Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-01-05
NEW CRAZE FOR
 GOTHAM DINNERS
THE AVERAGE DINING CLUBS
 STANDARDIZED BANQUET
Features of the Invariable Menu--A Reservoir of Brown Sauce and Ice Cream Somewhere More Public Din Chance for . Gifted Chef.

I York has increased out of all propor- tion to the size of the population. Din ing clubs, whether they meet in the
 most expensive restaurants or in the so-called Bohemian resorts, are many; and 80 devoted are their members to
 the enjoyment provided that one such
 organization holds its meetings all through the summer.
 Another never misses a Sunday night from November to May. One that holds a monthly meeting throughout the year
 never gathers less than 300 persons at its 5o-cent dinner, and is usually able to offer speaker who is by no means of the modest level of the cost of the meal.
 The great increase of the number of strangers in New York is given as one
 reason for this increase in the number
 of club dinners. The opportunity to enjoy society for one evening a month
 or week, possibly to make accquain-
 tances, and at least to feel that they
 arc part of New York just as are the
 other public dinners they read about
 in the newspapers, is an inducement to
 newcomers to join such organizations Few of the clubs offer enough in the
 way of food to mako membership in
 them an obbject, nor does the average public dinner in New York make its
 appeal on that ground. The food on
 these occasions is not the strong point.
 It was the result of years of experience
 that habitual diner out who rarely
 failed to attend every dinner to which
 he was invited, embodied in the fol-
 lowing observations:
 "Why public dinners should not be
 better than they are," he said, 1T
 have never been able to find out. Yet
 it rarely happens, whatever the price
 may have been, that after the dinner
 it is possible to say That was good. , More remarkable even is the lack of
 variety in the dishes. If every dinner
 consists of the same number of courses it does not necessarily follow that every one should offer the same dishes. "Take the average dinner. About tho table are hors 'oeuvres that the bill of fare will possibly describe as 'varies. Yet one rarely finds anything else than water.logged radishes, olives
 that have faded from their original col
 or by excessive proximity to crushed
 ice and so-called salted almonds. 4
 salted almond properly made, dark
 brown, crisp and shiny like old mahog. any is thing of gastric delight. But such result means care and time. The salted almond of the public dinner is nut that has been dipped into the white of egg, then into salt, and then kept on the fire scarcely long enough to warm it through.
 "After these tempting appetizers there comes the soup. l find after "A quarter of century that compound described as 'printaniere is the favor. ite. This consists of watery bouillon which could not, of course, be warm sf- ter it had been paraded the length of B dining room.
 "The spring effect that the name suggests is supplied by small round ob- jects that are usually as hard as rocks and with as little taste to the adven. turous diner who tries his teeth on them. l suppose the small green balls represent peas while the pink ones are beets and the yellow ones are carrots. The only difference is the color.
 "The reckless diner humps them to- gether in spoon and swallows them. The prudent man leaves them un. touched. have seen few persons brave enough to risk eating them.
 Salmon is the fish nine times out of ten. It is never the pink of memory, but always rather pale and wabbly looking, more like jelly than fish Then there is the mayonnaise that is relied upon to give it flavor.
 "The meat will be flet de boeuf a la mode, unless the chef is some er- ratio genius who insists on departing from this time-honored dish. It con. sists of Jumps of rather tough meat, pieces of fat, being inserted at inter. vals, and thick brown gravy covering it all.
 "There are certain interesting things about this dish. Why, for instance, should the beef always be so stringy; why should the insertions of fat be so | hard and why, above all things, should the meat be so coldf But all these questions seem insignificant in the presence of the dear brown sauce.
 "There must be culinary ressr. yoir somewhere that contains gallons and gallons of this mixture. It over. flows at every dinner table between New York and California. The most expert sidestepper cannot dodge it. It is bound to turn up at some stage of the game, whether 1t be on the fish or in the soup. It is at the public dinner and it is on the ordinary bill of fare. Great is the power of the brown sauce.
 When a shivery jelly.like structure is placed before you, sometimes' pink pr green in color it is safe to look at the bill of fare for some jocular allus- ion to the object of the dinner. It will be called timbales Brown, or Jones, or Smith. Whatever 1t is called, the harm less compound of four and milk and ricA WiH hava m yvorun affnrt fhao <ak