Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-23
OUR GRAND DINNERS
And Luxurious Service Astonish Old
World H0steSSeS.
HOW WE LEAD In HOSPITALITY,
The Influence Of Good Meal on Letters
and Diplomacy.
ODD MRS. PLETHORIC POCKETS ABROAD
rconRAsroSpENcr OF THE DISPATCH.

hospitality is precious one in ali religions
and in all languages, to give food and wlnt
and shelter, to bring ones friends around 9
we'll filled board. Where is the ancient
chronicle that is not filled with praises Of
him or her who has this organizing power!
or where is the poet, from Horace to Mil.
ton, who has not sung the record OF Am
pbytrion? or the Cleopatra who, setting before
the guest the welcome cooling fruit, or the
inspiring draught, has, with it all, brought
to the philosopher his answering thought,
the weary rest, to the restless invigorating
sympathy. to the curious the last gossip, to
the wit the last bon mot, to those who live
in the realra of fancy the last story?
Social leaders in all ages and countries,
have studied not only the taste but the in
tellectual aptitudes and capabilities of those
whom they sought to gather round their
boards. The versatile Greek intellect in its
superb mythology, which figures for us all
the passions of our replete common nature,
left us that Jupiter who gave supper parties
to Venus, to which Juno was not bid-nor
Minerva either for the matter of that; doubt
less those two, Dignity and Intellect COM
| bined, gave in turn suppers to which Jupi-
ter, in his graver hours was glad to be asked;
| but they did not mix things" These
petite suppers, enlivened by the inextin-
guishable laughter of the gods, and waited
upon BY Gannemede and Hebe, had much
to do with the politics of Greek heaven.
In like manner, the
GLOOMY NORTHERN HEROES
of valhalla invoked the terror and fascina-
ton of changing steel and the nightly
rustling OF warriors, who sat down to meat
| all clad in armor, as they drank their mead
| from the skulls of their enemies. The
| splendid outward phenomena OF nature are
here omitted in their stories of banquets;
The wind sighs through the forest, the ocean
washes the feet of the host, the chasms of
the earth seem to open TO swallow up their
kitchen maidens; and of cookery they evil
| IDENTIFY had only the most vague and awful
conceptions. We see vanishing down their
mighty throats great draughts of potent liq-
uors; we see their huge hands tearing the
| halt roasted kid; vet here also we have the
elementary idea of hospitality as set forth in
the northern poetry. They were all trying
to have a good time. 1t is as distinctly
imaged forth in the Saga, as in the neater,
more elegant and finished Hellenic verse,
which eliminated in power in Homer, and
wreathed its base with roses as in Horace.
1t entered into the religious epic of Mil
ton, and we see the English housewife OF
his day, imaged forth as Eve spread her
table for the angel. and brought food from
the preserves Of Paradise Ito Tighten
Adams duties as host) to a most unex-
pected, perhaps unwelcome guest
We see also in this immortal picture that
man has ever turned to woman as the Or
ganizing power on these occasions, and, in
deed, history-sublime in its impartlslIty-
has always painted man as throwing off all
the trouble of giving dinner party on the
woman.
RECoNCILED BY FOOD.
To even hint at the great influence which
hospitality has had upon politics would be
to recite Guizot'e nine volumes of the His
tory Of Civilization. From the polished
and versatile memoirs of the Grammonts,
Walpoles. D'Azelios, Henry Crabbe. Rob
inson, Selwyn, from France, Germany,
Italy, England, how many a lesson we
get Of the efficacy of dinner in reconciling
foes and in the making of friendsi How
many a conspiracy was hatched, no doubt,
behind aspic of plovers' eggs, or vol-au-
vent de voIaillei How many budding
Ministry brought to full flower over a we'll
ordered table clothi How many a war
cloud dispelled by the proper introduction
OF a good Burgundy at the proper tempera-
ture! 1t is related that Lord Lyndhurst,
when somebody asked him which was the
best way 10 succeed in life, Give good
wine" A French statesman would nave
answered "Give good dinners" which i'm
plies good wine and something beside, and
would have carried out the advice
into practice himself. Tallyrand kept
the most renowned table of his
day, quite as much for political as for hy-
hn
an hour every morning with his chef dis
cussihg the dishes to be served at dinner.
The Emperor, who was no epicure, nor even
a connoisseur, was nevertheless pleased with
Tallyrand's luxurious and refined hospitali-
ty, in consequence OF the impression it made
on those who were so fortunate as to partake
of it. On the other hand, one hesitates to
contemplate the indigestions and bad Eng
lish cookery which must have hatched an
Oliver Cromwell or earlier still, what
decadence of italian hospitality made the
Borgias possiblel
There is one chaos Of good feeding and
bad organization, beauty responsible for the
ennui of society which should be preached
about, and that is dinner party "given to
pay off social debts, where no person has
the least sympathy with the persons about
him; think of the awful resting time be-
tween the courses. Could the modern
hostess be permitted to send check to each
guest, and avoid asking him to be miserable
for an evening, she would be a real bene-
factor of society, and save it from the re-
proach Of insuficiency. She holds so divine
an Office, the hostess, that one wishes she
would never descend from her throne, nor
invite people simply to make them unhappy.
AMERICANS FREE GIvERs.
American hospitality has always been,
to the European observer, a splendid out
ward phenomenon. 1t has been so generous,
so lavish, SO disregardful of expenses, that
it has been criticized as barbaric as savage,
as vulgar. Still nobody stand away from
these dinners, which were compared to-
hecatcombs of game, and where champagne
was said to flow like Niagara in boundless
and uncomfortable current The guinea
pears and ten shilling peaches which were
pronounced at an English dinner as de-
cidedfy ostentatious, were left far in the
background by some American entertainers,
who would have served in artichokes, had
diamons been edible.
The profusion, the expense of New York
dinner, its roses at 81 leaf, its fruit from
Algiers or San Francisco, its fish from
coast of ], 900 miles long, its game from the
boundless area which Sam, Slick described
as reaching "from the State of Maine to the
setting sum-" its luxurious wines which
really represented the vintages most priced
by connoisseurs, these all had been so tamil-
lar to the hostesses from the Golden Slope
in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. New
port. that they felt absolutely the expense OF
a dinner in Paris or London to be nothing,
and bought orchids for half the price which
had been paid for roses at Klumder's, not
rejecting that, to the sober better sense of
a foreion hostess such profusion and gild-