Around Little Italy

San Francisco holds no more interesting district than that lying around the base of Telegraph Hill, and extending over toward North Beach, even as far as Fisherman's Wharf. Here is the part of San Francisco that first felt the restoration impulse, and this was the first part of San Francisco rebuilt after the great fire, and in its rebuilding it recovered all of its former characteristics, which is more than can be said of any other part of the rebuilt city.

Here, extending north from Jackson street to the Bay, are congregated Italians, French, Portuguese and Mexicans, each in a distinct colony, and each maintaining the life, manners and customs, and in some instances the costumes, of the parent countries, as fully as if they were in their native lands. Here are stores, markets, fish and vegetable stalls, bakeries, paste factories, sausage factories, cheese factories, wine presses, tortilla bakeries, hotels, pensions, and restaurants; each distinctive and full of foreign life and animation, and each breathing an atmosphere characteristic of the country from which the parent stock came.

Walk along the streets on the side of Telegraph Hill and one can well imagine himself transported to a sunny hillside in Italy, for here he hears no other language than that which came from the shores of the Mediterranean. Here are Italians of all ages, sexes and conditions of servitude, from the padrone to the bootblack who works for a pittance until he obtains enough to start himself in business. If one investigate closely it will be found that many of the people of this part of San Francisco have been here for years and still understand no other language than that of their native home. Why should they learn anything else, they say. Everybody around them, and with whom they come in contact speaks Italian. Here are the Corsicans, with their peculiar ideas of the vendetta and the cheapness of life in general, and the Sicilians and Genoese and Milanese. Here are some from the slopes of Vesuvius or Aetna, with inborn knowledge of the grape and of wine making. All have brought with them recipes and traditions, some dating back for hundreds of years, or even thousands, to the days before the Christian Era was born. It is just the same to them as it was across the ocean, for they hear the same dialect and have the same customs. Do they desire any special delicacy from their home district, they need but go to the nearest Italian grocery store and get it, for these stores are supplied direct from Genoa or Naples. This is the reason that many of the older men and women still speak the soft dialect of their native communities, and if you are so unfortunate as not to be able to understand them, then it is you who are the loser.

Do you wish to know something about conditions in Mexico? Would you like to learn what the Mexicans themselves really think about affairs down in that disturbed republic? Go along Broadway west of Grant avenue, and then around the corner on Stockton, and you will see strange signs, and perhaps you will not know that "Fonda" means restaurant, or that "Tienda," means a store. But these are the signs you will see, and when you go inside you will hear nothing but the gentle Spanish of the Mexican, so toned down and so changed that some of the Castilians profess to be unable to understand it.

Here you will find all the articles of household use that are to be found in the heart of Mexico, and that have been used for hundreds of years despite the progress of civilization in other countries. You will find all the strange foods and all the inconsequentials that go to make the sum of Mexican happiness, and if you can get sufficiently close in acquaintance you will find that not only will they talk freely to you, but they will tell you things about Mexico that not even the heads of the departments in Washington are aware of.

Perhaps you would like to know something about the bourgeoise French, those who have come from the peasant district of the mother country. Go a little further up Broadway and you will begin to see the signs changing from Spanish to French, and if you can understand them you will know that here you will be given a dinner for twenty-five cents on week days and for thirty-five cents on Sundays. The difference is brought about by the difference between the price of cheap beef or mutton and the dearer chicken.

Up in the second story on a large building you may see a sign that tells you meals will be served and rooms provided. One of these is the rendezvous of Anarchists, who gather each evening and discuss the affairs of the world, and how to regulate them. But they are harmless Anarchists in San Francisco, for here they have no wrongs to redress, so they sit and drink their forbidden absinthe, and dream their dreams of fire and sword, while they talk in whispers of what they are going to do to the crowned heads of Europe. It is their dream and we have no quarrel with it or them.

But for real interest one must get back to the slope of Telegraph Hill; to the streets running up from Columbus avenue, until they are so steep that only goats and babies can play on them with safety. At least we suppose the babies are as active as the goats for the sides of the hill are alive with them.

Let us walk first along Grant avenue and do a little window shopping. Just before you turn off Broadway into Grant avenue, after passing the Fior d'Italia, the Buon Gusto, the Dante and Il Trovatore restaurants, we come to a most interesting window where is displayed such a variety of sausages as to make one wonder at the inventive genius who thought of them all. As you wonder you peep timidly in the door and then walk in from sheer amazement. You now find yourself surrounded with sausages, from floor to ceiling, and from side wall to side wall on both ceiling and floor, and such sausage it is!

From strings so thin as to appear about the size of a lady's little finger, to individual sausages as large as the thigh of a giant, they hang in festoons, crawl over beams, lie along shelves, decorate counters, peep from boxes on the floor, and invite you to taste them in the slices that lay on the butcher's block. One can well imagine being in a cave of flesh, yet if you look closely you will discover that sausage is but a part of the strange edible things to be had here.

Here are cheeses in wonderful variety. Cheeses from Italy that are made from goats' milk, asses' milk, cows' milk and mares' milk, and also cheeses from Spain, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, and all the other countries where they make cheese, even including the United States. These cheeses are of all sizes and all shapes, from the great, round, flat cheese that we are accustomed to see in country grocery stores, to the queer-shaped caciocavallo, which looks like an Indian club and is eaten with fruit.

There are dried vegetables and dried fruits such as were never dreamed of in your limited experience, and even the grocer himself, the smiling and cosmopolitan Verga, confesses that he does not know the names of all of them.

As you go out into the street you blink at the transformation, for you have been thousands of miles away. You think that surely there can be nothing more. Wait a bit. Turn the corner and walk along Grant avenue toward the Hill. See, here is a window full of bread. Look closely at it and you will notice that it is not like the bread you are accustomed to. Count the different kinds. Fourteen of them in all, from the long sticks of grissini to the great slid loaves weighing many pounds. Light bread, heavy bread, good bread, soft bread, hard bread, delicate bread, each having its especial use, and all satisfying to different appetites.

Now go a little further to the corner, cross the street and enter the store of the Costa Brothers. It is a big grocery store and while you will not find the sausage and mystifying mass of food products in such lavish display and profuseness, as in the previous place, if you look around you will find this even more interesting, for it is on a different plane. Here you find the delicacies and the niceties of Italian living. At first glance it looks as if you were in any one of the American grocery stores of down-town, but a closer examination reveals the fact that these canned goods and these boxes and jars, hold peculiar foods that you are unaccustomed to. Perhaps you will find a clerk who can speak good English, but if you cannot either of the Costa brothers will be glad to show you the courtesy of answering your questions.

Turn around and look at the shelves filled with bottles of wine. Now you feel that you are on safe ground, for you know about wines and can talk about Cresta Blanca, and Mont Rouge, and Asti Colony Tipo Chianti. But wait a minute. Here are labels that you do not understand and wines that you never even heard of. Here are wines whose taste is so delicious that you wonder why it is the whole world is not talking about it and drinking it.

Here are wines from the slopes of Aetna, sparkling and sweet. Here are wines from grapes grown on the warm slopes of Vesuvius, and brought to early perfection by the underground fires. Here are wines from the colder slopes of mountains; wines from Parma and from Sicily and Palermo where the warm Italian sunshine has been the arch-chemist to bring perfection to the fruit of the vine. Here are still wines and those that sparkle. Here the famed Lacrima Christi, both spumanti and fresco, said to be the finest wine made in all Italy, and the spumanti have the unusual quality for an Italian wine of being dry. But to tell you of all the interesting articles to be found in these Italian, and French and Mexican stores, would be impossible, for some of them have not been translated into English, and even the storekeepers would be at a loss for words to explain them.

This is all a part of the Bohemianism of San Francisco, and that is why we are telling you about it in a book that is supposed to be devoted to the Bohemian restaurants. The fact is that San Francisco's Bohemian restaurants would be far less interesting were it not for the fact that they can secure the delicacies imported by these foreign storekeepers to supply the wants of their people.

But do not think you have exhausted the wonders of Little Italy when you have left the stores, for there is still more to see. If you were ever in Palermo and went into the little side streets, you saw the strings of macaroni, spaghetti and other pastes drying in the sun while children and dogs played through and around it, giving you such a distaste for it that you have not eaten any Italian paste since.

