The Omaha Sunday. Bee Magazine Page
My Ides.
of
Perfect
by
Mir Grace
The Duke of
Manchester
By the Duke of Manchester
Written Especially for this Newspaper,
WHAT is my idea of a perfect dinner! The more
I think of this question the less I am able to an
swer it. Such vast fields of gastronomic pleasure,
which I believe is the polite name for greediness, open up,
inch memories of delicious dinners all over the world re
rive, each one clamoring for recognition as the perfect
one, that I don't know which tovchoosc.
After all, meals, like matrimonial laws, are governed by
latitude and longitude. The right thing in one country
is anathema in another. Borne countries believe in one
dish, others pin their faith to the many-course banquet.
It may interest some greedy readers to hear about some
dinners partaken of in different parts of the world by one
who has chased around a whole lot. ' I shan't give a dis
sertation on the joys of "long pig," which is, I believe,
the technical term for cooked enemy in central Africa,
nor harrow you witn tales oi seal blubDer leasts in Arctic .Ru88ifln dinners e ddic5ou8 j know they are because
igloos. I shall, in fact, refer more to eating than feeding IVe ieen them and melt find 0Qe of thege dayg
throughout. maybe I shall eat one, but up to the present I have no
ine UDject oi gastronomies is a oroau cue involving
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A spectacular dinner given In London in a gondola with
Venetian background, which included Caruso, Princess Tous
son, Prince Abdul Bey, Mme. Itejane, Edna May arvd others.
expensive dish artfully compounded of mutton, veal,
chicken and egg plant bring back painful recollections r- r.
of being forced to drink sweet champagne by one's cour
teous hosts.
the barbarous feasts and drinking bouts of ancient times,
the disgusting Roman institution of the vomitorium and,
in modern times, freak dinners and the local relish for
preserved eggs a century old, dried oysters and other del
icaciesbut all this I will leave to the students of gas
tronomies. But where to begin and how to draw comparisons. The
menu which made the mouth water at twenty makes one
feel rather ill to contemplate at forty.
Suppose we imagine ourselves taking a tour eastward
from England. France first. 0 my 1 Thejomelettes, chicken
and salads of the north and west of France, the croute
au pot and the petite marmite, the sole dieppoisc, with its
luscious white wine sauce dotted with moulesl These
mussels by themselves too, done marinicre! Tho sedate
and classic dishes of Tourainel
How can one decide between the dinner of Mme.
Poulard at Mont St. Michel, croute au pot moulcs mari
niercs, roas chicken with the skin so crisp it's crackly,
rissoleed new. potatoes, salad coeur de laitue and omelette
soufflce, while tho sun sinks behind tho mount and tho
tide rushes in as fast as a man can run, across the great
M retch of yellow sand, and tho creme d'asperqes, tur
botin, sauco Hollandaise, the vol-au-vent a la Toulouse,
the tournedos Rossini, with its thick pink hat of pato de
Perigord on top and its luscious brown sauce, tho souffle
potatoes and tiny new peas, with a Bavaroise au chocolat,
with delicious coffee, that appeared maRically in the hotel
at Tours, although a recalcitrant motor brought us there
at 10, instead of 7 T
Or the Provencal joy of Bouillabaisse, followed by
Mostel a PAnglawe and Agneau do lait (bien croustillant
Monseigneurl), with pommes Anna at the Kescrve at
Marseilles i and NVgresco's I
I re'member ono dinner which stands out even at Ne
grfico's Consomme Nicoise, with just that little tsste
of tomatoe, filets de solo Richelieu (with crayfish sauce),
mousse de jnrabon froid, cailles sux raisins, endive salad,
strawberry iee, with fresh strawberries in February, and
Negresco chocolate cake,
1 remember something about '93 Pol Roger and 1820
brandy, and I very dintinctly remember that I was a guest,
and not the one who paid. I'iro's, at Monte Carlo a
vision of the Mostel au gratin and a tiny Maron de Pauillae
Hand out, even from among their uniformly delicious
, food.
For m9 the gastronomic headquarters of tyaly are at
Hologna. The raw ham and white trutTSn alone are enough
to make a town famous, and then the snipe and teal from
ths rice fid! reservoirs, the polenta, the ravioli, the camel,
loni yt fven the scampi if Ymiee cannot make head
spaint them.
