Bohemian San Francisco Part 10

An automobile was in waiting, and at seven o'clock we were set down at Felix's, in Montgomery street, where a table was ready for us and on it were served salami of various kinds, artichokes in oil and ripe olives.

Then came a service of soup, for which this restaurant is famous, followed by a combination salad, with which was served a bottle of Pontet Canet.

The automobile carried us then over to Broadway and at the Fior d'Italia our table was waiting and here we were served with sand-dabs au gratin, and a small gla.s.s of sauterne.

All the haste we made was on the streets, and when we finished our course at the Fior d'Italia we whirled away over toward North Beach to the Gianduja, where had been prepared especially for us tagliarini with chicken livers and mushrooms, and because of its success we had a bottle of Lacrima Christi Spumanti, the enjoyment of which delayed us.

Again in the automobile to Coppa's where Chicken Portola was served, with green peas. Accompanying this was a gla.s.s of Krug, and this was followed by a gla.s.s of zabaione for dessert.

Back again to the heart of the city and we stopped at Raggi's, in Montgomery street near Commercial where we had a gla.s.s of brandy in which was a chinotti (a peculiar Italian preserved fruit which is said to be a cross between a citron and an orange).

Then around the corner to Gouailhardou & Rondel's, the Market Cafe, where from a plain pine table, and on sanded floor, we had our coffee royal. As a fitting climax for this evening we directed the chauffeur to drive to the Cliff House, where, over a bottle of Krug, we talked it all over as we watched the dancing and listened to the singing of the cabaret performers.

This dinner, including everything from the automobile to the tips cost but fifteen dollars for each one in the party.

Something About Cooking

Cooking is sometimes a pleasure, sometimes a duty, sometimes a burden and sometimes a martyrdom, all according to the point of view. The extremes are rarities, and sometimes duty and burden are synonymous. In ordinary understanding we have American cooking and Foreign cooking, and to one accustomed to plain American cooking, all variants, and all additions of spices, herbs, or unusual condiments is cla.s.sed under the head of Foreign. In the average American family cooking is a duty usually considered as one of the necessary evils of existence, and food is prepared as it is usually eaten--hastily--something to fill the stomach.

The excuse most frequently heard in San Francisco for the restaurant habit, and for living in cooped-up apartments, is that the wife wants to get away from the burden of the kitchen and drudgery of housework. And like many other effects this eventually becomes a cause, for both husband and wife become accustomed to better cooking than they could get at home and there is a continuance of the custom, for both get a distaste for plainly cooked food, and the wife does not know how to cook any other way.

Yet when all is considered the difference between plain American cooking and what is termed Foreign cooking, is but the proper use of condiments and seasoning, combined with proper variety of the food supply from the markets. Herein lies the secret of a good table-proper combination of ingredients and proper variation and selection of the provisions together with proper preparation and cooking of the food.

We have met with many well educated and well raised men and women whose gastronomic knowledge was so limited as to be appalling. All they knew of meats was confined to ordinary poultry, i. e., chickens and turkeys, and to beef, veal, pork, and mutton. Of these there were but three modes of cooking--frying, stewing and baking, sometimes boiling. Their chops were always fried as they knew nothing of the delicate flavor imparted by broiling. In fact their knowledge was confined to the least healthful and least nutritious modes of preparation and cooking. Not only is this true of the average American family, but their lack of knowledge of the fundamentals of cooking and food values brings about a waste largely responsible for what is called the "high cost of living." It is a trite, but nevertheless true saying that a French family could live well on what an American family wastes. Waste in preparation is but the mildest form of waste. Waste consequent upon lack of knowledge of food values is the waste that is doubly expensive for it not only wastes food but it also wastes the system whose energy is exhausted in trying to a.s.similate improper alimentation.