But in San Francisco they do things differently. There are a number of paste factories, all good and all clean. Take that of P. Fiorini, for instance, at a point a short distance above Costa Brothers. You cannot miss it for it has a picture of Fiorini himself as a sign, and on it he tells you that if you eat his paste you will get to be as fat as he is. Go inside and you will find that Fiorini can talk just enough English to make himself understood, while his good wife, his sole assistant, can neither speak nor understand any but her native Italian. But that does not bother her in the least, for she can make signs, and you can understand them even better than you understand the English of her husband.

Here you will see the making of raviolis by the hundred at a time. Tagliarini, tortilini, macaroni, spaghetti, capellini, percatelli, tagliatelli, and all the seventy and two other varieties. The number of kinds of paste is most astonishing, and one wonders why there are so many kinds and what is done with them. Fiorini will tell you that each kind has its distinctive use. Some are for soups, some for sauces, and all for special edibility. There are hundreds of recipes for cooking the various pastes and each one is said to be a little better than the others, if you can imagine such a thing.

Turn another corner after leaving Fiorini's and look down into a basement. You do not have to go to the country to see wine making. Here is one of the primitive wine presses of Italy, and if you want to know why some irreverent people call the red wine of the Italians "Chateau la Feet," you have but to watch the process of its making in these Telegraph Hill wine houses. The grapes are poured into a big tub and a burly man takes off his shoes and socks and emulates the oxen of Biblical times when it treaded out the grain. Of course he washes his feet before he gets into the wine tub. But, at that, it is not a pleasant thing to contemplate. Now you look around with wider and more comprehensive eyes, and now you begin to understand something about these strange foreign quarters in San Francisco. As you look around you note another thing. Italian fecundity is apparent everywhere, and the farther up the steep slope of the Hill you go the more children you see. They are everywhere, and of all sizes and ages, in such reckless profusion that you no longer wonder if the world is to be depopulated through the coming of the fad of Eugenics. The Italian mother has but two thoughts—her God and her children, and it is to care for her children that she has brought from her native land the knowledge of cookery, and of those things that help to put life and strength in their bodies.

An Italian girl said to us one day:

"Mama knows nothing but cooking and going to church. She cooks from daylight until dark, and stops cooking only when she is at church."

It was evident that her domestic and religious duties dominated her life, and she knew but two things—to please her God and to care for her family, and without question if occasion demanded the pleasure of her family took precedence.

San Francisco's Latin quarter is appealing, enticing and hypnotizing. Go there and you will learn why San Francisco is a bohemian city. You will find out that so many things you have thought important are really not at all worth while. Go there and you will find the root of Bohemian restaurants. These people have studied gastronomy as a science, and they have imparted their knowledge to San Francisco, with the result that the Bohemian spirit enters into our very lives, and our minds are broadened, and our views of life and our ideas have a wider scope. It is because of this condition, born on the slopes of Telegraph Hill, that we are drawn out of depressing influences, out of the spirit of self-consciousness, and find a world of pleasure, innocent and educational, the inspiration for which has been handed down through generations of Latina since the days of early Roman empire, which inspiration is still a power for good because it takes people out of themselves and places them where they can look with understanding and speak the language of perception. Little Italy's charm has long been recognized by artists and writers, and many of them began their careers which led to fame and fortune in little cheap rooms on Telegraph Hill. Here have lived many whose names are now known to fame, and to name them would be almost like a directory of world renowned artists and writers. Here is still the memory of Bret Harte and Mark Twain. Here is where Keith had his early studio. Cadenasso, Martinez, and many others know these slopes and love them.

To all these and many more the Latin Quarter of San Francisco possessed a charm they could find nowhere else, and if one desire to bring a saddened look to the faces of many now living elsewhere it is but necessary to talk of the good old days when Bohemia was on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. Here they had their domicile, and here they foregathered in the little restaurants, whose claims to merit lay chiefly in the fact that they were rarely visited by other than the Italians of the quarter and these Bohemians who lived there.

Here was the inspiration of many a good book and many a famous picture whose inception came from thoughts that crystallized amid these surroundings, and here many a needy Bohemian struggled through the lean days with the help of these kind-hearted Latina. Here they, even as we, were taught something of the art of cooking.

Of course, if one desire to learn various methods of preparing food, it is necessary to keep both eyes open and to ask many questions, seeking the information that sometimes comes from unlooked for sources. Even at that it is not always a good idea to take everything for granted or to accept every suggestion, for you may meet with the Italian vegetable dealer who is so eager to please his customers that he pretends a knowledge he does not possess. We discovered him one day when he had on display a vegetable that was strange to us.

"How do you cook it?" was our question.

"Fry it."

Then his partner shouted his laughter and derision.

"Oh, he's one fine cook. All the time he say 'fry it.' One day a lady she come into da store an' she see da big bucket of ripe olives. Da lady she from the East and she never see olives like dat before. 'How you cook it?' say da lady. 'Fry it,' say my partner. Everything he say fry it."

In another vegetable stand we found an Italian girl, whose soft lisping accent pronounced her a Genoese, and she, diffidently suggested "a fine Italian dessert."

A Fine Desert

"You take macaroons and strawberries. Put a layer of macaroons in a dish and then a layer of strawberries, cover these with sugar, and then another layer of macaroons and strawberries and sugar until you have all you want. Over these pour some rum and set fire to it. After it is burned out you have a fine dessert."

We bought the macaroons and strawberries on the way home and did not even wait for dinner time to try it. We pronounce it good.

It was made the right way and we advise you to try it, for it is simple and leaves a most delicious memory.

Where Fish Come In

It was very early one morning. So early that one of us strenuously pretended sleep while the other gave urgent reminder that this was the day we were to go to Fishermen's Wharf. Daylight came early and it was just four o'clock when we began preparations. A cup of hot coffee while dressing served to get us wide-awake, and we were off to see the fish come in.

Fishermen's Wharf lies over at North Beach, at the end of Meiggs's Wharf, where the Customs Officers have their station, and to reach it one takes either the Powell and North Beach cars, or the Kearny and North Beach cars, and at the end of either walks two blocks. When you get that far anybody you see can tell you where to go.

Fog mist was stealing along the Marin shore, and hiding Golden Gate when we arrived, and the rays of the sun took some time to make a clear path out to sea. Out of the bank of white came gliding the heavy power boats of the Sicilian and Corsican fishermen, while from off shore were the ghostly lateen rigged boats of those who had been fishing up the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, their yards aslant to catch the faint morning breeze. As they slipped through the leaden water to their mooring at the wharf we could see the decks and holds piled with fish and crabs.

Roosting on piles, and lining the water's edge on everything that served to give foothold, were countless seagulls, all waiting for the breakfast they knew was coming from the discarded fish, and fit companions were the women with shawls over their heads irreverently called mud hens, and old men in dilapidated clothing, who sat along the stringers of the wharf, some with baskets, some with buckets and others with little paper bags, in which to put the fish which they could get so cheaply it meant a meal for them when otherwise they would have to go without. The earlier boats were moored and on the decks fires were burning in charcoal braziers, on which the fishermen cooked their breakfasts of fish and coffee, with the heavy black loaves of bread for which they seem to have special fancy. As the odor of the cooking fish came up from the water the waiting gulls and men and women moved a little closer.

Breakfast over the fishermen turned to the expectant crowd and began taking notice of the pitiful offerings of coin. Tin buckets, newspapers, bags, rags and even scooped hands were held down, each containing such coin as the owner possessed, and in return came bountiful supply of fish. A fine, fat crab for which your market man would charge you forty cents was sold for ten. Beautiful, fresh sand-dabs, but an hour or two out of the water, were five cents a pound, while sea bass, fresh cod, mackerel, and similar fish went at the same price. Small fish, or white bait, went by quantity, ten cents securing about half a gallon. Smelt, herring, flounder, sole, all went at equally low prices, and as each buyer secured his allotment he went hurrying off through the mist, as silently as the floating gulls. When these were all supplied the rest of the fish and crabs were taken up to the wharf and put on the counters of the free market, where they were sold at prices most tempting.

