankees Have Much to Learn I'm the
Culinary Art.


As regular as each summer comes
round there arises In all directions a
wall about the quality Of the hotels and
the quantity OF money Ii costs to stay
in them, says the Boston Courier. This
lasts more or less during the silly
season." Then people come back to
town, recover from the bad food they
have had, and the matter rests until
next year. These complaints are only
too well founded, and we direct attcn-
ton to them at this early period of the
year with the faint hope that some
thing may be accomplished by taking
time by the forelock. So far as we
know no n has as yet adventured
upon a history of cooking. But a
volume Of real research upon that sub
ject would be highly entertaining and
instructive, for national character is,
we suspect, closely connected with
national cookery. 1t would be interest.
Ing to learn, for instance. how and
why cookery made such excellent
strides in France. Why should that
country have seen penetrated with the
true principles Of extracting all the
essences from meat when Germany and
Great Britain remained in ignorance of
themP II has been suggested that the
Roman occupation Of Gaul had Il con-
siderable bearing upon this, but then
why not upon cookery elsewhere. for
the Romans occupied" everywhere?
IL would be the more Ineligible if the
nobility and the gentry Of France had
been accustomed to live in the country
and set al example; but, on the con-
trary, they we're VIGOROUSLY absentees,
except in La Vendee, where we never
heard that the cookery was exception
ally excellent.
When the culinary historian en-
lightens us as to the cookery in France
we hope that he will also explain why
cookery in America became so excep-
t~ionally bad. it has been asserted by
one familiar with the bush inns of
Australia and the toughest inns Of the
west of Ireland that nothing comes up
to the villainousness Of the table at q
New England hotel. His convictions
on the head became intensified by a
particular experience last autumn.
Arriving at 10 at night, after a long,
bitterly cold drive of seven hours over
a mountain road, he begged for sup
per. Certainly; it shall be got ready
at once he was told. Now, in a
French auberg Of the same class would
have been soup, outlets and fried pota-
toes, some sound vim ~ordinaire, a cup
of coffee and cheese; in England, at
least good bread, meat and beer or
tea. But he vas in Vermont, and ex-
perience had taught him to indulge no
gastronomic hopes. Supper was an
nounced with as confident n tone as a
waiter might apprise you of its being
ready at the Parker house. The traveller
entered the fatal chamber. 1t was
gaunt. bare = looking, and rendered
more ghastly by the light of one paraf.
hne lamp, which also shed around the
usual fragrance. There was a long
table, heaped with the debris of the
last meal, and notified with hebdomadaI
gravies. Amid these hideous prandial
"reminiscences there had been cleared
what was intended to be an oasis for
his special behoof, and there he found
a leaden ant! under.baked apple pie,
iauked by doughnuts. to be washed
down with a frightful decoction by a
flight of Imagination called tea. Alb
horrihg suicide, he recoiled from the
lethal board. avowing with d%epreca-
tory tone, that he dared not touch
those Vermontian delicacies at so adj
vanced an hour of the night. Had
they, he asked, in coaxing tone and
with best company smile. any eggs?
They came He saw and opened one,
and as the embryo chicken burst from
its seclusion he burst from the room.
He returned TO the flesh-pots of New
York, vowing that his days of American
pleasure travel were ended.
The strange thing is that in certain
districts whose natural advantages
corr espond to the picturesque retreats
in Europe it has not occurred to per-
sons so intelligent as Yankees usually
are to give the best of plain fare. with
clean table-cloths and clean napkins.
Take for instance, such a place as Pitts
field. Beautifully situated. and easily
reached by two railroads from New
York, with an exquisite country around
il, the place seems marked out for a
summer retreat. But go TO the hotels,
aud if you are cursed with any nicely
in the matter of food mealtimes become
a burden TO you. Scientists and
psychologists have been firmly per-
suaded that murder originates with a
disordered digestion, and we have little
doubt that the atrocities OF Jesse
Pomeroy might be traced to the poison
ous innuanpa nf MIC