Part 2

The Boston Cooking-School Magazine VOL. XV AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1910 NO. 2

Quaint Customs and Toothsome Dainties

By Frances R. Sterrett

Popular hotels and big cafés are much the same the world over, whether you find them in New York, Paris, Cairo or Calcutta. There is the same staff of uniformed, expectant servants, the same glittering decorations and appointments, the orchestra plays the same selections, and the throng of well-dressed guests looks as though it might have been transported bodily from one to the other. Love of variety sends the traveler, away from all this glare and glitter, to some quaint resort that had its group of patrons when the United States was young, and which still retains many of the customs that were features of the common life a century or more ago, and that now are so unusual that they prove strong magnets for the tourist.

Nearly everybody who goes to London finds his way, sooner or later, to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Wine Office Court. Tucked away, as it is, just off of Fleet Street, it presents anything but a pretentious appearance and more than one party of timid American women has hurried away, disappointed at sight of its dingy court. But the dinginess is all on the outside; within, there is light and warmth, and cheery greeting. The Cheese was a coffee house beloved by Samuel Johnson, and the chair in which the great man sat, night after night, while busy Boswell listened and took copious notes of the interchange of wits, is still there, standing now beneath the big portrait of Dr. Johnson that hangs on one side of the fireplace. Oliver Goldsmith was also a regular patron of the Cheese, which is one of the few meeting places of the literati of the eighteenth century that still remain. Indeed, these old relics of the past are fast disappearing. Five years ago, when I first visited the Cheese, the waiter, impressed with my interest in the old associations, asked if I would care to see the house in which Johnson lived. It was near at hand, but he said emphatically, "You'll have to hurry for they are tearing it down at this minute." Hurry we did and arrived in time to see the dismantling of the last row of windows.

Ye Olde Cheese is too good a source of revenue for it to be destroyed, and the prospects are that for years to come Americans will flock there to exclaim over the high paneled walls and the sanded floors. The tables still stand between high-backed benches, over which the newspapers are hung, as they were in Johnson's day. The old grill is on the second floor, and over its gleaming coals innumerable kidneys and chops have been brought to culinary perfection. Beefsteak pudding, which is served on Wednesdays, with all the pomp and ceremony of ancient days, is an attraction that fills the tables and sends away dozens of envious men and women, who can get no more than a sniff of the Old English dish, as it is borne in triumph through the rooms. Other days have their specialities, but it is the beefsteak pudding that is the favorite, and if you delay your arrival, the prospects are, you will have to be satisfied with a kidney or a chop, for not a scrap of pie is ever left.

But with toasted cheese to follow, the kidney is not a bad substitute, and it brings with it, also, a flavor of Dickens and Thackeray, whose heroes dined frequently on such fare. With the luncheon comes Devonshire cider, another speciality of the house, if you do not care for beer or ale, but beer or cider is served in reproductions of the pewter mugs that Dr. Johnson drank from, and, for a consideration, you can carry one away, wrapped in an odd bag of woven reeds.

The visitors' book at the Cheese makes interesting reading while you wait for your chop, for it is embellished with pen drawings by the famous artists of the world, and enriched with sentiments from poets, novelists, musicians, politicians, capitalists, and others whose names are known on more than one continent.

Buszard's on Oxford Street is not as familiar to Americans, but it has an interest of its own, for it has made wedding cakes for royalty for many years, and the models displayed in the show-room form an amusing exhibition to the American who has little idea of what a royal wedding cake should be. There they stand six or seven feet tall and in as many tiers, each ornamented with almond icing, inches thick, and sugar piping, with coats of arms and heraldic devices, and bearing on top a sugar temple surmounted by doves and other hymeneal emblems.

The account of a fashionable wedding in the English society papers usually closes with the line, "Cake by Buszard" or Bolland, for Buszard in London and Bolland in Chester make most of the wedding cakes that are served in England, and they send hundreds of them to the colonies, so that the English bride, even if she be far from home, can have "Cake by Buszard."

And most delectable cake it is, too, and if you wander into the heavily furnished, rather gloomy tea-room at the tea hour, you will find it well filled with city and country people and a sprinkling of foreigners who are partaking of the conventional afternoon refreshment where their grandparents or great grandparents, perhaps, were refreshed. Tea for two shillings allows you to eat all the cake you wish, but unfortunately physical limitations prevent you from trying half of the delicious confections in the tray beside you, the almond pound, Dundee, Maderia simnel, rich currant, muscatel, green ginger, cheese cakes and Scotch short bread, all made from ancient recipes. It is difficult to choose a favorite, although the Scotch short bread never tastes quite the same as it does in one of the popular tea rooms on Princes Street in Edinburgh.