Shrimps, alive and active, crayfish, clams, squid and similar sea food was in profusion and sold at prices on a parity with that of the fish. As the day wore on the early buyers were replaced by those who knew of the free fish market and came to get good supplies for their money. Here were boarding-house keepers, unmistakable anywhere, Bohemians in hard luck who remembered that they could get good food here at a minimum of price, and came now while on the down turn of the wheel. As a human interest study it was better than a study of fish. Fishermen's Wharf is where the independent fishermen bring their catches to San Francisco, but it is not where the city's great supply comes in. To see that we had to go along the docks until we came to the Broadway wharf where Paladini, the head of the fish trust, unloads his tugs of their tons and tons of fish. It is not nearly so interesting to look at, but it gives a good idea of what comes out of the sea every day to supply the needs of San Francisco and the surrounding country. These tugs bring in the catches of dozens of smaller boats manned by fishermen who are toiling out beyond the heads, and up the two great rivers. From far out around the Farallones, from up around the Potato Patch with its mournful fog bell constantly tolling, from down the coast as far as Monterey Bay where fish are in such abundance that it is said they have to give a signal when they want to turn around, from up the rivers, come fish to the man who has grown from the owner of a small sail boat to be the power who controls prices of all the fish that go to the markets of the city.

By the time we finished with Paladini's fish we felt ready for breakfast and took a car down to Davis and Pacific street where we found Bazzuro's serving breakfast to dozens of market gardeners who had finished their unloading, and there, while partaking of the fresh fish we had brought from Fishermen's Wharf, we saw another phase of San Francisco's early morning life. Here were gardeners who came in the darkness of early morning to supply hucksters, small traders and a few thrifty people who knew of the cheapness, and in Columbo market they drove their great wagons and discharged their day's gathering of vegetables of all kinds.

But a few steps away is the great fruit market of the early morning and here tons of the finest fruits are distributed to the hundreds of wagons that crowd the street to such an extent that it takes all the ingenuity of experienced policemen to keep clearway for traffic. Threading their way in and out between the wheels and the heels of horses, were men and women, all looking for bargains in food. Amid a din almost deafening business was transacted with such celerity that in three hours the streets were cleared, fruits and vegetables sold and on their way to distant stands, and the tired policemen leaning against friendly walls, recuperating after the strenuous work of keeping order in chaos.

It is when one goes to these places in the morning and sees the cheapness of these foods that he can understand in a small way why it is that so many Italian restaurants can give such good meals for so little money. One wonders at a table d'hote dinner of six or seven courses for twenty-five cents, or even for half a dollar, and one accustomed to buying meats, fish, vegetables and fruits at the exorbitant prices charged at most of the markets and fruit and vegetable stands now sees why the thrifty foreigner can make and save money while the average American can hardly keep more than two jumps ahead of the sheriff.

Fish in Their Variety

Probably the most frequent question asked us by those who come to San Francisco is: "Where can we get the best fish?" With San Francisco's wonderful natural advantages as a fish market one is sometimes surprised that more attention is not given to preparing fish as a specialty. But one restaurant in the city deals exclusively with sea food, and even there one is astonished at an overlooked opportunity.

Darbee & Immel have catered to San Francisco in oysters for many years and after the fire they opened the Shell Fish Grotto, in O'Farrell street, between Powell and Mason streets, and this is one of the very few distinctive fish restaurants of the country. It is when one considers the possibilities that a shock comes from the environing decorations. White and gold pillars, with twining ivy reaching to the old gold and rose mural and ceiling embellishments seem out of place in a restaurant that is devoted entirely to catering to lovers of fish. Nothing in the place indicates its character except the big lobster in front of the building. Not even so much as a picture to bring a sentiment of the ocean to the mind.

We are going to take a liberty, and possibly Darbee &Immel may call it an impertinence, and give them a bit of advice. It costs them nothing consequently they can act on it or not and it will make no difference. This is our suggestion:

Change the interior of the place entirely by having around the walls a series of large glass aquaria, with as many different kinds of fish swimming about as it is possible to get; something on the order of the interior of the aquarium in Battery Park in New York. Paint the ceiling to represent the surface of the water as seen from below. Have seaweed and kelp in place of ivy, and a fish net or two caught up in the corners of the room, with here and there a starfish or a crab—not too many, for profuseness in this sort of decoration is an abomination. Then you will have a restaurant that will be talked about wherever people sit at meat. But to get back to our talk about fish, and where to get it prepared and cooked the best. We must say that the finest fish we have eaten in San Francisco was not in the high-priced restaurants at all, but in a little, dingy back room, down at Fishermen's Wharf, where there was sand on the floor and all the sounds of the kitchen were audible in the dining room. The place was patronized almost solely by the Italian fishermen who not only know how to catch a fish but how it ought to be cooked. One may always rest assured that when he gets a fish in one of the Italian restaurants it is perfectly fresh, for there are two things that an Italian demands in eating, and they are fresh fish and fresh vegetables.

At the Gianduja at Union and Stockton streets, one is certain to get fish cooked well and that it is perfectly fresh. The variety is not so good as at the Shell Fish Grotto, but otherwise it is just as good in every respect. At the Grotto there is a wonderful variety but the quantity is at the minimum because there, too, they will have no fish that has been twenty-four hours out of the water.

One wonders how a full course dinner entirely of fish can be prepared, but if you will go to the Shell Fish Grotto you will find that it is done, and done well at that. Here you can get a good dinner for one dollar, or if you prefer it they have a Fish Dinner de Luxe for which they charge two dollars. Both are good, the latter having additional wines and delicacies.

Down in Washington street, just off Columbus avenue, is the Vesuvius, an Italian restaurant of low price, but excellent cooking. A specialty there is fish which is always brought fresh from the nearby Clay street market as ordered, consequently is perfect. When you give your order a messenger is dispatched to the market and usually he brings the fish alive and the chef prepares it in one of his many ways, for he is said to have more secrets about the cooking of fish than one would think it possible for one brain to contain. The trouble about this restaurant is that the rest of the menu does not come up to the fish standard, but if you desire a simple luncheon of fish there is no better place to get it.

There are three things in which an Easterner will be disappointed in San Francisco, and these are oysters. Pacific Coast oysters fail in size, flavor and cooking, when compared with the luscious bivalve of the Atlantic, so far as the ordinary forms of preparation is concerned. Even fancy dishes, such as Oysters Kirkpatrick, would be better if made of the eastern oyster, not what they call the eastern oyster here, for that is a misnomer, but the oysters that grow in the Atlantic Ocean.

Of the Pacific oysters the best is the Toke Point, that comes from Oregon. They are similar in size to the Blue Point, but lack the flavor. When, in a San Francisco restaurant, you are asked what sort of oyster you will have, and you see the familiar names on the menu card, remember that these are transplanted oysters, and have lost much of their flavor in the transplanting, or else they are oysters that have been shipped across the continent and have thereby lost their freshness.

The California oyster proper, is very small, and it has a peculiar coppery taste, which bon vivants declare adds to its piquancy. Instead of ordering these by the dozen you order them by the hundred, it being no difficult task to eat an hundred at a meal, especially when prepared in a pepper roast.

Everyone knows the staple ways of preparing oysters, and every chef looks upon the oyster as the source of new flavors in many dishes, but to our mind the best way we have found in San Francisco was at a little restaurant down in Washington street before the fire. It was the Buon Gusto. where they served fish and oysters better than anything else because the owners were the chefs, and they were from the island of Catalan, off the coast of Italy. Their specialty was called "Oysters a la Catalan," and their recipe, which is given, can be prepared excellently in a chafing dish:

Oysters a la Catalan

Take one tablespoonful of butter, two teaspoonfuls grated Edam or Parmesan cheese, four tablespoonfuls catsup, one-half teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce, two tablespoonfuls cream, meat of one good-sized crab cut fine and two dozen oysters. Put the cheese and butter into a double boiler and when melted smooth add the catsup and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well and add the cream and then the crab meat. When creamy and boiling hot drop in the oysters. As soon as the oysters are crinkled serve on hot buttered toast on hot plates.