I bave m gmnj word to say for Greece in the f o 1 line,
Snd Turkey's r tcrllut Krtl IMaw u 1 Moimaki-aa
distinct recollection of ever getting into the dining room
feeling like anything but a, subway car in a rush hour.
They have things they call Zakouski beforehand, the
most irresistible form of free lunch effects you ever saw,
the apotheosw of hors d'oeuvre, each thing more tempting
than the one before, and I have invariably laid in about
a week's supply before dinner is thought of.
India is the next country where they know how to eat,
and one dinner stands out above all others I have eaten
in India. It was in the marble paved court in the centre
of the palace at Bikanir; the palace is Indo-saracenic,
which means it is made of red-sandstone lace, behind
which flitted and giggled mysterious sari-clad forms sil
houetted vaguely against the lights in the apartments
within. Tho other illuminations consisted of candles that
burnt without a flicker in the stillness and a moon of
outrageous size. We had
"Dcshi Khana," real Hindu
food prepared byGrahmin
cooks' silver tray after silver
tray carried by two men,
superintended as to each tray
by fierce looking retainers
with white beards brushed
upward and with silver-topped
staves in their hands; the trays
were covered with little ham
mcred hilvcr bowls, about tho
size of finger bowls, each hold
ing a difl'eront curry, rice or
chutney; other trays held bis
cuits thin as wafers, and dried
fish.
Curry I But eurry such as
you never dreamed of mutton
curries, whrimp, fish, vegetable,
fruit curries, hot curries, mild
curries. How that poisonous,
running, yellow, peppery con
coction of Europe and America
ever got dignified with the
name of curry I suppose will
never be found out. It bears
the same relation to eurry that
Chili vinegar does to vintage
port.
"We sat and lasted and
tasted, dUh after dihh, on the
recommendation of the old re
tainers, gravely ailing pf (
"Ourrum bait" (I it a hot
The disgust
ing Roman
custom
known as
the "vomitor
ium." After
the banquet
was over
bowls were
brought to
the guests.
When they
had disposed
of their
dinner into
these bowls
another
banquet was
at once
served.
i , ,.
(
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x
ft
i
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one!) and being gravely answered with "Nai gurrum,'
or "Ha gurrum hait" (Not hot, or yes, that's hot) as the
ease might be while from the shadows came weird Ori
ental music and the muffled beat of the torn torn.
Maybe if I repent very hard for the rest of my life, I
shall be a maharajah in my next incarnation. I hope I
shall bo tn charming a host, as enlightened a ruler, as
loyal a friend, and as perfect a gentleman as some of the
maharajahs I know.
Burmah and Malaya, again different curries, and in
Malaya a special dish of fresh sago and cocoBnut juice.
China and Japan have long end weird dinners; many
of the dishes arc excellent, but if I were sternly told that
never again should I taste sharks'
fins, birds' nest soup, raw mice
dipped in honey, or hundred-year-old
eggs, I should endeavor to plod
through the rest of my life without
repining.
And scarcely pausing to think of
the joyous feKts of fish of your own
spearing and roast sucking pig, on
brilliant, balmy, phosphorescent
nights on South Sea islands, we come to America, I
If I were sure there were not Americans present, I
would admit that some the best dinners I have ever eaten
were in America, and some of the dishes are of unap
proachable exeellenep, (iumbn, clam broth and chowder
m soups, shad, softidicll crabs, terrapin, blueflsh, red
head and canvas back well I'd better stop, and, as a
colored servant of a friend of mine once said when we
vividly described the joys of roast 'possum before him
while he was serving dinners "For Uawd'a lake, atop,
jrcutlemen, 'bout that 'possum (ms motif watering so I'ss
ahure gwina ter drown,"
Ntut Wtil Antthtp InUrMtlnt
ariid by Hit Cats tM DuVt tr
Mnchfttr,
An attractive but
not ostentatious
or freakish
setting for
a dinner.
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ili. . Ut f 0.-tt S.ti. Killt
CNyrM4 r is ' Sttl Girl.
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