New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-10-22
The Versatility
of Lunch

;,t stand revealed Certainly the evolution OF
~ in America is worth the attention of
,,oss pulse-feeling analysts who write BIZ
...sklv articles on the national SOUL There is
-.,srial for still another book on American
:, n the change that has come over our
,i5day meal in generation or two.
There was q time, our grandfathers inform
uben at noon everyone knocked off for an
- 10 stow away hearty dinner and when
.heerful and indigestible array of good
,,;nVs marked the zenith Of the days activi-
-, How after the unstinting dinners cur
.,.ndmothers used to make their husbands
u.raced to accomplish anything in the after
IAN &c hard to conceive. Our forebears must
..ao.d have acquired the Tired Business Man
,oe,ipg abou. two in the afternoon, at which
time they probably gave up in despair and
IN, 70 see matinee of the Follies And
,.rAt,ess at night they came home and spoke
:. the decline of the American drama.
Or, the midday dinner long before our own
time disappeared. Even seven course
..,nrc. is advertised as luncheon, and only
,.,.l,avers and night city editors would think
=, eating dinner by sunlight. However much
:. vtt,s YOU eat, if this human indulgence
takes place before nightfall it is lunch
Rut while the old name wandered down the
fore of the dial until six p. m. or later, and
tie dinner of old shortened into lunch' the
...rsl content of the meal became no simmer.
urha, vou announced at the Office that you
vers "going to lunch" those who stayed be-
lind had accurate mouth watering notions OF
that thew were missing. You paid little
nore or a little less than your neighbor, but
fbs method was the same. You both sat at
. table and we're both served by an old
fashioned third party known as waiter or
waitress You may have got lobster salad
while your neighbor plodded along on veal,
Init unexpectedly you were equals.
Even in those dim, dead days, however,
uncb began to lose its stable and respectable
character. 1t seemed with the loss of its more
dcuihed name to have lost its dignity as an
institution The high stool lunch counter was
the first hint of the change, and since then
the mutations have changed this daily
phenomenon so that its name means nothing.
Lunch. rather, has come to mean many
things Il am going out to lunch" may still
mean that you are going down TO have table
dhote dinner straight through with music
and without change from the soup to the
dessert But more probably it means that you
are going to place where you walk around,
picking your meal off the walls and announc-
ing your pluckings to a most polite and
gullible attendant as you walk out. Lunch,
according to this custom, is, although usually
less than meal, morally much more. 1t is
monday lesson in practical ethics. 1t is a
spur to morality and memory as well as to
digestion, and a clean cut report on the num-
Der Of doughnuts consumed is as good for the
soul as their consumption was dangerous to
the digestion.
Or, probably enough, your trip to lunch is
journey TO a combined laboratory and tele-
phone exchange where you drop coins into
random slots and sportively take chances on
the results Without your favorite waiter 10
tel you the fried corned beef is very good to-
day, you have to take the label at its face
value or use your judgment and experience as
guide. For once the nickel is gone the way
Of all slot machines there is no recovery-and
there Is line behind you waiting to try the
same experiment in dietetics
Or It may be that you walk ten blocks to a
side street emporium which you admire be-
cause it has faithfully dedicated itself for
ever 10 the perfect serving of beans. Not that
you Ike beans, but there is in the scheme
pathetic devotion to a hopeless cause that
seems 70 deserve your support for one lunch
hour day.
Lunch may indeed merely be the arrogant
and reminiscent name you give to three
minute vigil at a coda fountain, where you are
desperately determined 10 get your nutrition
IN marble halls, even If it be only those OF a
syndicate drug store. And after getting what
right otherwise have been a jelly omeiette
% twenty cent glass Of matted milk you
s2end the ffty-seven minutes you saved
reading the cartoons in the early editions OF
the evening papers or watching the demon
stration of new weight reducer in the drug
Esore window
Lunch finally promises 20 become merely
name for one swift swallow, since the intro