In the days before the fire when you went to a restaurant and ordered fish or oysters the waiter invariably put before you either a plate of crab salad or a dish of shrimps, with which you were supposed to amuse yourself while the meal was being prepared. Shrimps and crabs were then so plentiful that their price was never considered. Under our new conditions these always appear on the bill when ordered, and if they be not ordered they do not appear for they now are made to increase the income.

To the uninitiated visitor the shrimps so served were always something of a mystery, and after a few futile efforts to get at the meat they generally gave it up as too much work for the little good derived. The Old Timer, however, cracked the shrimp's neck, pinched its tail, and out popped a delicious bonne bouche which added to the joy of the meal and increased the appetite. But there are many other ways of serving shrimps, and they are also much used to give flavor to certain fish sauces. One of the most delicious ways of preparing shrimp is what is known as "Shrimp Creole, a la Antoine," so named after the famous New Orleans Antoine by a chef in San Francisco who had regard for the New Orleans caterer. We doubt if it can be had anywhere in San Francisco now unless you are well enough known to have it prepared according to the recipe. This recipe, by the way, is a good one to use in a chafing dish supper. This is the way it was prepared at the old Pup restaurant, one of the noted restaurants before the fire and earthquake changed conditions:

Shrimp Creole

Take three pints of unshelled shrimps and shell them, one-half pint of cream, two tablespoonfuls of butter, two tablespoonfuls of flour, two tablespoonfuls of catsup, one wine glass of sherry, paprika, chili powder and parsley. Brown the flour in the butter and add the milk until it is thickened. Color with the catsup and season with paprika and chili powder. Stir in the sherry and make a pink cream which is to be mixed through the shrimps and not cooked. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with squares of toast or crackers.

Lobsters and Lobsters

When is a lobster not a lobster? When it is a crayfish. This question and answer might well go into the primer of information for those who come to San Francisco from the East, for what is called a lobster in San Francisco is not a lobster at all but a crayfish. The true lobster is not found in the Pacific along the California coast, and so far efforts at transplanting have not been successful. The Pacific crayfish, however, serves every purpose, and while many contend that its meat is not so delicate in flavor as that of its eastern cousin, the Californian will as strenuously insist that it is better, but, of course, something must always be allowed for the patriotism of the Californian.

Lobster, served cold with mayonnaise, or broiled live lobster are most frequently called for, and while they are both excellent, we find so many other ways of preparing this crustacean that we rarely take the common variety of lobster dishes into consideration. Probably nowhere in San Francisco could one get lobster better served than in the Old Delmonico restaurant of the days before the fire. A book could be written about this restaurant and then all would not be told for all its secrets can never be known.

In New York City they have what they are pleased to call "Lobster Palaces," but there is not a restaurant in that great metropolis that could approach the Delmonico of San Francisco in its splendid service and its cuisine arrangements; neither could they approach the romance that always surrounded the O'Farrell street restaurant. It was here that most magnificent dinners were arranged; it was here that extraordinary dishes were concocted by chefs of world-wide fame; it was here that Lobster a la Newberg reached its highest perfection, and this is the recipe that was followed when it was prepared in the Delmonico:

Lobster a la Newberg

One pound of lobster meat, one teaspoonful of butter, one-half pint of cream, yolks of four eggs, one wine glass of sherry, lobster fat. Three hours before cooking pour the sherry over the lobster meat and let it stand until ready to cook. Heat the butter and stir in with the lobster and wine, then place this in a stewpan, or chafing dish, and cook for eight minutes. Have the yolks of eggs well beaten and add to them the cream and lobster fat, stir well and then stir in a teaspoonful of flour. Put this in a double boiler and let cook until thick, stirring constantly. When this is cooked pour it over the lobster and let all cook together for three minutes. Serve in a chafing dish with thin slices of dry toast.

King of Shell Fish

One has to come to San Francisco to partake of the king of shell fish— the mammoth Pacific crab. I say "come to San Francisco" advisedly, for while the crab is found all along the coast it is prepared nowhere so deliciously as in San Francisco. Of course our friends in Portland will take exception to this, but the fact remains that nowhere except in San Francisco have so many restaurants become famous because of the way they prepare the crab. The Pacific crab is peculiar, and while it has not the gigantic claws such as are to be seen on those in the Parisian and London markets, its meat is much more delicate in flavor, and the dishes of crab prepared by artists of the gastronomic profession in San Francisco are more savory than those found elsewhere.

In the pre-fire days there were many places which paid especial attention to the cooking of the crab, among them being the Cobweb Palace, previously mentioned, and Gobey's. Gobey ran one of those places which was not in good repute, consequently when ladies went there they were usually veiled and slipped in through an alley, but the enticement of Gobey's crab stew was too much for conventionality and his little private rooms were always full.

Gobey's passed with the fire, and the little restaurant bearing his name, and in charge of his widow, in Union Square avenue, has not attained the fame of the old place. It is possible that she knows the secret of preparing crab as it was prepared in the Gobey's of before the fire, but his prestige did not descend to her.

Almost all of the Italian restaurants will give you crab in many forms, and all of them are good; many restaurants use crab meat for flavoring other, dishes, but of all the recipes for cooking crab we have found none that we consider so good as that of Gobey's. It is as follows:

Gobey's Crab Stew

Take the meat of one large crab, scraping out all of the fat from the shell. One good-sized onion, one tomato, one sweet pepper, one teaspoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of flour, half a glass of sherry, a pinch of rosemary, one clove of garlic, paprika, salt and minionette pepper. Soak the crab meat in the sherry two hours before cooking. Chop fine the onion, sweet pepper and tomato with the rosemary. Mash the clove of garlic, rubbing thoroughly in a mortar and on this put the butter and flour, mixing well together, and gradually adding the salt and minionette pepper, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of cream. Heat this in a stewpan and when simmering add the sherry and crab meat and let all cook together with a slow fire for eight minutes. Serve in a chafing dish with toasted crackers or thin slices of toasted bread. A dash of Worcestershire sauce just before it is taken up adds to the flavor.

Lobster in Miniature

Crawfish, or ecravisse, has never been very popular in San Francisco, probably because there are so many other delicate crustaceans that are more easily handled, yet the crawfish grows to perfection in Pacific waters, and importation's of them from Portland, Oregon, are becoming quite an industry. So far it has been used mostly for garnishment of other dishes, and it is only recently that the Hof Brau has been making a specialty of them. All of the better class restaurants, however, will serve them if you order them.

The full flavor of the crawfish is best obtained in a bisque, and the best recipe for this is by the famous chef Francatelli, who boasts having been the head of the cuisine of Queen Victoria. His recipe is long, and its preparation requires much patience, but the result is such a gastronomic marvel that one never regrets the time spent in its accomplishment. This is the recipe for eight people, and it is well worth trying if you are giving a dinner of importance:

Bisque of Crawfish

Take thirty crawfish, from which remove the gut containing the gall in the following manner: Take firm hold of the crawfish with the left hand so as to avoid being pinched by its claws; with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand pinch the extreme end of the central fin of the tail, and, with a sudden jerk, the gut will be withdrawn.

Mince or cut into small dice a carrot, an onion, one head of celery and a few parsley roots, and to these add a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, a little minionette pepper and two ounces of butter. Put these ingredients into a stewpan and fry them ten minutes, then throw in the crawfish and pour on them half a bottle of French white wine. Allow this to boil and then add a quart of strong consomme and let all continue boiling for half an hour. Pick out the crawfish and strain the broth through a napkin by pressure into a basin in order to extract all the essence from the vegetables.

Pick the shells off twenty-five of the crawfish tails, trim them neatly and set them aside until wanted. Reserve some of the spawn, also half of the body shells with which to make the crawfish butter to finish the soup. This butter is made as follows: Place the shells on a baking sheet in the oven to dry; let the shells cool and then pound them in a mortar with a little lobster coral and four ounces of fresh butter, thoroughly bruising the whole together so as to make a fine paste. Put this in a stewpan and set it over a slow fire to simmer for about five minutes, then rub it through a sieve with considerable pressure into a basin containing ice water. As soon as the colored crawfish butter is become firmly set, through the coldness of the water, take it out and put it into a small basin and set in the refrigerator until wanted.

