The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-11-09
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Can you cook make decent coileNs
asked Dorothy Maddox. in the Philaaei-
phia Enquirer"
I wonder how often one housekeeper
asks another this question? We who
have a family's palate under our super
vision talk coffee. dream coffee.
we are never at rest regarding this
tricksv beverage. Today it is drinkable,
tomorrow nauseating. The best regulat-
ed breakfast tables go to pieces under
the h~arangues that take place over cof-
fee urn and cream jug.
Family ties threaten to snap beneath
the weight of argument of coffee drink
ers. A nice cup of coffee is the incest
thing that can break a fast. At least
most people think so.
1t really does make an u~npalatable
breakfast go. Why is it not served Of
tener? Cooks nave a rooted aversion to
pleasing a mistress by sending to the
table drinkable coffee. Their cakes and
bread and pies and meats may all DO
them credit. but this important bit Of
table luxury is either as black as a
crows wing and as bitter as gall or it IS
wishy- washy stuff that tastes as If made
of boiled over grains.
H-ousekeepers are constantly changing
their coffee merchants. They fit from
one brand Of the berry to another. They
confide their housewifely trials to deal
ers.
Sometimes a merchant with faith in
his specially is blunt enough to ask, Does
your cook know how to make eofee2"
For the life Of her the lady Of the
house cannot say. She has talked and
talked. but whether her lectures have
had any effect is the question. It has
certainly not given her what she most
longs for-coffee that she can really en-
joy. And she herself would not mind 50
much if--if it were not for husband, but
this dear man, who is IN angel of good
ness IN all matters great and small, regu-
larry loses his temper every morning. He
goes down town leaving the lady who
s.pours OUT feeling a much abused fe-
male.
Nobody. husband included. gives her
credis for having tried, o. how hard she
has tried. 10 teach that miserable girl
to make good cbTss. CHE pays big prices
for lava and Mocha. She gets in a new
coffee pot on an a9erage Of once a month.
In fact. 1t seems as if she has tested
every pot III TIE market
Coffee has been made according to the
French method and every other method.
Even picnic coffee has been tried. Men
are great on picnic coffee. If a troubled
soul ever dares mention her i'll luck in
this one culinary matter. some man IS
sure to begin. tGet a tin coffee pot. That's
the thing and Their he goes on to say
how he has never tasted better conee than
that dumped into some cold water and
lust let boil over a camp fire.
Nobody would be rash enough to dis
puta this pleasant little fallacy. It is
allowed to remain deep rooted In the
masculine brain. Perhaps the picnic COT
fee was ~drinkable. I do remember my
self some very delicious tasting coffee
served from a tin pot and made over a
camp fire. l think too, I know why it
was good. It was made and served with
out a wait between the making and
the serving.
/ had not long since a very interesting
little chat with a dealer in coffees. He.
to my question, What is the matter
with coffee?s replied
Good coffee is in the market, and
there is plenty of it to be bought at rea-
sonable prices, but the trouble is house
keepers cannot get their cooks to make
them coffee they can drink
.srhe highest priced cooks are failures
when it comes to coffee. It is boiled to
death. If you notice after dinner coffee
made lust before the last course is served
is much better. Breakfast coffee STANDS
and stands until 1t Is not nit to drink.
Many times when I was taking orders
found in kitchens where the highest
priced cooks were engaged the cofee-pot
bubbling and boiling on the back OF the
stove a good hour and often longer before
the time for ringing the breakfast bell.
take home our finest brands of coffee.
One morning we can drink ii, the next we
might as we'll have used ehicory, it is SO
poor. When the cook leaves in high dud-
aeon over something we invariably have
road coffee because soma one of the
family makes it until the next cook ap-
pears
This view of an intensely annoying sub
iect strikes me as a very practical one.
that it does not offer an escape from a
most perplexing situation | am well
aware. A housekeeper may talk herseif
hoarse. she may cajole, threaten implore.
she cannot get her cook to serve with
any regularity decent coffee. It is an
inter fmpossfbility. Why not? Why,
when a thing is made once. as 1t should be
cannot it not always be satisfactory?
Because the average cook is not to be
depended upon to think when she pre-
pares a delicacy.
Her hurries and her worries, too, play
many a caper with the family meals, and
with no one article that goes into the
breakfast room more persistently than
with the coffee.
Girls who have returned from their
summer outings with various odds and
ends as souvenirs will be Interested to
know about some exceedingly pretty
rooms shown the other day. The owner
Is a sojourner In a large city and wished
70 'civilize'' her rooms-so she expressed
it-with as little extra expense as posi-
Bile She invested each part Of her rooms
with a certain idsa and carried out that
idea by an artistic arrangement OF I'M
framed as well az framed pictures, photo
graphs and various odds and ends that
she caanced to have in her trunks. Her
.sOuting'' wall, according to the ''Delinea-
tor" is decorated with we'll arranged Pho
tographs and souvenirs OF her last sum-
mer's vacation; the cottage and her party
ut afternoon tea on the veranda, a group
OF rowboats starting on the lake and
then a series OF views taken on and