The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1893-05-13
WHAT HONOLULU PEOPLE PUT
IN THEIR ST0MACRS.
Some of the Delicac:es Serve d
Up in Chinese Restaurants.
Written for the ADVERTISER.

One of the crying needs of the
United States, aud, to still
greater extent, of the Hawaiian
Islands, is stringent law to prevent
the adulteration of all articles, liquid
or solid, used for food purposes. Such
law has been in force for many year:
in England, and has been of vast bene
fit both to the purse and the health Of
the poorer classes.
OF the working classes in Honolulu
the larger proporti IN eat one or more
meals per day in Chinese restaurants
not because they wish to patronize
Cinnamon, bat because theirs are tbs
only restaurants in the city
within their means, which, fol
the purposes of this article, may
be- limited to twenty-five cents
a meal. OF the hundreds who
are forced to patronize these places
there are probably but few who have
even a faint idea of what they :Ie eat
ing. They imagine they are getting
q good meal, and yet they will all tell
YOU that the food does not taste good,
and that nothing has ever tasted as
good as in the old days when mother
and sister did the cooking. To call
attention to some of the vile COM
pounds served up in these places as
food for respectable human beings IS
the purpose of this article, and the
fact that we may be visited by the
CHOLERA during the coming summer
should be sufficient warning to every
one to be more careful than usual in
what he eats and drinks.
On entering one of these so-called
restaurants one finds cruet stand
and three or four bottles on any of the
tables. Let US Investigate their con-
tents. The first one is supposed to
contain vinegar, but does it? In the
United States Dispensatory, the re-
cognized authority on such mat
tiers, it is stated vinegar, to be
pure, must range in color from
q pale yellow to deep red. The
LIQUID in this bottle is absolutely col
orless and tastes differently to pure
vinegar. The same book tells us that
sulphuric acid is largely used in max
ing spurious vinegar. A mixture of
sulphuric acid and water would taste
about the same and look exactly like
much of the vinegar to be seen in
Chinese restaurants. Everybody
knows, or ought to know, that sui
phuric acid, or to use its common
name-oil of vitriol-is a most viru-
lent poison. A drop of it placed on
the naked flesh will burn a hole in
second that will take weeks to heal.
Many people today are suffering from
dyspepsia and kindred stomach trou-
bles, simply and solely from the con-
slant use of impure vinegar and
pickles. Wait till the cholera comes
along and finds its first and easiest
victims among those who have de-
stroyed the coating of their stomachs
by using these articles.
The next bottle is supposed to con-
tain olive OIL, but it does not. Pure
olive oil is of an almost dark green
tint, but the oil in this bottle is of
golden yellow. 1t is simply cotton
seed oil, perfectly harmless and COM
paratively tasteless. 1t costs ninety
cents per gallon in San Francisco,
while pure olive oil cannot be bought
for less than $3.50. Cotton seed oil Is
now almost universally used as a
substitute for, or mixed with olive
oil, even in California, where the
production of oil from the olive is
becoming an important industry.
Let US see what is in the next bottle.
This one is supposed to contain pepper,
but il does not. There is some pepper
in it, but the principal part of the
compound is something else. Not
many people in Honolulu are aware
that Portland cement has been used
to adulterate pepper; but it is a fact
all the same, and it was so used in
England before the passage of the
I" Adulteration of Foods Act"
The next bottle is supposed to con-
tain Worcestershire sauce, but it does
TIaA costs
per dozen in San Francisco by the
case. This bottle is filled up after
each meal out of a demijohn contain
ing a vile imitation of the genuine
article, and which is sold to San Fran
cisco restaurants at the low price of
one dollar per gallon. While the
writer has not seen John Chinaman
in Honolulu fill up his bottles after
each meal, he has seen it done in
San Francisco and elsewhere.
The other bottle in the cruet should
contain red or cayenne pepper-but it
does not. 1t contains about ten per
cent. red pepper and the balance is
comparatively harmless,
coloring matter, which is also used to
mix with curry powder. A very few
grains of pure red pepper are all that
anyone can take in bowl of soup or
on a chop or steak, but one can easily
swallow teaspoonful OF restaurant
pepper without much inconvenience.
IL pure red pepper is wanted, 1T should
be purchased at drugstore, for, with
few exceptions, when put in cans or
bottles, as sold in grocery stores, 1T Is
adulterated to a greater or
less extent.
Another bottle on the table purports
to contain California pickles. These
pickles are simply gherkins, with
stray onion or two thrown in for looks,
stepped in the spurious vinegar above
spoken of, and are sold in kegs hold
ing from one to ten gallons, at about
40 cents gallon. After each meal, q
dives his hand into one of
these kegs and refills the bottles that
have been emptied.
Another compound that appears TO
find much favor with Honolulu gour-
mands is tomato catsup, a bottle of
which is always to be found on a
table. This is also to be
purchased at about IS cents per gallon,
and the filling process takes place
after each meal. 1t is too cheap to
but is made out of half.
rotten and unsuitable tomatoes which
are bought up in the San Francisco
markets by the packing houses at
their own prices. The best of these
tomatoes are saved for canning, the |
refuse is made into catsup.
So much for the condiments. The |
soups furnished are indescribable, no |
two of them ever being alike Every