Reverting to the original recipe: Take the remainder of the crawfish and add thereto three anchovies, washed for the purpose, and also the crusts of French rolls, fried to a light brown color in butter. Pound all these thoroughly together and then put them into a stewpan with the broth that has been reserved in a basin, and having warmed the bisque thus prepared rub it through a sieve into a fine puree. Put this puree into a soup pot and finish by incorporating therewith the crawfish butter and season with a little cayenne pepper and the juice of half a lemon. Pour the bisque quite hot into the tureen in which have been placed the crawfish tails, and send to the table.

This is not so difficult as it appears when you are reading it and if you wish to have something extra fine take the necessary time and patience and prepare it.

Clams and Abalone's

We cannot dispose of the shell fish of San Francisco without a word or two about clams, for certainly there is no place where they are in greater variety and better flavor. In fact the clam is the only bivalve of this part of the coast that has a distinctive and good flavor. Several varieties are to be found in the markets, the best and rarest being the little rock clams that come from around Drake's Bay, just above the entrance to Golden Gate. These are most delicious in flavor and should never be eaten otherwise than raw. The sand, or hard shell, or as they are sometimes called little necks, are next in choiceness, and then come the Pismo beach clams, noted for their flavor and enormous size. The mud clam is good for chowder but not so good as either of the other varieties mentioned.

The Bohemian way to have your clams is to go to the shore of Bolinas Bay or some other equally retired spot, and have a clam bake, or else take a pot along with the other ingredients and have a good clam chowder. This, however, may be prepared at any time and is always a good meal.

Clam fritters when prepared according to the recipe given herein, is one of the best methods of preparing the clam, and it has the peculiarity of being so tasty that one feels that there is never enough cooked.

Of all the ways of cooking clams chowder takes precedence as a rule, and it is good when made properly. By that we do not mean the thin, watery stuff that is served in most of the restaurants and called clam chowder just because it happens to be made every Friday. That is fairly good as a clam soup but it is no more chowder than a Mexican soup approaches a crawfish bisque. There is but one right way to make clam chowder, and that is either to make it yourself or closely superintend the making, and this is the way to make it:

Clam Chowder

Take one quart of shelled sand clams, two large potatoes, two large onions, one clove of garlic, one sweet pepper, one thick slice of salt pork, one-half pound small oyster crackers, one-half glass sherry, one tablespoonful Worcestershire sauce, one tomato, salt, and pepper. In a large stewpan place the salt pork cut into small dice, and let this fry slightly over a slow fire until the bottom of the stewpan is well greased. Take this off the fire and put in a layer of potatoes sliced thin, on top of the salt pork, then a layer of onions sliced thin, and a layer of clams. Put on this salt and pepper and sprinkle with a little flour and then a layer of crackers. Chop the sweet pepper and tomato fine and mix with them the bruised and mashed garlic. On top of each succession of layers put a little of the mixture. Continue making these layers until all the ingredients are placed in the stewpan, and then pour on the top sufficient water to just show. Cover tightly and let cook gently for half an hour. Pour on the Worcestershire sauce and sherry just before serving. Do not stir this while cooking, and in order to prevent its burning it should be cooked over an asbestos cover.

When done this should be thick enough to be eaten with a fork.

Among the good Bohemians who lived in San Francisco as a child when it was in the post-pioneer days, and who has enjoyed the good things of all the famous restaurants is Mrs. Emma Sterett, who has given us the following recipe for clam fritters which we consider the most delicious of all we have ever eaten, and when you try them you will agree with us:

Clam Fritters

Take two dozen clams, washed thoroughly and drained. Put in chopping bowl and chop, not too fine. Add to these one clove of garlic mashed, one medium-sized onion chopped fine, add bread crumbs sufficient to stiffen the mass, chopped parsley, celery and herbs to taste. Beat two eggs separately and add to the clams. If too stiff to drop from a spoon add the strained liquor of clams. Drop tablespoonfuls of this mixture into hot fat, turn and cook for sufficient time to cook through, then drain on brown paper and serve.

Abalone's are a univalve that has been much in vogue among the Chinese but has seldom found place on the tables of restaurants owing to the difficulty in preparing them, as they are tough and insipid under ordinary circumstances. When made tender either by the Chinese method of pounding, or by steeping in vinegar, they serve the purpose of clams but have not the fine flavor. The Hof Brau restaurant is now making a specialty of abalone's, but it takes sentiment to say that one really finds anything extra good in them.

Another shell fish much in vogue among the Italian restaurants is mussels, which are found to perfection along the coast. These are usually served Bordelaise, and make quite a pleasant change when one is surfeited with other shell fish, but the best recipe is:

Mussels Mariniere

Thoroughly clean the mussels and then put them in a deep pan and pour over them half a glass of white wine. Chop an onion, a clove of garlic and some parsley fine and put in the pan, together with a tablespoonful of butter. Let these boil very quick for twelve minutes, keeping the pan tightly covered. Take off half shells and place the mussels in a chafing dish and pour over them Bechamel sauce and then add sufficient milk gravy to cover. Serve hot from chafing dish.

Where Fish Abound

According to David Starr Jordan, acknowledged world authority on fish, there is greater variety of fish in Monterey Bay than anywhere else in the world. Monterey Bay is one of San Francisco's sources of supply consequently we have a greater variety of fish in our markets than are to be found anywhere else. In the markets are fish from all parts of the Pacific Ocean, from the Tropics to far north in the Arctics, while denizens of the waters all the way, between add to the variety.

The essential element of goodness in fish is freshness, and it is always fresh in San Francisco markets, and also in the restaurants. Of all varieties two rank first in the estimation of gourmets, but, of course, that is purely a matter of individual taste. According to the above-mentioned authority, "the finest fish that swims is the sand-dab." Some gourmets, however, will take issue with him on this and say the pompano is better. Others will prefer the mountain trout. Be that as it may they all are good, with many others following close in choice.

Fine striped bass from the ocean, or black bass from the fresh water takes high place in preference. Then there is sole, both in the fillet and Rex, as prepared at Jule's under the Monadnock building. Tom cod, rock cod, fresh mackerel and fresh cod, white bait and boned smelt all are excellent fish, but were we to attempt to tell of all the fish to be found here we would have to reproduce a piscatorial directory. There are two good methods of acquiring knowledge of the fish of San Francisco. Go to the wharves and see them come and and go to the wholesale markets down in Clay street, below Montgomery. You will then begin to realize that we certainly do have a variety of good fish.

Now for a little Bohemianism of a different sort: Recently there came to San Francisco, with his wife, an actor whose name used to be almost a household word among theater-goers, and when we say "the villain still pursued her," all you old timers will know whom we mean. When he was here in the years long gone by it was his custom to go to the old California market, select what he desired to eat, then take it to the restaurant and have it cooked, and the old atmosphere came back to him on his recent arrival and he revived the old custom.

"Meet us at the California market," was the telephone message that came to us, and we were there, for we knew that something good was in store for us.

First we went through the market from end to end and all the side aisles, "spying out the land." It is not possible to enumerate what we saw. If you want to know go there and see for yourselves. Having seen we were told to go and select what we wished to have for our dinner, and then the selection began and there was a feast of buying fish, meats, vegetables and delicacies of all sorts, even to French pastry.

Our purchases were ordered sent to the restaurant in the corner of the market where the chef had already been duly "seen," and then came each particular idea as to how the food was to be cooked. We had sand-dabs munier, chateaubriand with mushrooms, Italian squash, fried in oil with a flavor of garlic, French pastry, and coffee, together with some good California Tipo Chianti, all flavored with such a stream of reminiscence that we forgot that such things as clocks existed.

It was the first time our theatrical friends had tasted sand-dabs, for this fish has come to San Francisco markets only in recent years, and they declared that it was the "only" fish fit to be eaten. It is possible that they were prejudiced by the sentiment of the surroundings and consequently not exactly in position to be good judges.