Newhaven, just outside of Edinburgh, used to be more famous for its fish dinners than it is now and, perhaps, you will find no other party in the hotel coffee room where at least four kinds of fried fish, no one of which you can find on this side of the water, are served for a shilling, sixpence. Newhaven is visited for its picturesque fishwives; and the women look more as though they had just been brought from Holland than as descendants of Scandinavians who crossed in the time of James IV. They have been singularly conservative in their habits, and, owing to a strict custom of intermarriages, there are only a few names to be found in this colony of fisher folk, who have to resort to nicknames for identification.

If you are a tourist of the feminine gender, you will probably stop at the Globe Inn, in Dumfries, for a lemon squash, or a ginger ale, although you may be brave enough to ask the rosy-cheeked landlady for a small glass of what Robert Burns used to order; for the Globe Inn is the Burns' Howff, and down its narrow court the poet slipped nightly to the brightly-lighted room where his companions waited. The chair in which the poet lolled is still there, and a right stout affair it is, and with stout arms. It is kept securely locked behind wooden doors, and the landlady made a great ceremony of opening them and insisted on each of us trying the capacious seat.

"Perhaps you write poetry yourself?" she asked; but we had to confess that we felt no more gifted with rhymes in Burns' chair than in our own inglenook in America, and followed her up the stairs to the old-time room filled with relics.

"Americans come a long way to see these old pieces," she said, as she motioned majestically to a punch bowl, and then moved to the window on whose pane the poet had written the verses to "The Lovely Polly Stewart." "You seem to think a sight of Burns? There was one American gentleman who offered me a pot of money, if I would let him take the Howff to a fair in America, but I make a tidy living out of it here and God knows if we would ever live to cross the ocean. Burns lived and died here, and what would do for him will do for me," humbly.

There are many colleges in Oxford, but at no one of them is the tourist supposed to find refreshment in the dining halls, so that it was something of a triumph to be given a tart in one of the quaint old kitchens. The tart was really a tribute to an interest in the pantry shelves which were filled with pastry, and in the explanatory list that hung beside them. Tarts have been made in the same fashion at this Oxford college for several hundred years, in order, the cook explained, with a twinkle in his eye, that the students might get what they wanted, when they slipped down on a night tart raid. It is the nick in the edge that has told generations of students the contents of the tart; an apple has only one nick, a mince has two at each end, a gooseberry three, and so on until a student who has learned the rule can choose his favorite in the dark.

Winchester, the old royal city of England, has so many places of interest, the cathedral, the famous Winchester school, the castle, in which hangs King Arthur's round table as it has hung for several hundred years, that the traveler who is there but for a day may not have time to share the wayfarer's dole at St. Cross hospital which is distributed today just as Bishop Henry de Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror, arranged almost eight hundred years ago. This wayfarer's dole consists of a horn of ale and piece of white bread, and anyone who knocks at the hatchway of the porter's gate is entitled to receive it. About thirty wayfarers are given it daily as well as many notable people and curious travelers who knock at the door for the novelty of sharing in a picturesque survival of a mediæval charity. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of his experience, "Just before entering Winchester we stopped at the Church of St. Cross, and after looking through the quaint antiquity we demanded a piece of bread and a draught of ale, which the founder, Henry de Blois, in 1136, commanded should be given to everyone who should ask it at the gate. We had both from the old couple who take care of the church."

When you are in Paris you must not forget Rumpelmeyer, the "king of pastry makers." His shop is unpretentious, considering his vogue, and the room is all too small on a pleasant afternoon for the throng which would invade it. There are representatives from the far corners of the world. Americans are all about you; at the next table is a Russian grand duchess, perhaps, with her cavaliers; nearer the wall sits a woman from the Orient, whose soft silk draperies are in strange contrast to the modish Parisiennes; a group of children chatter of South Africa to their attendants and two natives from India have not doffed their spotless white turbans.

Rumpelmeyer's might be considered a glorified cafeteria, and the great moment of your visit to the café is when you have taken the fork and plate from the smiling maid, and stand hesitating beside the table laden with cakes. And such cakes! Fluffy balls rolled in chocolate and cocoanut, maple crescents, diamonds of paste enriched with French fruits, tiny tarts filled with glacéd cherries, half an apricot or a plum; cornets heaped with cream of pistachio or strawberries, pastry and sweetmeats in every appetizing form, until it is difficult to make a choice. At last with plate laden you find your way to the table where something new in ices, cool or hot drinks, is served. And as you go away, you cast a lingering glance at the patisserie table and plan to come, again and again, until you have tried every kind, not knowing that new confections are offered every few days to make such a plan almost an impossibility.

