Evening star., 1923-07-08
Heard and Seen

" nat "OUIU you tnlnk OF a man
who looked forward to seeing. GER
tain play, yet when he. got, there
stayed but fifteen minutes?
Yetrthat is the sort of thing mest
Washington men, seemingly. are do.
ing every day with their lunch. Your
average male biped likes his grub,
and makes no bones about admitting
the fact. r..
But he races through. his lunch
each day as if some one would come
In and take ii away from him before
he got through. Bulldogs commonly
eat their dinners in that fashion,
looking up between mouthfuls to keep
guard and watch for the expected
enemy who may be hungry, too.
a stop watch pulled on various
specimens of Washingtonians of the
so-called .sterner sex revealed that a
quarter of an hour is the maximum
time of food consumption for a
luncheon. From that the time ranged
all the way backward to two min
utes. the time it took one, lean man to
get away with one doughnul and a
cup OF coffee.
All the fine art of eating. all the
the epicures, the genuine lovers of
good food. have been given the go-by
In Washington restaurants. From
the restaurants of the sort sometimes s
called the dirty spoon" to the bet
ter class place, men eat in them alike.
Where there are mattresses to wait
and to wait upen-a meal neces-
sarily takes a longer total time than
fifteen minutes. But the actual eat
ing time-the duration of space in
w fnndcflIffC rD
waiting down the human. eullet-
never goes over fifteen good old min
utes.
x :. =.
+ What would Dickens have written
if he could have witnessed the way
hot dogs" gallop to their last long
home? How that great author loved
his dinners, and the dinners of his
characters. In his day and place
dinner was a thing to- be fingered
over. with its ale and stout and other
drinkables now gone the prohibition
way.
Today, in Washington restaurants
at noontime. food is something to
and drinks are things TO help speed
the comestibles on their way rejoic-
ing. The value is set upon the time
lost to other things, evidently, not
a y.
The result is men here are losing
much of the real JOY of eating, ac-
cording to those WHO value their
meals from the standpoint of getting
cut. of them all the. benefits and
pleasure that can legitimately be Sc
cured
Step into one of the lunchroonls of
the best class. 1T once was a fash
ionable bar. where big men gathered
to take their glass and talk over the
s.., lse,l,. 4
bar have gone gallons of whisky, gin
and other alcoholic beverages.
Today it stands, outwardly. as it
did then. The bar is there. SO is the
cleaning brass foot rail: so are the
white-coated men behind the bar.
But the men hand out fine food and
coffee now Hot dog. sandwiches
have usurped the place once dedicated
to Bacchus. The wine racks are
empty, but the coffee urns run over
time. 1t is still place Of plenty,
but the medium is different i
Gimme some of that pea SOUP
says the portly man in the gray suit,
as he places his foot on the brass rail.
Soon the soup comes to hand,
steaming, appetizing. accompanied by
a neat bowl of crackers. A. cup of
the best coffee in Washington accom-
panies 1t.
The man bears his food to. a, table
and sits down to enjoy himself. Here
is his way of doing it:
Stirs his coffee. loaded with four
heaping teaspoons of sugar. for If
teen seconds: drinks half of the cup
in four seconds; hurls six crackers
into the soup in one second; lops up
q spoonful of soup in two seconds.
and maintains that rate until the
bowl is gone; total time, four min-
utes; drinks remainder of cup of
coffee now cool enough to be en-
joyed. in thirty seconds: total--add il
up yourself.
Here comes man with a fruit
salad. Let's watch him. He sits
down, drinks b. glass Of water at one
gulp. then attacks. the fruit salad.
Evidently he really likes fruit, for 1t
tal-aS I, in, nyucr1y ten Jninufes t6.cOn.