All Italian restaurants serve fish well. At the New Buon Gusto you will find a most excellent cippino with polenti, and if you have not experienced this we advise you to try it as soon as possible. At the Gianduja you will find sand-dabs au gratin to be very fine. At Jack's, striped bass cooked in wine is what we think the best of the fish to be found in the market, or at the restaurants, cooked that way. Jule's is famous for his Rex sole. At all of the French and Italian restaurants small fry is cooked to perfection. If you wish fish in any way or of any kind you will make no mistake in asking for it at any of the French or Italian restaurants, or at the Shell Fish Grotto, and if you are in doubt regarding what to order just take the proprietor into your confidence, tell him you are a stranger in the city and ask him to serve you fish the best way he prepares it. You will not be disappointed.

Some Food Variants

Variants of food preparation sometimes typify nationalities better even than variants of language or clothing. Take the lowly corn meal, for instance. We find that Italian polenti, Spanish tamale, Philadelphia scrapple and Southern Darkey crackling corn bread are but variants of the preparation of corn meal in delectable foods. It is a long step from plain corn meal mush to scrapple, which we consider the highest and best form of preparing this sort of dish, but all the intermediate steps come from a desire to please the taste with a change from simple corn meal. Crackling corn bread is the first step, and here we find that the darkies of the South found good use for the remnants of the pork after lard was tried out at hog-killing time, by mixing the cracklings with their corn meal and making a pone which they cooked before an open fire on a hoe blade, the first of this being called "cracklin' hoe cake."

Good scrapple is one of the finest breakfast dishes that we know during the winter, and when prepared after the recipe given here it precedes all other forms of serving corn meal. To mix it properly one must know the proper values of herbs and condiments, and this recipe is the result of much discriminating study. Modesty prevents us giving it more than the name of "scrapple." It is prepared in the following manner, differing from that made in Philadelphia:

Scrapple

Take a young pig's head and boil it until the flesh drops from the bones, in water to which has been added two good-sized onions, quartered, five bruised cloves of garlic, one bay leaf, sweet marjoram, thyme, rosemary, a little sage, salt, and pepper. Separate the meat from the bones and chop fine. Strain off the liquor and boil with corn meal, adding the chopped meat. Put in the corn meal gradually, until it makes a stiff mush, then cook for half an hour with the meat. Put in shallow pans and let cool. To serve slice about half an inch thick and fry in olive oil or butter to a light brown.

As originally prepared the tamale was made for conveyance, hence the wrappings of corn husk. This is a Spanish dish, having been brought to this country by the early Spanish explorers, and adopted by the Indian tribes with whom they came in contact. In the genuine tamale the interior is the sauce and meat that goes with the corn meal which is alternately laid with the husks, and when made the ends are tied with fine husk. For meat, chicken, pork, and veal are considered the best. There is also a sweet tamale, made with raisins or preserves.

The following recipe for tamales was given us by Luna:

Tamales

Boil one chicken until the meat comes from the bones. Chop the neat fine and moisten it with the liquor in which it was boiled. Boil six large chili peppers in a little water until cooked so they can be strained through a fine strainer, and add to this the chopped chicken, with salt to taste and a little chopped parsley. Take corn meal and work into it a lump of butter the size of an egg, adding boiling water and working constantly until it makes a paste the consistency of biscuit dough. Have ready a pile of the soft inner husks of green corn and on each husk spread a lump of dough, the size of a walnut, into a flat cake covering the husk. In the center of the dough put a teaspoonful of the chopped meat with minced olive. On a large husk put several tablespoonfuls of chopped meat with olives. Roll this together and lay on them other husks until the tamale is of the size desired. Tie the ends together with strips of fine husk and put in boiling water for twenty minutes. Either veal or pork may be used instead of chicken.

Polenti, properly prepared, is a dish that requires much labor, and scarcely repays for the time and exertion spent in its making. It differs from scrapple in that the ingredients are mixed in a sauce and poured over the mush instead of being mixed in the meal. In the New Buon Gusto restaurant, in Broadway, they cook polenti to perfection, and when it is served with cippino it leaves nothing to be desired. This is the recipe:

Polenti

For the gravy: Make a little broth with veal bone, a small piece of beef, a pig's foot, neck, feet and gizzard of chicken. In a separate kettle cook in hot oil one sliced onion, one clove of garlic, a little parsley, one bell pepper, one tomato, a small piece of celery, and a carrot. Cook until soft and then add this to the broth with a few dried mushrooms. Cook slowly for thirty minutes and then strain.

For the mush: Boil corn meal until it is thoroughly done and then cool it until it can be cut in slices for frying. Mix butter and olive oil and heat in a frying pan and into this put the slices of corn meal, frying to a light brown. Place the fried corn meal in a platter in layers, sprinkling each with grated Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Take parsley and one clove of garlic chopped fine and a can of French mushrooms cut in quarters, and fry in butter, then add enough gravy to pour over the fried corn meal. Place this in an oven for a few minutes then serve.

About Dining

Table d'hote is the feature of San Francisco's restaurant life. It is the ideal method for those who wish a good dinner and who have not the inclination, or the knowledge, to order a special dinner. It is also the least expensive way of getting a good dinner. It also saves an exhibition of ignorance regarding the dishes, for if you are in doubt all you have to do is to leave it to the waiter, and he will bring the best there is on the day's menu and will serve it properly.

It is really something to elicit wonder when one considers the possibilities of a table d'hote dinner in some of the less expensive restaurants. Take, for instance, the Buon Gusto, in Broadway. This restaurant boasts a good chef, and the food is the finest the market affords. Here is served a six course dinner for fifty cents, and the menu card is typical of this class of restaurants. What is provided is shown by the following taken from the bill of fare as it was served us:

Hor d'ouvres—four kinds; five kinds of salad; two kinds of soup; seven kinds of fish; four kinds of paste; broiled spring chicken; green salad with French dressing; ice cream or rum omelet; mixed fruits; demi tasse.

With this is served a pint of good table wine.

As one goes up with the scale of prices in the restaurants that charge $1, $1.25, $1.50, $2, $2.50, and $3 for their dinners it will be found that the difference lies chiefly in the variety from which to choose and from the surroundings and service.

Take, for example, the following typical menu for a dollar dinner, served at the Fior d'Italia, and compare it with the fifty-cent dinner just mentioned:

Salami and anchovies; salad; chicken broth with Italian paste; fillet of English sole, sauce tartare; spaghetti or ravioli; escallop of veal, caper sauce; French peas with butter; roast chicken with chiffon salad; ice cream or fried cream; assorted fruits and cakes; demi tasse. Wine with this dinner is extra.

Now going a step up in the scale we come to the $1.50 dinner as follows:

Anchovies, salami (note that it is the same as above); combination salad; tortellini di Bologna soup; striped bass a la Livornaise; ravioli a la Genoese and spaghetti with mushrooms; chicken saute, Italian style, with green peas; squab with lettuce; zabaione; fruit; cheese; coffee. Wine is extra.

Let us now look at the menu of the $3.50 dinner, without wine:

Pate 'de foie gras—truffles on toast; salad; olives; Alice Fallstaff; Italian ham "Prosciutto;" soup—semino Italiani with Brodo de Cappone; pompano a la papillote; tortellini with fungi a funghetto; fritto misto; spring chicken saute; Carcioffi all'Inferno; Capretto al Forno con Insallata; omelet Celestine; fruit; cheese, and black coffee.

This dinner must be ordered three days in advance.

These menus will give a good idea of the different classes of dinners that can be obtained. Between are dinners to suit all tastes and pocketbooks. If you wish to go beyond these there is no limit except the amount of money you have. If but the food value be taken into consideration then one will be as well pleased with the fifty-cent dinner as he will be at the higher priced meals, but if light and music and brilliant surroundings are desired, then one must pay for them as well as for the meal he eats.

All of the restaurants mentioned serve good table d'hote dinners, giving an astonishing variety of foods for the money, and it is all cooked and served in a manner that leaves nothing to be desired. As before mentioned if you wish a table d'hote dinner composed entirely of sea food you can get it at the Shell Fish Grotto for one dollar.

