Omaha daily bee., 1906-03-25
RARE FEAST OF CHEMICALS
Cocktails that Were Simply Dreams Con-
cOCted on the Spot,
LIKEWISE SOLID AND OTHER CONNECTIONS
Bill of Fare Compounded In n
Laboratory ana Served 60
Epicures, who sighed
for More.

A chemical dinner, compounded by Prof
Thomas b. stillrnan of the Stevens insti-
tute, Hoboken, was pulled OF in a New
York hotel recently. The feast opened with
synthetic cocktail, and such a drink!
1t was imprisoned sunshine, the mellow
soul OF thousand stills, the spirit of the
TASKS Of Florence! 1t gave the strength
which would have made any son of earth
eager to throttle the fierce Numidian lion
or hurl defiance I'm the teeth OF the Great
Cham OF Tartary. Science was the bar
maid, Calen the inspiration, and the al
chemists of old looked kindly down from
the realms OF ether while the limpid liquor
dripped through crystal ice into the thin
stemmed glass. 1t was a cocktail At to
give life to stone and to warm the cookies
OF the human heart.
The bill of fare was made up of things
which were mostly prepared in the labo-
ratory. OF the professor, who said that,
without doubt, he could make drinks and
sauces and condiments and all manner of
foods pleasing to the senses of taste and
smell and sight without recourse to the or
binary processes Of nature.
Oysters in Rare sauces.
Genuine bivalves were employed in the
oyster cocktail which followed, but the
sauce was one which was "a challenge to
all the wearers of the Gordon bleu In Chris
tendon. The lava OF this mollusk filled
crater was composed Of dash of citrlc
acid, which impaired the lemon flavor; oil
OF capers, which is the chemical equivalent
OF horse radish; little capsicine, chem
lcal product obtained from red pepper; a
little diluted acetic acid, sufficient grated
turnip to give body, and the whole colored
with red aniline. The oysters submerged
In this underwent a change which gave
them ina gination and an oversoul. The
soup was made from ordinary green tur-
tie stock favored with test tube sherry
from Spanish Hoboken. The biscuits had
no -FOUR nor needed any, and the butter
was not butter. but a so-called butterine,
which had never seen a COW and never
hoped to see one.
The synthetic sauce for the Mexican pear
salad was composed of diluted acetic acid,
OIL mustard, salt, laboratory-laid eggs
capsicine and just enough chlorophyll 20
give a pleasing tinge of inviting green. The
synthetical raspberry sherbet was a frozen
solution of saccharin, others blended into
ar artificial raspberry juice and distilled
water. The vanilla ice cream consisted Of
an emulsion of cottonseed oil triply refined
and favored with chemically made va
MIA, aTllnCldl dinonu extract anu sac
charm.
81 gave the dinner" said the professor
| In New York Tribune interview, speaking
of the affair, "jujt to show what chemistry
can do / do not wish to be understood as
| favoring tho indiscriminate manufacture
! and sale of food substitutes, for ! believe,
as does Prof. Wylie of the Department Of
| Agriculture, that, while there are certain
| of these substitutes that are perfectly
harmless. they should not, as they are now,
be sold for the real article, but should be
! plainly marked in such manner as to
! show that they are substitutes.
II could have added more than ] did TO
the menu. For instance, l could have given
my guests a soup composed entirely of
chemicals while they waited. but, as 1t was,
think the menu was sufficient to con-
vince one Of the wonders that con be
| chemically evolved in this line"
The dinner was not a large one, for Prof.
| StilIman limited his guests to two close
| friends, Henry w. Goodrich OF Manhattan
and James T. Howell OF Newark. Had he
| desired he could have filled the hotels
main dining room with guests, for when 1t
was announced that he was to give such a
i dinner he was beset with requests from
| far and near for permission to attend.
you would be surprised" said the pro-
| lessor, 'If / should tell you some OF the
names of those who wrote me for permits
sion to attend the dinner"