It is a well recognized medical fact that much of the illness of Americans arises from two causes, improper food and improper eating methods. In Europe this fact was recognized and generally known so long ago that the study of food values and preparation for proper a.s.similation is one of the essential parts of every woman's education, and to such a degree has this become raised to a science that schools and even colleges in cooking are to be found in many parts of England, France and Germany. Francatelli, the great chef who was at the head of Queen Victoria's kitchen, boasts proudly of his diploma from the Parisian College of Cooking.

The United States is now beginning to wake up to the fact that the preparation of food is something more than a necessary evil, and from the old cooking cla.s.ses of our common schools has developed the cla.s.ses in Domestic Science, that which was formerly considered drudgery now being elevated to an art and dignified as a science. In Europe this stage was reached many generations ago, and there it is now an art which has elevated the primitive process of feeding to the elegant art of dining. In San Francisco probably more than in any other city in the United States, not even excepting New Orleans, this art has flourished for many years with the result that the average San Franciscan is disappointed at the food served in other cities of his country, and always longs for his favorite restaurant even as the children of Israel longed for the flesh pots of Egypt.

One needs to spend a day in the Italian quarter of San Francisco to come to a full realization of the difference between the requirements of even the poorest Italian family and the average American family of the better cla.s.s. We need but say that we have been studying this question for nearly twenty years yet even now we meet with surprises in the way of new delicacies and modes of using herbs and spices in food preparation.

If we were to attempt even to enumerate the various herbs, spices, flavorings, delicacies, and pastes to be found in a well regulated Italian shop it would take many pages of this book, yet every one of these articles has its own individual and peculiar use, and the knowledge of these articles and how to use them is what makes the difference between American and Foreign cooking. Each herb has a peculiar quality as a stomachic and it must be as delicately measured as if it were a medicine. The use of garlic, so much decried as plebeian, is the secret of some of the finest dishes prepared by the highest chefs. It must not be forgotten that in the use of all flavors and condiments there may be an intemperance, there lying the root of much of the bad cooking.

Garlic, for instance, is a flavor and not a food, yet many of the lower cla.s.s foreigners eat it on bread, making a meal of dark bread, garlic and red wine. It is offensive to sensitive nostrils and vitiates the taste when thus used, but when properly added to certain foods it gives an intangible flavor which never fails to elicit praise. What is true of garlic is also true of the many herbs that are used. It is easy to pa.s.s from a rare flavor that makes a most savory dish to a taste of medicine that spoils a dinner. With the well-known prodigal and wasteful habits of America the American who learns the use of herbs usually makes the initial mistake of putting in the flavoring herbs with too lavish a hand, and it is only after years of experience that a knowledge of proper combinations is obtained.

Visitors have often expressed wonder at the variety of foods and delicate flavors in San Francisco restaurants, and possibly this brief explanation may give some comprehension of why San Franciscans always want to get back to where they "can get something to eat."

Told in a Whisper

"Surely the old Bohemians of San Francisco did not spend all their time in restaurants. How did they live when at home?" This is what was said to us one day when we were talking about the old days and the old people. Indeed they did not live all their time in restaurants. Some of the most enjoyable meals we have eaten have been in the rooms and apartments of our Bohemian friends, and these meals were prepared generally by each one present doing his or her part in making it a success. One would make the salad, another the main dish, and others do various forms of scullery work, and in the end we would have a meal that would often put to blush the efforts of many of the renowned chefs.

Many people who come to San Francisco will wish to conserve their finances as much as possible, and they will wish to enjoy life in their apartments. There are also many people who live in San Francisco who need a little advice on how to get the best out of life, and we are going to whisper a few words to all such as these we have mentioned.

You can be a Bohemian and have the very best sort of living in your own room for less than half the money it will take to live at the hotels and restaurants, and we are sure many of you would like to know something about how to do it. It is not necessary to confine yourself to the few things in your limited experience. If you are going to be in San Francisco for more than a week, you will find that a little apartment, furnished ready for housekeeping, will give you opportunity to be independent and free. You will get your own breakfasts, when and how you want them. Your luncheons and dinners can be gotten in your rooms or at the restaurants just as you are inclined.

