Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-11-30
FOREIGN FOOD.

Dishes of Other NatiOna1fties BecOm-
ing Popular in America.
From the Literary Digest.
Not only are we receiving vast bodies of
foreigners into this country and natural
izing them, but We are also welcoming their
national dishes, so that American cooking
is becoming more and more cosmopolitan.
In the American Kitchen Magazine, George
e. Walsh tells us of some of the queer for
eign foods that may be obtained in our
cities. He writes:
THE cosmopolitan population of New
York, Chicago or Philadelphia dimes upon
many varieties of food mixtures as there
are nations and tribes on the face of the
globe. There are small settlements in these
large cities of Cinnamon, Japanese, French,
Germans, Italians, Greeks, Russians, Poles,
Hungarians and nearly all other distinctive
nationalities. These people have brought
with them the customs of their native
lands, and many of them have introduced
dishes from abroad and in some cases there
is a good import trade in the articles re-
quired to make the compounds. In China
town, for instance, the seeds of strange
Chinese vegetables and fruits are found,
which the thrifty oriental plants to pro-
duce something that reminds him of home"
The German, French or Italian ''delfca-
lessen" show has done much. we are told. to
populariZe foreign foods in this country.
Some of it's specialties are thus enumerated
by Mr. Walsh:
There is long line of German pre-
serves, which are favored in a novel and
unique way. There are preisSelbeeren pre-
serves which are very similar to preserved
cranberries; mirabellen. which resemble our
canned cherries more than anything else,
ouSly favored. There are German
tips of asparagus peculiarly prepared and
sold as spargelkopfe; German carrots and
kohlrabi put up and called roSenkohl and
n ma
vegetables steamed and put up together I'M
der the name of gemuse-melange. Out of
the deutsche hutzeln, or dried peas, the Ger
mans make round bread or cake which
for special festive occasions. and is eaten
by cutting deep hole in the center and
pouring brandy in it to be soaked UP by
the bread. A popular German CONNECTION
called marZipan This is made of almonds
sugar and eggs, and small square of it,
three inches either way and an inch thick
put up ia small tin boxes, costs one dollar
in this country.
In the line of meats and sausages the
German delicatessen store is amply provid-
cd. And when a German asks for his i'm
ported gOOSebreaSt, schinkenwurst schWar-
termagen Zungenwurst, butwurSt and le-
berwurst, We are told, he demands to- see
the brand and district in which it was put
up. and it always follows that his favorite
brand betrays the part of Germany he came
from. There are also food products from
Spain, Italy and France, which are emu
merated and described by Mr.. Walsh at
some length OF a still more interesting
feature of his subject he writes:
More recently the Japanese and Chinese
dishes have been imported into this coun-
try. and the natives living in our large
cities are plentifully supplied with their
favorite foods. From Japan comes great
variety of devilfish food, put up in many
ferns, dried, shredded and canned almost
the same as our Goldfish. Then there are
Japanese tree and sea mushrooms the
former looking somewhat like our field
mushrooms, but very woody in taste. and
the latter producing nothing much more
than glue when boiled. The sticky glue or
gelatin-like stuff of the sea mushrooms is
used as the foundation for soups The jap
anese dry almost every kind of fish found
In the waters bordering the island kingdom,
and we have them here in sizes from the
mlnnoWs to swordf1shes and devilfishes.
large enough to supply small regiment
or soldiers with days rations CLANS,
mussels, oysters, prawns, shrimps and craw-
hsh are dried by the Japanese and sold as
savory food. They are dried and preserved
so that they will last almost indefinitely in
any climate, but at the same time so thor
oughly that there is little taste to them.
they suggest dried wood more than dried
fcod. but the Japanese like them and find
nGurishment in them. The Chinese are
more peculiar in their national dishes than
the Japanese.