Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-05-10
FASHION IN FOOD.
Whales, Grampuses and PROPOSES Once
Popular as Table Fishes.


From the San Francisco Bulletin
Foods have their fashions as well as
clothes. For no clear reason we eat GER
tain kinds of fish, flesh and vegetable and
disdain others which might be edible and
pleasing to the taste. Queen Elizabeth ate
the flesh of whales, but we. today. would
turn up our noses at such dish. Yet why ?
Is the cetacean flesh disgusting or tough or
tasteless? We do not know, for we have
never had it on our tables. Fish soup,
grampuses and porposes were dainties to
the English palate before French cooks in
vaded the tight little isle and imposed the
astronomical modes Of Paris on the British
cuisine. 1t Is not very many years since
English and American stomachs revolted at
the delicate legs of frogs; yet we MUNICH
those tender tidbits now with the steadiest
nerves and the incest relish of their sweet
ness and flavor. ..t
What untried dainties are there yet to be
found in the world and introduced to our
bored stomaehs, hungry for new sensations?
1t is said that the French, in spite of occa-
siOnal periods of hostility, revere and love
the JeSuitS because Jesuit missionaries first
brought the turkey into France and taught
the cooks Of Paris it's delicious properties
Why should we not eat mice and kittens?
Shall we always abhor the flesh of fat
young puppies? Oh, for an epicurean Co
lumbus to open new worlds to our appetitei
Since we do not scruple to eat pork-the
flesh of the filthy hog. and very palatable
flesh, too-why should we choke at MICE
IL the flesh of a puppy, We're served under
some French nom de fcdisine we would
praise it nightly and: calls for second
helping. n ,1f.--z$;.
In our eating, more, perhaps, than in
anything else, we are SLAVES of prejudice,
custom and caprice. we do not venture
Our bill Of fare does not, grow with civili-
cation. We have few staples which we
W ~
French aliases. We Improve the kitchen
range, but we do not improve our dinners
Talleyrand said that the English had twen-
tyfour religions and only one sauce Since
then the English have multiplied their relf-
gions, but they have not yet invented their
second sauce. AS people, the English and
the Americans oppose expansion and inno-
walton in their dining rooms When forks
were brought over from. Italy to London
there were stout BritoIs enough to declare
that to eat with tool, as though pitching
hay, and not with the fingers. was to de-
stroy the simplicity and manliness of old
England.
The English-speaking peoples have stom-
achs but no palates. They have not en-
thusiasm for an excellent truffle, they do
not feel emotions of pure pleasure in the
memories Of good dinners, long since d.
gested. Who but a Frenchman could throw
up his hands and exclaim in praise of a
certain green sauce. the recipe for which.
alas. is lost, with this sauce I could eat
my grandfather" Brillat-Savarin declared
that the man who discovers new dish is
greater benefactor of his race than the
man who discovers new planet. This is
truly Gallo opinion, and is not shared by
our sauceless people, but when one comes
to think. 1t is curious that the only perma-
nent work of the great soldier-statesman-
ecclesiastic, Armand Riehelieu, was the
mayonnaise sauce, which he invented, and
that the only idea OF the brilliant Cardinal
Wolsey which the world remembers and
stil makes use of was his idea-original
with him-that Strawberries and cream
would go well together.