You will find delight and education in visiting the markets, and the foreign stores where all the strange and unusual foods of all nations are to be found. You will discover better articles at less prices at the little Italian, French, Mexican or Chinese stores and stalls than can be had in the most aristocratic stores in the city. Above all you will find a joy of invention and will be surprised at the delectable dishes you can prepare at a minimum of cost.

When you visit San Francisco you are desirous of so arranging your finances that you may see the most for the least outlay of money. After a strenuous day of sight-seeing you will scarcely feel like getting up a good meal, consequently then you will follow the ideas suggested in this book and visit the various restaurants, thus obtaining a variety both in foods and in information of an educational nature. But sometimes you will not be tired, or you will wish to get up a little late supper after theatre, and it is then that you will be glad of the opportunity afforded by having your own kitchen arrangements so that you can carry out your tastes, and cook some of the strange and new foods that you have discovered in your rambles through the foreign quarters.

Take the simple matter of sausage, for instance. Ordinarily we know of but three kinds--pork sausage, frankfurter and bologna--neither very appetizing or appealing, except sometimes the pork sausage for breakfast. Over in the little Italian and French shops you will find some of the most wonderful sausages that mind can conceive of. Some of these are so elaborate in their preparation that they cost even in that inexpensive part of the city, seventy cents a pound, and the variety is almost as infinite as that of the pastes. In the Mexican stores you will find a sausage that gives a delightful flavor to anything it is cooked with, and it is when you see these sausages that your eyes begin to be opened.

You now take cognizance of many things that heretofore escaped your observation. You see new canned goods; a wonderful variety of cheeses; strange dried vegetables and delicacies unheard of; preserved vegetables and fish and meats in oil; queer fish pickled and dried. You begin to learn of the many uses of olive oil in cooking and in food preparation.

You see the queer shapes of bread, and note the numerous kinds of cakes and pastry that you never saw or heard of before. You see boxes of dried herbs, and begin to realize why you have never been able to reproduce certain flavors you have tasted in restaurants. You see strange-looking, flat hams, and are told that they are Italian hams, and if you buy some you will find that they cut the ham the wrong way, and instead of slicing it across the grain they cut in very thin slices down the length of the bone. Their flavor is more delicious than that of any ham you have tasted since you used to get the old-time, genuine country smoked hams. But if you investigate a little deeper you will learn that these hams were not put up in Italy at all, but that it is a special brand that is prepared in Virginia for the Italians.

In the French stores you will find preserved c.o.c.ks...o...b.., snails, marvelous blood sausages with nuts in them, rare cheeses, prepared meats in jellies, and hundreds of delicacies unknown to you. You can spend days in these stores, finding something new all the time. We have been going there for years and still run across new things.

Remember that to the people of the Latin Quarter these things are all usual consequently they think you know as much about them as they do, and will volunteer no information regarding them. Possibly they will smile at your ignorance when you ask them questions, but do not hesitate to ask, for they are courteous and that is the only way you can find out things, and learn what all these new edibles are and what they are good for. There is no greater possibility of interest than is to be found in the stores of San Francisco's Latin Quarter, and we mean by this the stores that cater to the people of the Quarter. In stores and restaurants frequented by Americans they cater to American tastes and lose much of the foreign flavor.

It is also well to bear in mind that it is not in the largest stores that you find the greatest variety when it comes to odd and new goods. A little shop, barely large enough to turn around in between counter and wall, may have enough of interest to entertain you for half an hour, and here the prices will be remarkably low, for these people have so little of the outside trade that they have not learned to add to their prices when they see an American face coming.

What is true of the stores is also true of the vegetable stands, the meat shops, the fish stalls, and bakeries. Here you will find better and fresher food supplies than in any of the similar places in other parts of the city, and the price is generally one-third less. The high cost of living has not reached this thrifty people with their inborn knowledge of the values of foods. They live twice as well as the average American family at half the cost. They combine knowledge of food values with the art of preparation and have a resultant meal that is tasty, full flavored, and nourishing at a minimum of expense.

