The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-04-07
MANIA OF CHICAGO MAN.
COLLECTED CONDIMENTS FROM
 ALL OYER THE WORLD.

most Anything Good Enough for
 Americans.
 q once had a continent collecting mania," says a Chicago writer In What to Eat, "a cunning and persistent spell which lasted till the boxes, bundles, fraiIs and so forth were landed safely at the Worlds Fair. When they were all in there were among them several hundred distinct specimens of the pep per family alone.
 "On my collection trip landed first in Japan determined to learn some thing about soy, which is the basis of most of our best table sauces. The fac tory I visited had been running seven ty-five years, but I was the first white man to gain admission to it. It takes three years to make the best soy,
 Tn China I bored and bribed my way in search of information. The Chinese are undoubtedly the most refined gas tronomers of our day. They have the supreme art of preserving subtle evan escent flavors and scents of buds, roots, banks and leaf tips, as well as wonder ful discretion in the selection of the moment for gathering these.
 Some things they pluck only in the morning, others only at night When you hear of tea at one hundred dollars a pounds it may have been produced in very small quantities by some manda- rin who, like Burbank, may have se- cured new and unique flavor or have reproduced a rare fragrance.
 Tn the East Indies my collection grew to formidable proportions, but the master sauce of all was the noukman of Cambodia and Anam. Few Ameri- 1 cans have ever heard of it. It Is a sort ! of angel anchovy essence distilled from 1 fish by sun heat. I heard of 1t from a | steamboat captain, who said:
 You have not lived unless you have eaten buffalo hump cooked in noukman at Phillips in Saigon"
 "The assertion took me nearly a thousand miles out of my way on trip of extraordinary misery in pole ham mock, onto the jungle, where l secured from an antique sorceress two earthen pots of noukman.
 AS to the buffalo hump delicacy-it was like a saute of sweetbreads might possibly be in bubbling hot cocoanut milk blended with anchovy essence, | oysters, pepper and something. You ] get hot things in hot countries, and if you are wise, when you adopt the trop- ical native diet you will learn to eat less and to give up the liquor habit.
 "Of course it is commonly known that l in the East Indies curry stuffs are made fresh from roots, seeds, leaves, l tubers, barks and varying aromatic in | gradients, according to taste and local 1 convenience, for immediate use. The best are generally green chopped or crushed and quite sayory. The curries of Calcutta are entirely different from the Singapore curries, for instance, and so on around.
 But the curry stuffs for Europe or this country must necessarily be made in form that will hold strength and fla vor for a long time before use. Hence our curry pastes and powders, prefera- ply the powders, because they can thus be made strong and to keep well.
 "Chutneys vary as do currles, so that the chutneys of Madras are quite diff. ferent from those of Bombay or Colom- bo, in fact I found in the latter place not less than dozen different and dis tinct kinds-from sweet. sour, mild, hot to bitter. Chutneys are like preserves and are composed of fruits, roots ant
 aromatic substances blended witt 4 juices,
 "All condiments have their function!
 and in the tropical dietary are as i'm
 portant as is blubber in the dietary O the Arctic regions Wine is in a cer- tain sense as much of a continent as
 curry But let it be most emphaticall!
 stated that the wine drin5er should b'
 abstemious in the use of curry, even al
 your enlightened curry eater is not ; wine thinker. The alcohol habit may possibly be exchanged to advantage fo
 the red pepper habit, but no norma
 person will mix the two.
 "The statistics indicate that the con
 sumption of spices of all kinds In tn United States amounts to about on
 and a half pounds per capita per an
 mum, as previously stated More thai
 half of this Is pepper, black, white an,
 red And although there are hundred
 of varieties of peppers red Is nature
 color for the entire family. Black an white are mans work.
 'The variety we call black peppe
 grows on o vine, the berries turnin
 red as they ripen, and as the vines ar
 trellsed for support and to facilitat | fnN Nol 1o ', tation at a distance somewhat resem l bles a hop ranch. The natural habita of black pepper is the Malabar coast o India. and the best qualities of whit : and black known to commerce are pro . duced there to this day.
 1.-TWO crops year are plucked, on
 during the winter months, the other i
 summer. The vines from cuttings yiel quite well In three or four years, an some continue bearing for twent! though from seven to fifteen is co6sld cred a good economic stand. Som plantations produce mostly good per per, but not always some plantation
 never produce good pepper.
 50 much for the Malabar coas 5 When we go to the Caromandel coas of India, then to Ceylon, Siam, tn Straits Settlements, Sumatra and Jav e we find, in addition to sinful practice: climatic and soil disadvantages Whe 1 the pepper berries begin to turn ret hanging in clusters like currants, tn
 essential oil, resin and piperine are g
 the best for aroma, flavor and pept values.