Newport weekly independent., 1902-09-05
MEAL HOURS IN MEXICO.
Differences in Customs Noted by Visitors
 from the United States.

The Mexican breakfast, like that of the French, consists only of bread and coffee. Lunch and dinner, or dinner and supper, as they are called, differ but slightly. Dinner is served usually about two o'clock. It be- gins with soup and eggs, and then follow number of meats; each served as separate course, with an entire change of service every time. The meats are eaten quite alone, few vegetables being served in addi- tion to the salad course, and such as are used for garnishment. The des- sert courses at Mexican table differ even more radically from those served on American tables. Home made pies, cakes and buildings are practically unknown. The Mexican housewife pays comparatively little attention to the kitchen, and rarely cooks anything herself. If pastry is desired, it is purchased of the dull ceria.
 Nothing, says Modern Mexico, is baked in a Mexican house, even tFo bread being universally bought from bakers. Mexican cooks do not, a. a rule, understand pastry making, and their sweets are limited to stewed fruits, usually cooked to the con- sistency of the richest and sweetest preserves, so that a very small DOT tion is satisfying. Business hours in Mexico begin in the afternoon at 2:30 or three o'clock, and run until seven or eight o'clock, in the even- ing, so that the supper hour falls any where from S:3O to an hour later. This is probably one reason that Mexicans are not more given to even- ing entertainments. Attendance upon the theater entails the necessity of an unusually early supper, or else its postponement until after the per formance, a thing that often occurs. On the other hand, leisurely supper of an hour or more, beginning at nine o'clock, brings the close pretty close to bedtime
 The Mexican day laborer swallows a bowl of coffee at a street stand, on his way to work, if he is fortunate enough to pass one, and has the price, but usually he begins his daily toll upon an empty stomach. About nine o'clock his faithful spouse, or some member of his family, and, not infrequently, all of them, mother and children, come trudging to the scene of labor with a basket con- taining a pitcher of soupy brown beans, tortillas (corn cakes that form the staff of life among the low CT classes), some rice and possibly some bits of meat are minced in tortilla, which, in addition to serving often as both bread and meat, is also knife and fork and spoon. Bits are torn off, and by deftly curling it into ccmicircular form and doubling the end it is used as an effective scoop for even liquid food. A jug of pulque, the fermented juice of the maguey or century plant, that is the uni vcrsal beverage among the masses on the tableland, is also a usual ac- compartment of this meal.
 The Mexican laborer does not have midday rest, but works until about three o'clock, when the morning re- past is repeated without variation as to bill of fare. He begins his toll at daybreak and is expected to work till dark, with little regard to clock. On. his way home he stops at pulqueria to have all the drinks he can afford, and arrived at his home he may find something more to eat and he may not. It seems to make lit- tie difference to him. The Mexican peon can eat more, or get along on less, than almost any other laborer. on earth. In the southern part of the country, where the mountain h. dians are at times drafted for work in the lower country, these men bring with them ball of heavy corn