The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-02
THE ART OF EATING.
Americans Learning and Assimilat-
ing Its Best Elements.
New York Tribune.

NOuI, lllS <AIIlSIlCdIlS 16tu Dut OIly the
French know how to eat'' Whether this
be true not, it is certain that the saying
is fast becoming out of date. so far. at
least, as the Americans are concerned. The
English may continue to "devour' and the
French to ''eat," but the long-headed
Yankee, as in all other things, knows good
thing when he sees it, even in the line of
eating. and with his usual aptitude for
adapting all good ideas he is rapidly reduc-
ing the art of satisfying the inner man to
a science. There may have been a time,
and that not long since, when the Ameri-
can literally fed, and the reproach may
have been merited, but Uncle Sam, long,
lean and lank, as usually depicted in Carl
catureS, has a good ''eating nose,'' that is,
sensitive to the destinations of the culinary
art, and he is quickly mastering the little
wrinkles that go to make the festive board
attractive. The reproach cannot be made
so sweepingly to-day as it was a decade
ago. and it is within the limits of possibility
that the caricaturists of the twentieth CEN
fury will have to let out the belt in Uncle
Sans picture several notches when they
come to portray him as the ideal Yankee.
One of the well-known chefs in New York
recently said to a Tribune reporter: II
don't know whether you have noticed it or
ilCl, DuL II Is certainty COMING ABOUT IndL
the Americans. from being the poorest eat
ers in the world, rapidly taking first
place in that formality of life. 1 do not
mean by this that the great mass of the
American people will all at once become
| adopts in the art of eating for there is yet
much for them to learn but leading people
| are showing keen discrimination in the mat
| ter and are wonderfully shrewd in chooS-
| ing between the good and bad ideas that
are brought to their notice
Take Mrs. Blank, for instance She is
a rich New Yorker She has plenty of time
| to devote to such trivial matter as some
are pleased to call it. as eating She has
| had number of chefs in her house, some
| of them experts in German cooking, some
| French. some Hungarian. some English,
! and possibly colored cook who is cunning
ners. Now, Mrs. Blank, you may be sure,
started in life in very plain way. She
was brought up to the American breakfast
of buckWheat cakes, sausages, beefsteak.
pork and beans, etc, to the American din
ner of soup. roast or chops and pie, and
to the American tea of dried beef, tea and
| cake, with preserves. Since she has mar
rled well on, as you people call it, she has
Gome to New tS York to give her mind oceu
has heard the reproach that Americans
| feed instead of eat, and she has deter
mined to do away with the reproach at
least so far as she is concerned.
| She engaged chef after chef. and with
| her quick, brilliant American mind, she al
most intuitively grasps the art as exhibited
| TO her by her several chefs. Just see what
an immense advantage she has over her
| own chef If he be French, the chances are
| that he knows little besides French cooking:
| If he be Hungarian, all he knows is Hun
garian cooking; if English, then it is Eng
| chefs, as a rule, are not highly educated
| people. We are tradesmen. who. by force of
| circumstances, are brought up to know lit
| tie outside of our immediate means of earn
| ing living, and, as is usual with such char
| acters, we are too apt to sheer at any other
| school of cooking. OF course. just as mat
/ ter OF trade. call a few dishes n
| by some foreign name just to fool our mas
| ters or mistresses; but who ever heard of a
! an dish that tasted like the dish Hungari-
| an chef will get up, or what English cook
VIII get up dish of macaroni like an
Now see what an advantage Mrs. Blank
has In the first place. she is not pretudiced
reproach that Americans don't know Row to
| eat. and she is all eagerness to seize upon
the good points of any kind of cooking no
| Germans, French or Italians The result is
what you can easily imagine Mrs. Blank
| was brought up in kitchen, and vas con-
sidered a pretty smart cook before she mar
| ried rich. That may have been the reason
Mr. Blank married her. Sudden riches have
not tended to make her indolent. She has
| in New York. and, between you and me,
will confess that, taking it the year in and
in the world than at Mrs. Blanks. She
seiZeS on any idea that appeals to her good
sense and quick perception, no matter
whether presented by French or Japanese
cook-for, mind you, she once had a Japan
| csc as an assistant cook-and at once APP
propriates it to her board. Mrs. Blanks
great advantage. as 1 have said. is in her
| being entirely without prejudice. She has
recognized that an English cook will not
a Hungarian, simply because the former
| will not take the pains to get the pure in
| some manufactured stuff equally as good,
| but which, a matter of fact, is a sickly
imitation, lacking entirely the genuine fla
vor so necessary to the national dish. Mrs
| Blank discovered this early in the beginning
| of her career a housewife, and she took
pains to ascertain from her Hungarian chef
| just where to get the genuine ingredients
| for that particular dish
From her Italian cook Mrs. Blank soon
get the pure olive oil for salads notwith
standing the fact that there were dozens
of firms advertising the genuine imported
article. She found that this cook made it
point to board Italian sailing vessels com
| ing direct from Italy and purchase sup
| ply from people in the ship. In this way
| he got the genuine article instead of some
| vile cotton-seed connection that represents
nine-tenths of the commodity sold as olive
'sYou ask if Mrs. Blank is an exceptional
case in America? / say no. True, there
are not many among our extremely
wealthy American housewives who go to
the trouble of mastering the arts of their
successive chefs. l am sorry to say that
| too many leave the matter entirely in the
cooks hands, and as a. result they are
easily imposed upon, so long as the same
dishes with scarcely perceptible altera-
| tons, are produced under various high
sounding names. Mrs. Blank could not be
imposed upon in this way. She knows
more about the culinary art than the ma
| jority of the chefs, though she seldom visits
| the kitchen
ssRut Mrs Blank does not stop with learn
| ing for herself alone She is one of those
generous women who never forget that they
were in moderate circumstances themselves
at one time. Being the mistress of the art
of cooking. she has very commendable
pride in exhibiting her management on
| proper occasions. Her friends from the
country call to see her, and. with true coun-
try frankness. she gives them recipe for
some dainty dish that has aroused their ad-
miration. These friends go back to their
homes and tell other friends of some new
dainty they have got, and before you know
| ii this foreign dish has become the regular
thing in the village of Wayback where YOU
would least expect to find it.
''I have had a great many American
housewives ask me for recipes for this and
| that dish that happened TO take their fancy.
When | was chef in a well-known place up
town it q common thing to have
waiter come TO me with a message from
Mrs. So-and-SO, requesting that the exact
recipe for this dish might be made out for
her. and as these requests We're usually ac-
companied by a substantial fee, they, OF
course, were readily granted.
Now. you can just mark my words. II
viii not be many years before the Ameri-
cans will he so far from being the poorest
feeders IN the world as to be the best and
most refined. You can see 1t in New York
every day, and Ii is spreading to the smaller
cities ard towns. and from there 10 the VIII