Bohemian San Francisco: Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining.Edwords, Clarence E. (Clarence Edgar)
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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
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 casserole, 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 embarrassed 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 pass 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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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