The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1890-09-27
LUNCHEON IN NEW YORK.
II II Here Compared with Restaurant
Meals in Paris.

rF IONNEVcSlV IN lNeNv ~ VIM ..H.H.
It II Here Compared with Restaurant
Meals in Paris.
Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, Sept. 22.-The saying has
become almost tiresome from reiteration
that the French workingman is better fed
than the average American young profess
aional man. Let us have demonstration
of the fact.
What does the bankers, lawyers or
wholesale dealers clerk usually eat for
luncheon? We do not mean the lucky
Young man whose employer has discovered
that more money is saved-more time that
is money-by giving his clerks q comfort
able MONDAY meal than by letting them
skirmish at lunch counters and r
pastry stands for a doubtful sandwich or
a week old turnover. Making the very
best of existing conditions in the business
district Of any large city, what can a man
buy in the line of hot, savory food for the
sum of twenty cents, which is equivalent
to the ~Frenchman's francP
There are in most cities a few very free
and easy sort of places where various
standard dishes cost five cents each, a
plate of meat and a potato, or a dish of
baked beans and a slice of bread, OF a
uuantum suf. of hash or corned beef and
cabbage; but these places are in out of the
way streets, so far as the men in question
are concerned. Newspaper men are more
fortunate in New York, since Printing
House square contains those odd little
coffee and cake stands, at which ten cents
will buy a steaming cup of hot coffee with
milk and sugar and a plate of little but
tered cakes-not half bad fare on a winter
day. Some of the river and cross town
streets still hold open rough and ready
seating saloons I" where soup is five cents
a bowl, coffee the same price a cup, cooked
meats ten cents a plate, including some
kind Of vegetable, and pie and pudding
five cents a dish. The newsboy may gorge
himself at the st. Andrews coffee stands
for one cent a dish of soup, fish cakes,
beans, meat and vegetable stew and like
solid food, but a bankers or merchants
clerk cannot we'll relish the savors dear to
newsboys and navvies.
The jaded brain could not spare the
blood required to digest such fare, even if
appetite craved it. When a man has to
return to his desk for the most difficult
work Of the day he has no energy to waste
on digestion. Much as he needs the nour-
ishment of wholesome food, it would be
dO9u4u w SAPCCU W 1CSCANo Az OAx OA0
average of the fare available to the down
town freuuenters of restaurants where the
ten cent plates prevail. e
There are, however, houses where the
prices are slightly advanced. and where the
cooking is good and savory. One popular
New York resort supplies over 10000 people
daily. For twenty-five cents a palatable
and wholesome dinner can be made from
soup, a roast meat with two vegetables,
pudding or pie, and coffee with milk and
sugar. For fifty cents judiciously placed
more would be served than one could eat
unless ravenously hungry. There are odd
little foreign ostelries-Swiss, Hungarian,
Polish, etc.-where wonderfully good lit
tie dinners are cooked by the host and
served under the eye of the hostess for
twenty-five and thirty cents, including vim
ordinaire of fair quality. But the same
difficulty exists as with the very cheap res
taurants-they are situated too far from
the business centers to be available for our
present comparison, even If the character
of the cookery were acceptable.
So far al our conditions have given but
small promise of comfort for the clerk and
accountant at the MONDAY meal, for even
the most inviting-specifled at the restau-
rant where twenty-five cents buys a hearty
meals not without its disadvantages; for
supposing the would-be diner can leave his
desk at noon precisely, and arrive prompt
ly at the dining room, he may find every
seat occupied and be forced to lose part of
his precious hour Of relaxation from work
in waiting; more of it must be dissipated
in the coming and going. AS a natural
consequence any plan must be welcome
that supplies hot food at the right time
and place. First is the arrangement where
by the individual employer or corporation
undertakes to meet the situation with q
hot luncheon. the cost Of which is either
included in the salary or paid for by the
week or month.
This system is the outgrowth of the
privilege years ago accorded to the sewing
GIRLS in the great dry goods houses of pre-
pairing tea for their luncheon, a privilege
still continued. In addition to this local.
provision for lunching there is a travelling
caterer, whose representative calls for or
ders during the forenoon, and at the noon
hour serves the specified fare in appetizing
fashion and collects the dishes in the
afternoon. The cost is very reasonable, and
the food must needs be moderately salts
factory in order to maintain the business.
All these arrangements are, however, only
makeshifts, substitutes for the comforta-
BILE meal the eater would make at home.
were home available; but at the best the
cooking is probably less satisfactory than
real home fare, because it is done in bulk
and cannot be suited to individual palates,
even when their preference Is known, as
home cooking can.
The comparison starts in the favor of
the French artisan, because in France
cookery is reduced to 9 science, the de-
grees varying not in excellence but in cost;
every dish is a palatable as every other
dish Of similar composition; the working
mans cafe au lait is just as we'll made as
the mobiles, only the Ingredients differ;
omelette souflee is as light at the little
restaurant outside the barriers as at the
Jockey club. When all American cookery
shall be founded upon scientific principles,
as the writer's is, the same certainty Of ex-
cellence can be felt here as in France. The
day will have passed when q pretender to
the title OF teacher Of cookery shall be
able, in order to exalt herself, to apply the
stigma Of the term ''messes'' to cookery.
It will then be imperative in America, as
II now Is abroad, that every intending cook
shnll undertake a definite course Of train
Ing, anda { It's conclusion shall demonstrates
It's utility by producing dishes, every one
Of which shallsbe perfect Of its kind. It Is
because Of the accuracy and p~racticability.
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