A good rule to follow when dining at any of the restaurants is: When in doubt order a table d'hote dinner. You will always get a good meal, for the least out lay of money and least expenditure of thought. Often one desires something a little different, and this is easy, too, and you can conserve your brain energy and get the most for the least money by seeing the proprietor or manager of the restaurant and telling him that you wish to give a little dinner. Tell him how many will be in the party and give him the amount you wish to spend. It will be surprising, sometimes, to see how much more you can get for a slight increase in the price. Of course your wines and cocktails will be extra and these must be reckoned in the cost.

From this we come to the ordered dinner, and here is where your own knowledge and special desires come in. Here, too, comes a marked increase in the cost. You now have the widest range of possibilities both as to viands and as to price. It is not at all difficult to have a dinner, without wine, that costs twenty-five dollars a plate, and when you come down to the more normal dinners, unless you confine yourself to one or two dishes you will find that you far exceed in price the table d'hote dinners of equal gastronomic value.

While this is true it is well to be able to order your dinner for it frequently occurs that one does not care to go through the heavy course dinner provided table d'hote. Sometimes one wants a simple dish, or perhaps two, and it is well to know something about them and how to order them. We have made it a rule whenever we have seen something new on the bill of fare to order it, on the theory that we are willing to try anything once, and in this way we have greatly enlarged our knowledge of good things.

It is also well to remember national characteristics and understand that certain dishes are at their best at certain restaurants. For instance, you will be served with an excellent paste at a French restaurant, but if you want it at its best you will get it at an Italian restaurant. On the other hand if you desire a delicate entree you will get the best at a French restaurant. For instance, one would not ask for sauer braten anywhere except at a German restaurant. It will readily be seen that the Elegant Art of Dining in San Francisco means much more than the sitting at table and partaking of what is put before you. Dining is an art, and its pleasure is greatly enhanced by a knowledge of foods, cooking, serving, national characteristics, and combinations of both foods and wines. How few people are there, for instance, who know that one should never drink any hard liquor, like whisky, brandy, or gin, with oysters. Many a fit of acute stomach trouble has been attributed to some food that was either bad or badly prepared when the cause of the trouble was the fact that a cocktail had been taken just prior to eating oysters.

Some of the possibilities of dining in San Francisco may be understood when we tell you of a progressive dinner. We had entertained one of the Exposition Commissioners from a sister State and he was so well pleased with what he had learned in a gastronomic way that he said to us:

"The Governor of my State is coming and I should like to give him a dinner that will open his eyes to San Francisco's possibilities. Would it be asking too much of you to have you help me do it?"

"We shall be glad to. What do you want us to do?"

"Take charge of the whole business, do as you please and go as far as you like."

"That is a wide order, General. What is the limit of price, and how many will be in the party?"

"Just six. That will include the Governor and his wife, you two and myself and wife. Let it be something unusual and do not let the cost interfere. What I want is something unusual."

It has been told us that when the Governor got back home he tried to tell some of his friends about that dinner, but they told him he had acquired the California habit of talking wide. This is the way we carried out the dinner, everything being arranged in advance: At 6:30 we called at the rooms of the Governor in the Palace Hotel and had served there dry Martini cocktails with Russian caviar on toasted rye bread.

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 glass 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 glass of Krug, and this was followed by a glass 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 glass 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 classed 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 assimilate 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 assimilation 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 classes of our common schools has developed the classes 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 class. 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 class 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 pass 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 cockscombs, 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 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."

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 appetites 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.

After one eats tagliarini or ravioli one feels like paraphrasing the darkey and saying, "go way spaghetti, yo done los' yo tase."

Then comes tortelini which, like ravioli, combines paste with meat and spinach. These may be considered the most prominent of the pastes, the others being variants in the making and cutting, each serving a special purpose in cooking, some being for soups, others for sauces and others for dressing for meats. It is more than probable that the great variety comes from individual tastes in cutting or rolling.

All Italian restaurants serve the paste as a releve rather than as an entree, which it usually follows, preceding the roast in the dinner. As a separate and distinct dish it can well be made to serve as a full meal, especially when tagliarini is prepared after the following recipe:

Tagliarini Des Beaux Arts

Cook one pound of tagliarini in boiling water twenty-five minutes, then draw off the water. To the tagliarini add a handful of mushrooms which have been sliced and fried in butter. Then add three chicken livers which have been chopped small and fried, one sliced truffle, one red pepper chopped fine and a little Parmesan cheese. Make a brown sauce of one-third beef broth thickened with melted butter and flour and two-thirds tomato sauce, and pour this over the tagliarini. Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese and serve very hot from a chafing dish. (By Oliver, chef of the Restaurant des Beaux Arts, Paris.)

In San Francisco one finds both the imported and the domestic paste, and frequently one hears the assertion that the imported is the better. This idea is born of the thought that all things from Europe are better than the same made in America. In fact the paste that comes from Italy is neither so good in taste, nor is it so clean in the making. We have visited a number of paste factories in San Francisco and have found them all scrupulously clean, with the best of materials in the composition of the pastes.

One often wonders how the pastes came to be so many and how they received their names. Names of some of them are accidents, as is illustrated by macaroni. According to an Italian friend who vouches for the fact, it received its name from an expression of pleasure. "Macari" means "fine, excellent," and the superlative is "macaroni." A famous Italian gourmet constantly desired new dishes to please his taste, and one day his chef carried to him something that was unusual. The gourmet tasted it, cried out "macari!" Tasted again, threw out his arms in delight and cried "macaroni!"

"What is the name of this wonderful dish?"

"You have named it. It is macaroni."

Tips and Tipping

Tipping is variously designated. Some say it is a nuisance and should be abolished. Some call it an outrage and ask for legislative interference. Some say it is an extortion and refuse to pay it. Some say it is a necessary evil and suffer it. The wise ones look at it a little differently. Possibly it is best explained or excused, whichever way you wish to call it, by one of Gouverneur Morris's characters in a recent story, who says:

"Whenever I go anywhere I find persons in humble situations who smile at me and wish me well. I smile back and wish them well. It is because at some time or other I have tipped them. To me the system has never been an annoyance but a delightful opportunity for the exercise of tact and judgment."

We look upon tipping as a part of expense to be calculated upon, necessary to insure good service, not only now but in the future, and it should always be computed in the expense of a trip or a dinner. Tipping, to our minds, is the oil that makes the wheels of life run smoothly.

The amount of the tip is always a matter of individual judgment, dependent upon the service rendered, and the way it is rendered. The good traveler wants to tip properly, neither too little nor too much, thereby getting the best service, for in the last analysis the pleasure of a trip depends upon the service received. American prodigality and asininity is responsible for much of the abuse of tipping. Too many Americans when they travel desire to appear important and the only way they can accomplish this is by buying the subserviency of menials who laugh at them behind their backs.

A tip should always depend upon the service rendered. We make it a rule to withhold the tip from a careless or inconsiderate waiter, and always add to the tip a word of commendation when there has been extra good service. The amount of the tip depends, first on the service, second on the amount of the bill, and third, on the character of the place where you are served. When we order a specially prepared dinner, with our suggestions as to its composition and service, we tip the head waiter, the chef, the waiter and the bus boy. We have given dinners where the tips amounted to fully half as much as the dinner itself, and we felt that this part of the expense brought us the greatest pleasure.

It is impossible to make a hard and fast rule regarding how much to give a waiter. Each person must use his or her own judgment. If you are in a foreign country you might do as we did on our first trip to Paris. We wanted to do what was right but not what most Americans think is right We were at a hotel where only French were usually guests, and in order to do the right thing we took the proprietor into our confidence and explained to him our dilemma. We asked him whom to tip and how much to give, and he got us out of our difficulty and we found that the tips amounted to about as much for one whole week as we had been held up for in one day at the Waldorf-Astoria.

The Mythical Land

Notwithstanding the fact that Webster gives no recognition in his dictionary to the Land of Bohemia or the occupants thereof, the land exists, perhaps not in a material way, but certainly mentally. Some have not the perception to see it; some know not the language that admits entrance; some pass it by every day without understanding it. Yet it as truly exists as any of the lands told of in our childhood fables and fairy stories.

The old definition of Bohemian was "a vagabond, a wayfarer." Possibly that definition may, to a certain extent, be true of the present-day Bohemian, for he is a mental vagabond and a mental wayfarer.