In strange contrast to the smart Parisian café is the Hotel Spaander in quaint Volendam, and if it is not the season you may be alone on the piazza which is swept by the bracing winds from the Zuyder Zee, and where the picturesque hospitable people give you a cordial greeting. And palatable as were the marvelous cakes of Paris, they were no better than the Dutch raisin bread, Edam cheese and mild beer that forms your luncheon. Volendam is but next door to Edam, the home of the popular cheeses, and the thin shavings seem to have been made to accompany the delicious raisin bread of Holland. The Spaander is a popular rendezvous for artists, and the big rooms have been adorned with paintings and sketches by the men and women who have enjoyed its hospitality. The bright-faced girl, who serves you, was taught to speak English, perhaps, by some artist who may be a member of the British Royal Academy now, and she loves to tell you of the notable people who have come and gone, and she fairly carries you away to see the homes of the fisher folk. She explains their marvelous clothes, and declares that the huge silver buttons worn by the men and boys were used as a mark of identification in case of drowning, for each district in Holland has its own design. She calls your attention to the old china, pewter and brass, and giggles approval when you pass the school and slip a copper into each of the wooden shoes at the door.

Everybody takes at least one ice at Florian's on St. Mark's Square in Venice for at Florian's you are sure to see the world and his wife, especially, if you are there on an evening when the band plays in the square. Florian's ices are world renowned, and its patrons are as cosmopolitan as Rumpelmeyer's, and, as you eat your way through the pink or chocolate cone of sweetness, you will find the price of it in the bottom of the dish. There is no room for argument over the charge, for in the bottom of every dish, in plain figures, is its cost, two francs or two francs, fifty. And after you have paid the reckoning, the waiter turns over the dish as a sign that your debt is canceled, and you are at liberty to sit and listen to the music and watch the people for as long as you wish.

Nearly every European city has a café or a restaurant that is of special interest, not because of its smart patronage or high prices, but for its quaint customs, old dishes or drinks, and it varies the routine of galleries and historic buildings to hunt them out. They add a spice, a zest, to what might become rather a dreary round of sight seeing, for no one appreciates the old customs more than the American. There are some travelers who make a point of stopping at the Three Tuns in Durham, no more to see Durham's beautiful cathedral, if the truth were told, than to have the trim maid bring them a tiny glass of cherry brandy to "drink to the health of the house," a custom that was young two hundred years or more ago, although it must be confessed that, while the custom has been retained, the glasses that hold the delicious cordial are considerably smaller than they were in the days when the request was first made.

Being Married

By Mrs. Chas. Norman

The morning paper tells of a man and woman who got married after only a few hours' acquaintance. Unfortunately, this couple cannot claim to have done anything unique. Numerous persons have done likewise--at least the newspapers say so--though the statement is one which makes upon a sane mind an impression of confusion. I say confusion, not to mention other effects.

After reading the announcement, I looked into the dictionary to see if it could be true, and I judge it is possible. Marriage, according to Webster, is the act which unites the man and woman, and, while it seems impossible for a real union to take place in so brief a time, still there is probably no other way of telling in the English language what has occurred. It might well happen that the persons so hastily "joined" should become married in the course of time. Certain metals really mix and stick together even after the heat of welding has died out, but no mere ceremony can unite, though it be performed by the holiest of ministers or the most profound legal interpreter.

And, as it is impossible for any third person to "unite" man and woman, so it is out of the question for any third person to give any legitimate advice as to whether or not the man and woman should unite, unless by chance the third person discovers that the real union or disunion already exists.

An ambitious young lady stopped to see me on her way to New York. She was about to sail for Europe, and she told me, confidentially, that she was engaged to marry a clergyman of this country, and that she "might marry him," if she failed to get a certain position she hoped for in Paris.

I could not refrain from saying, "Do not marry," and she took it that I was either averse to matrimony or to the young man. Such supposition was incorrect. I simply disliked to see any man irrevokably tied to a woman who took him only because she could not get something else.

I explained this to the girl, but it did no good. She said I was "sentimental and not at all practical." I confessed to a little sentiment on the subject of wedlock, and refrained from adding that I should rather be truthful than practical, but I told her that, if she had accepted her lover, conditionally, her course was entirely honorable, and then, to relieve the _heaviness_ of the conversation, I repeated these lines, which she laughed at very moderately indeed:

"I, Pegg Pudding, promise thee, William Crickett, That I will hold thee for mine own dear lily, Whilst I have a head in mine eye and a face on my nose, A mouth in my tongue and all that a woman should have, From the crown of my foot to the sole of my head."

