Bohemian San Francisco: Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining.Edwords, Clarence E. (Clarence Edgar)
History
Bohemian San Francisco: Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining.
Edwords, Clarence E. (Clarence Edgar)
Cooking; Hotels -- California -- San Francisco
Lazzarini also makes a specialty of snails, and they are well worth
trying while you are experimenting with the unusual things to eat. The
recipe for these is as follows:
Snails a la Bordelaise
Put ten pounds of snails in a covered barrel and keep for ten days. Then
put in a tub with a handful of salt and a quarter of a gallon of
vinegar. Stir for twenty minutes until a foam rises, then take out and
wash thoroughly until the water runs clear. Put in a large pot a pint of
virgin olive oil, four large onions and eight cloves of garlic, all
chopped fine, and a small bunch of parsley, chopped fine. Put the pot
over the fire and when the onions are browned stir in some white wine or
Marsala and then put in the snails. Cover and let simmer for thirty-five
minutes. While cooking add a pint of meat stock, a little butter and
some anise seed. When done put in a soup tureen and serve. To remove the
snails use small wooden toothpicks.
A Breath of the Orient
San Francisco's world-famed Chinatown, like the rest of the city, is
changed since the big fire, and the Chinatown of today is but a
reminiscence of the old Oriental city that was set in the midst of the
most thriving Occidental metropolis--The City That Was. There has never
been much of Chinatown that savored of Bohemianism, but it has always
been the vogue for visitors to make a trip through its mysterious
alleys, peering into the fearsome dark doorways, listening to the
ominous slamming doors of the "clubs," and shuddering in a delightful
horror at the recumbent opium smokers, pointed out to them by the
industrious guide. And when they were taken into one of the gambling
houses and shown the double doors, and the many contrivances used to
prevent police interference with the innocent games of fan tan and then
were shown the secret underground passage leading from one of the
gambling houses to the stage of the great Chinese theatre, two blocks
away, they went home ready to believe anything told them about "the ways
that are dark and tricks that are vain," for they were sure "the heathen
Chinee was peculiar."
Chinese restaurant life never appealed to Bohemians, and when it became
necessary to entertain visitors with a trip to a Chinatown restaurant
the ordinary service was of tea and rice cakes, served from lacquered
trays, in gaudy rooms, and the admiring visitors could well imagine
themselves in "far off Cathay."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account