Perhaps you want a meal. Your thoughts at once run to steaks and chops, and fried potatoes. Nothing but a porterhouse or tenderloin steak or a kidney chop will do. It is the most expensive meat and you think that of course it is the best and most nourishing. If the knowledge of food values were with you, you would get the less expensive and more nourishing cuts. A flank steak, perhaps, prepared en ca.s.serole, and you would have a fine dish for half the money. As it is in meats so it is in all foods. For ten cents two people can have a dinner of tagliarini that is at once nourishing and satisfying in flavor. Of course all this requires knowledge, but that is easily acquired, and it adds to the zest of life to know that you can do that which lifts eating from the plane of feeding to that of dining; that you can change existence into living.

All because you dare to break away from conventionalities which make so many people affect ignorance of how to live because they imagine it is an evidence of refinement. If they but knew it, their affectation and their ignorance is the hall mark of low caste.

Now about this whisper: We have a friend who has a little apartment where he has kept bachelor's hall for many years. Here some of our most pleasant evenings have been spent, and we never fear to go on account of the possibility that he may be embarra.s.sed or inconvenienced through lack of something to eat or drink, for he is never at a loss to prepare something dainty and appetizing for us, and it really seems, sometimes, that he makes a meal out of nothing. Often Charlie telephones us that he has discovered a new dish and hurries us over to pa.s.s judgment on it.

And, by the way, many of the good dishes of Bohemia are the result of accident rather than design.

Out of Nothing

It is surprising what a good meal you can get up sometimes when "there's not a thing in the house to eat." Let us give you an example. One evening two of our young friends came over to tell us their sweet secret, and with them was another young lady. While we were talking it over and making plans for the wedding another friend dropped in because he said our "light looked inviting."

An hour or so of talk and then one of us signaled to the other and received the shocking signal back, "There's not a thing to eat in the house." This called for an investigation of the larder in which all joined with the following result: Item--two cans of reed birds from China, each containing twelve of the little birds as large as your thumb. Item--one egg. Other items--one onion, two slices of dry bread, one green pepper, rather small, one dozen crackers. Item--one case of imported Italian Vin d'Oro Spumanti. Item--six hearty appet.i.tes to be appeased.

The gentleman who saw our light saw another, and rushed off to a barber shop, and got four more eggs. Barbers use eggs, and they must be fresh ones, in shampooing, and our friend remembered it.

The two young ladies and the young man prepared the table, and the other lady and the two gentlemen set about getting a meal. One of us made an omelet of the five eggs, the onion and the green pepper, with crumbs of bread, and this is the recipe:

Omelet a la Peruquier

Take five eggs and beat until very light. Roll two slices of dried bread to crumbs and mix with the beaten eggs. Chop fine one onion and one green pepper, season with salt and pepper. Pour a tablespoonful of olive oil in an omelet pan and in this fry the peppers and onion to a light brown. When ready turn into this the beaten eggs, and cook until done.

Follow the rule of never disturbing a cooking egg or a sleeping child.

Serve on a hot dish.

Take two cans of Chinese reed birds, open them and take therefrom the two dozen birds contained therein. In a hot frying pan place the birds in the grease that comes around them and heat them through. Toast twelve square crackers and on each place two reed birds, and serve two on each of six hot plates. With both the omelet and the reed birds serve Vin d'Oro.

Paste Makes Waste

In an Italian grocery store we noticed a great variety of pastes in boxes arranged along the counter and began counting them. The proprietor noticed us and, with a characteristic shrug of his shoulders, said: "That is but a few of them. We have not room to show them all." In response to our inquiry regarding the number of kinds of paste made by Italians he said there were more than seventy-five. Ordinarily we think of one--spaghetti--or possibly two, including macaroni. If our knowledge goes a little farther we think also of tagliarini, which is the Italian equivalent of noodles, as it is made with eggs.

In New York we were much impressed with the stress they laid on the serving of spaghetti, and one restaurant went so far as to advertise dinners given "under the spaghetti vine." It appears that this is the only paste they know anything about.