The attention of my guest flagged a little and, when I completed the stanza, she confessed she was thinking of a Philadelphia girl whose resolution she much admired. During a sojourn in Europe, this girl had refused sixty-five offers of marriage--I hope I have the number exactly right--having determined to marry no one of lower rank than a prince.

I sped my guest to New York and Europe, and after her departure no ghost needed to come from the grave to tell me why marriage is so often a failure. We hear this thing and that thing given as a reason. Responsibility enough is to be laid at the door of men, but let women confess a share in the desecration of the sacred ordinance. Is it possible to think of a marriage resulting well that does not begin in truth, and continue in truth?

Let truth, at least, be counted an essential. After truth, let the candidate consider the necessity of sacrifice. Present-day girls cannot claim much more of that element than boys. If modern women have a hobby more general than another, it must be the development of their individuality. This is a fine thing, but let those who are over-zealous on this point remain single or remain rational, for it is scarcely fair to develop one's individuality to the extinction of another person's rights. To speak the truth, a proper individuality is never oblivious to others. Women would be learned and wise, but they fail to see that the very richest return of wisdom comes from putting forth their full strength _where it is due_. God has provided that recompense for all dutiful activity, and it often happens that the circumstances that would seem to retard mental development are its greatest stimuli, and the saving of the much-cherished individuality is accomplished by self-forgetfulness.

Marriage is one of the apparent interruptions to intellectual progress--especially a woman's. We often hear of the fine career a certain person might have had, unmarried. Such talk signifies nothing.

In the first place, age does not always fulfill the promises of youth. Many a young man has started well in life and failed through no fault of his companion. A discerning man will not be apt to choose a frivolous woman, though we often hear the contrary. A bright girl, though she may remain single and devote herself to herself, is not sure of a successful career. Some womanly virtues are certainly fostered best in a home. Love is, to many women, what the tropics are to vegetation. On the other hand, there are women who seem to be created for public benefactions and isolated labors.

Concentration in any line of business is bound to bring definite results, but definite, tangible results may not be the best results. A man who assumes some domestic responsibility must abridge his public services, and, as it is only public services that make a show, his life seems less valuable.

"I like you better since you married," said a frank old lady to a young man, and he laughed and answered:

"I used to know a great many things, but they were all wrong, every one of them! It takes a sensible wife to straighten out a man's mental distortions." Doubtless his wife could have reversed the compliment.

The pictures of unhappy marriages are hung in every household which the American press can possibly reach: the good marriages attract no attention. Natural reverence prevents those who know anything about them from telling what they know. We do not talk glibly of God's love. The theme is sacred. Just as sacred, and very personal, is the other subject. No man of sense, who loves his wife, says much about it, even to his intimate friends. What adult, with reason, goes about seeking advice upon matrimony?

Marriage is for persons of mature minds, and it is absolutely an individual matter, each case deciding itself. Let those who doubt concerning matrimony stay out of it. Let those who are already in it, remember that it is a solemn compact between two persons and that any action is unbecoming and inconsistent which does not result to the advantage of both.

The Regeneration of Podunk

By Phoebe D. Roulon

Jack and I arrived at Podunk just in "strawberry time." Did you ever stop to consider what a mandatory phrase "strawberry time" is? Jack and I did to the fullest, for from one end of Podunk highway to the other, in every farmstead that was the happy possessor of a strawberry patch, the proclamation had gone forth that berries were ripe and must be "done up" at once. There is no such thing as procrastinating with Nature, especially in her fruit department. Infinite in patience, unsparing in pains from the first inception of the berry to its maturity, when once her creative work is accomplished, she lays the finished product at your feet and henceforth waives all responsibility. Put off until tomorrow what should have been "done up" today and Nature will seek vengeance upon you and show you your folly. Mrs. Simpkins might better save her breath than to enter the protest that she cannot possibly "can" today, for the minister and family are coming to dinner. Nature makes no exception for even the clergy. When Mrs. Hopewell declares she must take her butter and eggs to market today and so cannot do another stroke of work after one o'clock, Nature simply smiles complacently from the four corners of every ruddy berry basket and says, "Take me now in my perfection, for tomorrow it will have passed away."

In obedience to this inexorable law Podunk was making ready. Brass kettles were being scoured and granite ones were coming forth from their winter hiding places. With one accord Podunk was becoming a huge canning and preserving factory, with as many annexes as there were houses with berry patches.

Day after day the process went on, for day after day a fresh supply demanded attention.

Overworked and tired housewives groaned in spirit and slept in meeting as a result. Everybody's nerves were a little on the bias until the strawberries were settled for the winter. To a casual observer it seemed as if Nature's lavishness had outrun Podunk's gratitude, and as if strawberries were becoming a nuisance.