Wherever
you go, among the restaurants, there is always somebody operating
on a steamed flour dumpling for kidney trouble.
The lower orders are much addicted to a dish known - if I remember
the name aright - by the euphonious title of Toad in the Hole.
Toad in the Hole consists of a full-grown and fragrant sheep's
kidney entombed in an excavated retreat at the heart of a large
and powerful onion, and then cooked in a slow and painful manner,
so that the onion and the kidney may swap perfumes and flavors.
These people do not use this combination for a weapon or for a
disinfectant, or for anything else for which it is naturally
purposed; they actually go so far as to eat it. You pass a cabmen's
lunchroom and get a whiff of a freshly opened Toad in the Hole
- and you imagine it is the German invasion starting and wonder
why they are not removing the women and children to a place of
safety. All England smells like something boiling, just as all
France smells like something that needs boiling.
Seemingly the only Londoners who enjoy any extensive variety in
their provender are the slum-dwellers. Out Whitechapel-way the
establishment of a tripe dresser and draper is a sight wondrous
to behold, and will almost instantly eradicate the strongest
appetite; but it is not to be compared with an East End meatshop,
where there are skinned sheep faces on slabs, and various vital
organs of various animals disposed about in clumps and clusters.
I was reminded of one of those Fourteenth Street museums of
anatomy - tickets ten cents each; boys under fourteen not admitted.
The East End butcher is not only a thrifty but an inquiring soul.
Until I viewed his shop I had no idea that a sheep could be so
untidy inside; and as for a cow - he finds things in a cow she
didn't know she had.
Breakfast is the meal at which the Englishman rather excels; in
fact England is the only country in Europe where the natives have
the faintest conception of what a regular breakfast is, or should
be. Moreover, it is now possible in certain London hotels for an
American to get hot bread and ice-water at breakfast, though the
English round about look on with undisguised horror as he consumes
them, and the manager only hopes that he will have the good taste
not to die on the premises.
It is true that, in lieu of the fresh fruit an American prefers,
the waiter brings at least three kinds of particularly sticky
marmalade and, in accordance with a custom that dates back to the
time of the Druids, spangles the breakfast cloth over with a large
number of empty saucers and plates, which fulfill no earthly purpose
except to keep getting in the way. The English breakfast bacon,
however, is a most worthy article, and the broiled kipper is juicy
and plump, and does not resemble a dried autumn leaf, as our kipper
often does. And the fried sole, on which the Englishman banks his
breakfast hopes, invariably repays one for one's undivided attention.
The English boast of their fish; but, excusing the kipper, they
have but three of note - the turbot, the plaice and the sole. And
the turbot tastes like turbot, and the plaice tastes like fish;
but the sole, when fried, is most appetizing.
I have been present when the English gooseberry and the English
strawberry were very highly spoken of, too, but with me this is
merely hearsay evidence; we reached England too late for berries.
Happily, though, we came in good season for the green filbert,
which is gathered in the fall of the year, being known then as the
Kentish cobnut. The Kentish cob beats any nut we have except the
paper-shell pecan. The English postage stamp is also much tastier
than ours. The space for licking is no larger, if as large - but
the flavor lasts.
As I said before, the Englishman has no great variety of things
to eat, but he is always eating them; and when he is not eating
them he is swigging tea. Yet in these regards the German excels
him. The Englishman gains a lap at breakfast; but after that first
hour the German leaves him, hopelessly distanced, far in the rear.
It is due to his talents in this respect that the average Berliner
has a double chin running all the way round, and four rolls of fat
on the back of his neck, all closely clipped and shaved, so as to
bring out their full beauty and symmetry, and a figure that makes
him look as though an earthquake had shaken loose everything on
the top floor and it all fell through into his dining room.
Your true Berliner eats his regular daily meals - four in number
and all large ones; and in between times he now and then gathers
a bite. For instance, about ten o'clock in the morning he knocks
off for an hour and has a few cups of hard-boiled coffee and some
sweet, sticky pastry with whipped cream on it. Then about four
in the afternoon he browses a bit, just to keep up his appetite
for dinner. This, though, is but a snack - say, a school of Bismarck
herring and a kraut pie, some more coffee and more cake, and one
thing and another - merely a preliminary to the real food, which
will be coming along a little later on. Between acts at the theater
he excuses himself and goes out and prepares his stomach for supper,
which will follow at eleven, by drinking two or three steins of
thick Munich beer, and nibbling on such small tidbits as a rosary
of German sausage or the upper half of a raw Westphalia ham. There
are forty-seven distinct and separate varieties of German sausage
and three of them are edible; but the Westphalia ham, in my judgment,
is greatly overrated.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 30 of 92
Words from 29757 to 30764
of 93169
