Evening star., 1902-01-25

cious. Juicy peaches. green peas green
beans, all kinds of game and fish, that
alone cost the price of fair lunch. un-
| cooked The prices are high Half the
| their secret-but, note. the bouievardier
| was never afraid of the unmarked card.
| Josepns was one of these restaurants-and
Joseph was just going out OF business
| when he died the other day.
The First Tid-Bits.
| The old-style boulevardier began his
breakfast with toys-any quantity of fancy
| little messes. called hors doeuvres, literally
outside of the work." meaning the work
of the luncheon proper. The commonest
| example is the sardine or the olive or the
| slice of Lyons sausage; but in smart eating
| the toys run into strange combinations,
| curious in shape and brilliant in color
| tiny slices of toast spread with chopped
| Shrlmps, anchovieS, kilkiS, smoked salmon,
| picked trout, hard-boiled eggs, and only
| specialties like Joseph know what not. The
| ParlSianS have never been so devoted to-
| this sort of thing as the Russians, who,
| after wet night, often make half their
| lunch--or all of it-out of these spicy
| tribes; but 1t is notable that one OF the
| most successful modern brasserie-restau-
| rants along the Avenue OF the Opera owes
much of its popularity to the fact that 1t
| serves You all it's hors d'oeuvres-perhaps
| a dozen-at the price of one Being a bras
serie,restaurant. they are substantial
sliced cucumbers, picked shrimps from
Hamburg, false sardines preserved in to-
mato sauce. ox-mouth salad, calfs liver
! pate, many sausages, and olives, anchovies
| and little picked herring. The waiter COW
| ers your table with them helter-skelter II
\ you do not see what you want, you ask for
| it. You help yourself, here and there at
| discretion. The house may lose a little on
You the first time or two, but in the end
you get stalled" and subside to real dis
| cretion-while the house keeps up its repu-
| tation for great liberality. These are hors
| d'oeuvres, If you please; but they are too
! coarse and machine-made for the old-style
| boulevardier.
With all this there would be great deal
| OF talk between preliminary sips Of good
wine When oysters are in season they
may come first and curtail much of this
| preliminary trif1ing: but when this hap
pens it is in the interest of the oysters,
not the lunch to follow. In France oysters
must be ranked with hors d'oeuvres be-
cause they are so regularly served raw on
the half shell. at the beginning of the
meal. When you want cooked oysters you
must have the chef up first to talk about
| them.
Oysters In this land are DEAR fuctuating
! In good restaurants, between 50 cents and
81 a dozen. The boulevardier eats the
bright green, ceppery-tasted little things
with lemon juice or cayenne, or with
special sauce of vinegar, chopped shallots,
salt, pepper and little oil. A full half
hour will have to be spent over these first
delicacies, washed down with white wine;
and a confidential, sympathetic, helpful
| maitre d'hotel will have felt the boulevar-
dier's gastronomic pulse and given him
gastronomic consultation. Shall it be fish?
Then 1t must be fresh-water fish, because
dover and more confdentiaD, in a word,
because monsieur will be better
with it. In the Goncourts' Dairy on half
a dozen occasions it is told how the man
agement of the Cafe de Paris scratched all
the saltwater fish off the days card, to
the establishments considerable loss. The
ice chest has changed much of this, and the
gradual disappearance of the old-time
boulevardier has done more. Still, in the
best restaurants here and there the scene
of the confidential, sympathetic, helpful
maitre d'hotel Is gone through conscien-
tfousy. The late Joseph was such q one.
He would refuse a valued customer GER
tain dish two days in succession, so that
1T might be eaten with a cumulative. ap-
petite on the third. He pretended to know
what was good for his steady customers
stomachs. Does not monsieur remember
the deplorable effects of the stuffed carp?"
And so monsieur would be fiattered into en-
joying plain river trout with blue sauce
and sense of hygienic rectitude. Joseph is
dead. and the ice box has come to stay.
Therefore the confidential voice is more
likely to whisper today: ''The barbot or
the turbot or the sole) is very fine today. /
can serve it to monsieur with every conf
dence."
Plenty to Choose.
What shall it be for the meat? A grave
question. For the boulevardier, with faded
appetite, there is the venison, outlet, With
poivrade sauce and puree of chestnuts, or
the dish of turkeys wings, &c. (abatis), in
a thick, delicious gravy permeated with
fragrance. There is the fried chicken,
Dreaded, with devil sauce. Or there are
lamb chops, with asparagus tops. There
are mutton chops, too, served with potato
-tr hi, opd f,~a my
but French mutton chops still lack the
ruby juices and elastic freshness" of the
article of Pelham and Thackeray. The
best mutton chop in France is like the
French young girl, tender, but colorless,
and taking it's flavor from it's surroundings.
Therefore it is always "garnished."
The old-time boulevardfer at luncheon al
ways approached his meat dish loiteringly
and got away from it almost precipitatcty.
Classical French cookery has always been
open to a correlative reproach-the absence
Of butchers meat. The French cook pre-
fers material he can deal with more ar
tistically, fsn, fowl, game. The old-fash-
ioned boulevardier at breakfast knows
that when the meat has left the table there
are gayer, more companionable things to
follow-the gay, sparkling salad, which, II
he does not dress himself must be dressed
by the chatty maitre d'hotel at his elbow
the fragrant cheese (for it is fragrant to
him)-the fruit (an important item), and,
above ALL the religious service of the coffee
and it's liqueurs.
The cloth was changed for the fruit. The
silver stand with varied fruits remaining
in it fingers to delight the eye. The little
coffee cups and liqueur glasses come rat
tling with a jolly noise. Then-last confiden-
tial act-the helpful, sympathetic maitre
d'hotel comes following the waiter who has
brought the special Coffee 1t brews
there beneath your nose; the maitre dhotel
lifts the lid, peeps in and shifts it's gather
ing aroma; twice it viii be turned back to
filter again through the rich, black-burned
grounds. In this coffee-tipsy capital good
coffee is the hardest thing to get. When.
therefore, it is good, the ceremony is well
placed. And so the old-time boulevardier
sips it, sips his chartreuse, digests dreami-
ly puffs good cigarette-and sighs at the
idea of going back to Office work. In old
times (ten years ago. he did not 60 back
until he had rested" half an hour and
spent another hour at that endless card
game Of "manille" which for him took the
place of whist, euchre, pinochle and poker
The boulevardier is changing. Two years
ago, in any good restaurant, the man who
ordered one meat dish with vegetable and
one dessert was looked on as undesirable.
The maitre d'hotel, no longer sympathetic
but kind of accusing angel, stood before
him asking: mo hors-d' 'oeuvre? No fish?