The Savannah morning news., 1901-01-27

Simple But Sufficient Food of the
Nippy Little People.


Nippy Little People.
Toxic Correspondence of the London Elk
press.
Now that the race for supremacy be-
tween the great peoples of the world
is becoming keener, and each nation is
taking Infinite pains to provide itself
with such means and appliances as will
enable it to be first at the goal, there are
certain lessons of Eastern as opposed
to Western habits which deserve more
consideration than is customarily accord
ed them
Now, in the matter OF eating and drink
! ing, to deal with the foremost of these
lessons, John Bull easily holds first place
among the nations. The Br fish work
man is at the apex of prosperity, an apex
which is indicated by plenty of roast beet
and plum pudding, meat three times a
day, beef oftener, good house, good
clothes fnery for wife, and something
| to spare.
He will decline from that epex.
I first became Convinced that he would
when l came to the far east and saw
! the innumerable swarms of coolies who
| will work for a half-penny a day, the
! skillful mec hanics who will raise fam
! lily on 2l5d. day, the tailors, wood cary
| ers, painters, shoemakers. ETC., who,
while quite as good. on the whole, as
their European confreres, do not get
hundredth part of the wages earned by
! the latter
With peace, the development of the
| backward parts of the word, and the
| opening up of China under a progressive
| government. capital will inevitably flow
to those regions where it can be most
probably employed, and. in view of the
speedy opening up of the Middle King
| dom, American manuf cturers are al
| ready talking of establishing in Japan
| factories which will very soon have
branches all over the neghboring en-
pire; for, of course, it is China and not
| japan which W II bring the British work
man from his roast beef apex.
Cheap Living and Hard Work.
The oriental will accompany this owing
| to his simpler mode of living.
Now, l am living, and have lived for
| some time past in purely japanese style
and on purely Japanese food, and my
| experience in this direction has firmly
convinced me that European custom
| makes us eat too much.
| The British workman will doubtless
| scott at this dictum and point to the
small stature of the Jap as evidence of
| the inadeQuacy of an almost vegetarian
| diet.
VIII he not remember, however that
| il was precisely this simple food that
| enabled the Japanese soldier to achieve
such distinction on the battlefield; to
! teach the fighting men of Europe les
son in endurance which they will not
! readily forget; to demonstrate that all
| climates were alike 20 him, and that no
conditions, however arduous, could check
| his cheerful, sturdy, onward march?
The whole secret lies in this question
| of diet. and any one who tries to live as
| the Jap does will quickly see for him
self that it is so.
lie will lose that impotence and nerv-
BUSINESS in which some Englshmen take
certain amount of pride, and those fits
| of depression which have been called
1.-The English malady'' will disappear as
| we'll
| The Japanese eat thrice a day, and
each time they take much the same kind
| of food-rice being always the principal
| item, accompanied, as a rule, by fish,
eggs and vegetables, either fresh or pick
led especially beans.
Hardly has one awakened in the morn
ing than one of the girls of the hotel
brings into the room-dining room and
| bed room are all one in a Japanese house,
| the former being converted into the lat
| ter at night by the spreading of a mat
| tress on the thick straw mats which
cover the fioor-a portable native stove
on which she places a kettle, which is
| soon boiling.
A Quaint breakfast.
One then makes tea for himself in tiny
| teacup by the simplest of processes, name
| ly, by pouring the hot water on to the
| tea leaves, and then pouring the instan-
| taneously produced tea into a tiny cup
about the size of cookie shell. This is
| japanese tea, and as it is taken, of course,
without milk or sugar, foreigners are not,
as a rule, fond of it.
When one has thus taken a few drops
of tea the breakfast is carried in by the
maid on little red-lacquered table, which
looks like a child's Toy.
| Upon it ere tiny black-lacquered YES
sells, with funny little pounded lids
One of these contains a shiru, a soup
which may be made of bean curd, of fish,
of seaweed or of some other material;
another o-hira, a small piece of boiled
fish floating in weak soup; another con-
tains an infinitesimal omelet, and
fourth, which is shaped like teacup, and
is Of almost the same capacity, is empty.
For this latter vessel the girl, who has
by this time squatted down on her heels
on the floor, reaches forward a little tray,
on which you pass your empty cup, for
1t is contrary to Japanese etiquette for a
girl to receive anything directly from the
hands of one of the opposite sex. She then
fills the little vessel with steaming hot
rice, which she takes from well-scoured
wooden recept ache, with bright brass hoops
and a cover, looking like very much
dwarfed butter tub.
At dinner what is to all appearances the
same dish makes it's appearance on the
festive board, and in all proba biHty one
sees it again in various ingenious forms
dozen times in the week. 1t must be
confessed, however, that the Japanese
have a great variety of fish in their seas
and rivers, and that they have many
ways of dressing them-all Of these ways
good.
This singularly monotonous diet is not
one that tempts a person TO eat to ex-
Tkn llnn nnn Ckar~ H.: