The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-09-05

hotel in the heart of a poverty-stricler
island where nothing is raised; and
greater would be your establishment tC
find everything excellently cooked
Yet the Santa Clara lis by no means
above the average Of Cuban hotels
In all Cuba, there are only two meals a
day, not counting the early coffee, and
breakfast is almost the counterpart OF
dinner.At both meals soup comes first,
a savory concoction whose component
parts could only be told by a clairvoy-
ant. Hunt around in 1t, and you may
ind chicken, pork sausage and pig
tails. also peppers, almonds and eggs;
raisins, onions and clans; possibly glib
let's, bits of mutton and bananas boiled
whole in their skins, the whole colored
dark yellow with saffron. Probably ev-
| erything else within reach Of the cook
that is edible went into it but what's
| the odds since the result is delicious?
About the only difference between
breakfast and dinner is that eggs figure
at the former meal. The Cubans, like
their Latin cousins in France and Italy,
know thing or two in the line of egg
| cooking, and particularly In omelette-
making, which colder blooded Anglo
SaXons can never master 1t is an old
saying that only persons of blue-blood
and refinement can compound proper
salad; and equally true is that the art
and science of onelettes belong eXclu-
sively to the poetic races. l. presume
that you might get an omelette plain"
in Cuba by giving such an order to the
amazed cook, but have never seen one
Iar a ,,y;fL
thing besides the eggs to give 1t color,
beauty and flavor. Tomatoes, peas or
potatoes most frequently enter into 1t,
or fruit, nuts, beans, onions, meat rice
or raisins
Fish never follows soup, as with us,
but is served late in the Cuban menu.
And such fish! Big or little, they are
always Drowned to delicate perfection
in oil and served with lines, or in some
savory mess of tomatoes wine and the
inevitable saffron. The f1sh-market of
any Cuban seaport is it's most interest
ing sight. That of avana, called the
Pescaderia, (the word derived from
pescado fish, Is great stone building,
mostly roof, resting upon arches sup
ported by pillars, the sides being open
to secure ventilation. The market is
government institution and monopoly,
and the piscatorial display cannot be
surpassed, and seldom equalled, in any
part of the world. Not only does the
Cuban coast furnishes a wonderful va
riots Of the firny tribes but fishermen
come in regularly from the border of
Florida, Yucatan and the Tortugas.
There are shell-fish of every descrip-
ton, snake-like cells, black and yellow
Spanish angle-fish the so-called but
terflies of the sea- beautiful dolphins,
bright blueish-green Bahama turbet,
squirrel fish of brilliant scarlet, par
ret fish, sharks, enormous porpoises to
be converted into oil, and a thousand
others, golden, amethyst, silver pearl,
blue. crimson, irridescent and lusterless
gray
Not only are fish for Cuban con-
sumption brought from other parts of
the Caribbean sea and the Mexican
gulf, even Goldfish from faraway Nan
tucket and salmon from the Columbia
but a great many other common food
supplies which might just as well be
raised in the island come from afar.
Spanish vessels bring wines and olives
from Barcelona; queer Portuguese craft
discharge cargoes of onions, cabbages.
potatoes, apples and sailed fish; South
American brigantines, with the general
air of piratical craft, bring wheat
jirked beef, sweet oil, bacon, lard, figs
olives and brandy; from Mexico come
most of the bulls for fighting in the Pa-
"a de torros, and incidentally, beef;
while American and Canadian vessels
bring about four-fifths of the entire
food supplies consumed in Cuba.
Speaking of odd but extremely pala-
table dishes compounded by Cuban
cooks over their queer little "estufas"
containing q handful of charcoal here
are few most commonly met, Beans,
cooked with sausages and shrimps, col
ored golden with saffron, for an entire;
stewed tomatoes, mixed with chopped
boiled eggs; pigeons, seasoned with lem
on juice, onions, parsley nutgem and
white wine, baked in thin crust of
suet paste chickens, fried In oil and gar
nished with mushrooms and garlic; and
geese, slit down the back, covered with
and Drowned in the oven,
afterwards smothered in a sauce of saul |
erne boiled down with thyme and bay |
leaf. Peacocks are also cooked, but are |
so expensive as to be found only in the |
best hotels and the houses of the rich |
A favorite way of fattening poultry |
mere Is to put them in barrels and stuff |
hem with walnuts and cornmeal for
several days before they are killed, |
something as Americans fatten turkeys
'or Thanksgiving savages we
nortals be in all parts of the world!
lust before Christmas, all over Cuba,
turkeys are driven from door to door
hi ough the city streets, in droves of
rom forty to hundred for people to
make their own selection. Guinea
lens, Guinea pigs, mountain rats and a
iariety of small birds, enter into the
estive menu. Beef, mutton and pork
S killed the day before it is used, often
looked as soon as killed because it cam
lot be kept in this warm climate. For |
he same reason reputable Cuban
ooks will never buy fish unless they
ire alive and the markets have big
anks full of fish swimming about
Holsters and mussels are very
mall here, and the little tasteless oys-
ers grow on the submerged branches of
hrubs and trees along the coast there
ore instead of buying them by the
eek unshelled, or by the quart or can
s at home, you go to market and get
branch of oysters, as If they were |