In our judgment the word comes from the French "Bon Homme," for surely the Bohemian is a "good man."

Whatever may be the derivation the fact remains that not to all is given the perception to understand, nor the eyes to see, and therein lies one of the dangers of writing such a book as this. If you read this and then hurry off to a specified restaurant with the expectation of finding the Bohemian atmosphere in evidence you are apt to be disappointed, for frequently it is necessary to create your own Bohemian atmosphere.

Then, too, all nights are not the same at restaurants. For instance if you desire the best service afforded in any restaurant do not select Saturday or Sunday night, but if you will lay aside your desire for personal comfort in service, and wish to study character, then take Saturday or Sunday night for your visit. It is very possible that you will think the restaurant has changed hands between Friday and Saturday. On Saturday and Sunday evening the mass of San Francisco's great cosmopolitan population holds holiday and the great feature of the holiday is a restaurant dinner, where there is music, and glitter, and joyous, human companionship. At such times waiters become careless and sometimes familiar. Cooks are rushed to such an extent that they do not give the care to their preparation that they take pride in on other nights, consoling themselves frequently with the thought that the Saturday and Sunday night patrons do not know or appreciate the highest form of gastronomic art.

Remember, also, that the world is a looking glass. Smile into it and it smiles back; frown and you get black looks. In Bohemia we sometimes find it well to overlook soiled table napery, sanded floor or untidy appearance. Of course this is not in the higher class of restaurants, but there are times and places when you must remember you are making a study of human interest and not getting a meal, and you must leave your fastidiousness and squeamishness at home.

It takes some time to get well within the inner circle of Bohemianism, but after you have arrived you have the password and all doors are open to you. If our friends think of a new story they save it up until our next coming and tell us something that always has a bearing on Bohemia. For instance, how few of us know the origin of the menu card. It seems to be a natural thing, yet, like all things, it had a beginning, and this is the way it began (according to a good friend who told it to us):

Frederick the Great was a lover of good eating and his chef took pride in providing new and rare dishes for his delectation. But it frequently occurred that the great ruler permitted his appetite to overcome his judgment, and he would eat so heartily of the food first set before him that when later and more delicious dishes came to the table he was unable to do them justice. To obviate this he ordered his chef to prepare each day a list of what was to be served, and to show their rotation during the meal, and in compliance with this order the first menu card was written. To Frederick the Great is also attributed the naming of the German bread now called pumpernickel. According to one of our Italian friends the story runs this way: Frederick wished some bread and his chef sent him in a loaf that was of unusual color and flavor. It did not please the king and he was not slow to express his disapproval. He owned a horse named Nicholas but commonly called "Nicho!" and when the chef appeared before him to receive his censure for sending in distasteful bread, Frederick threw the loaf at his head, exclaiming, "Bon pour Nichol." From this it received its name which has become corrupted to "pumpernickel."

After the doors are open to you, you will find not only many new stories, but you will learn of customs unusual and discover their origin dating back to the days whose history remains only in Folk Lore. You will be let into family secrets of the alien quarters, and will learn of hopes, aspirations, and desires, that will startle you with their strangeness. You will find artists, sculptors, and writers of verse in embryo, and if you remain long enough in the atmosphere you may see, as we have, some of these embryonic thinkers achieve fame that becomes nation wide.

It is said of the Islands of the South Seas that when one eats of certain fruit it creates such a longing that the mind is never content until another visit is made. San Francisco's Bohemia lays no claim to persuasive fruit, but it is true that when one breathes in the atmosphere of this mythical world it leaves an unrest that is only appeased by a return to where the whispering winds tell of Enchanted Land where "you get the best there is to eat, served in a manner that enhances its flavor and establishes it forever in your memory."

How to Serve Wines

A few hints regarding the proper serving of wines may not be amiss, and we give you here the consensus op opinion of the most noted gourmets who have made a study of the best results from combinations.

Never drink any hard liquors, such as whisky, brandy, gin, or cocktails, with oysters or clams, as it is liable to upset you for the rest of the evening.

With hor d'ourves serve vermouth, sherry, marsala or madeira wine.

With soup and fish serve white wines, such as Rhein wine, sauterne or white burgundy.

With entrees serve clarets or other red wines, such as Swiss, Bordeaux, Hungarian or Italian wines.

Burgandy may also be served at any of the later courses.

With roasts serve champagne or any of the sparkling wines.

With coffee serve kirch, French brandy or fine champagne.

After coffee serve a liqueur. Never serve more than one glass of any liqueur.

The following wines may be considered the best types:

Amontillado, Montilo and Olorosa sherries.

Austrian burgundy is one of the finest wines, possessing rich flavor and fine perfume.

Other burgundies are:

Chablis: A white burgundy, dry and of agreeable aroma.

Chambertin: A sound, delicate wine with a flavor resembling raspberry.

Clos de Vogeot: Similar to chambertin, and often called the king of burgandy.

Romanee: A very rare and costly wine of rich, ruby color, with a delicate bouquet.

Clarets are valued for their flavor and for their tonic properties. Some of the best are:

Chateau Grille: A desert wine of good flavor and fine aroma.

Chateau Lafitte: Has beautiful color and delicate flavor.

Chateau la Rose: Greater alcoholic strength and of fine flavor.

Chateau Margaux: Rich, with delicate flavor and excellent bouquet.

Pontet Canet: A heavier wine with good bouquet and fine flavor.

St. Julien: A lighter claret with good bouquet.

German wines are of lighter character, and are generally termed Rhein wines. The best varieties are:

Hochheimer: A light, pleasing and wholesome wine.

Brauneberger: A good variety with pleasing flavor and aroma.

Dreimanner: Similar to Brauneberger.

Deidesheimer: Similar to Brauneberger.

Graffenberg: Light and pleasant. Good aroma.

Johannisberger Schloss: One of the best of the German wines.

Rudesheimer Schloss: In class with Johannisberger.

Italian wines are mostly red, the most noted in California being Chianti, and its California prototype. Tipo Chianti, made by the Asti Colony.

Lacrima Christi Spumanti: The finest Italian champagne. Dry and of magnificent bouquet.

Vin d'Oro Spumanti: A high-class champagne. Sweet and of fine bouquet and flavor.

Lacrima Christi: A still wine of excellent flavor and bouquet.

Malaga: A wine of high repute. Sweet and powerful. A peculiar flavor is given to it through the addition of a small quantity of burned wine.

Marsala: Is a golden wine of most agreeable color and aroma.

Sauterne: Is a white Bordeaux, a strong luscious wine, the best known varieties being:

Chateau Yquem: Remarkable for its rich and velvety softness.

Barsac: Rich and good.

Chateau Filhot: Of rich color and good flavor.

Chateau Latour Blanche: A white sauterne of exquisite bouquet.

Haut Sauterne: Soft and mild. Of good flavor.

Vin de Graves: Good and Strong. Good aroma and flavor.

Vintage years have much to do with the quality of wines. The best vintage years are as follows:

Champagnes: 1892. Rhein and Moselle: 1893. Burgandy: 1892, 1899 and 1904. Claret: 1898 and 1904. Port: 1896 and 1904. Sherry: 1882, 1890, 1898 and 1900.

A Good Bohemian Dinner

Sometimes people desire to give a dinner and are at loss as to the proper time to serve wines. The following menu will give some ideas on the subject:

Menu

Gibson Cocktail Canape Norwegian

(Serve these before entering dining room)

Artichoke Hearts in Oil Ripe Olives Celery

Amontillado Sherry

Oysters on Half Shell

Bisque of Ecrevisse Chablis, or White Sauterne

Sand-dabs Edward VII Sliced Cucumbers, Iced

Escargot Francais Chateau Lafitte

Cassolette of Terrapin, Maryland Romanee

Tagliarini des Beaux Arts

Punch Pistache Cigarettes

Alligator Pears with Cumquats, French Dressing

Chicken Portola Krug Private Cuvee Brut

Creamed New Potatoes Celery Victor French Peas

Zabaione

Reina Cabot

Coffee Royal Cigarettes

Grand Marnier

In our travels through Bohemia it has been our good fortune to gather hundreds of recipes of new, strange and rare dishes, prepared by those who look farther than the stoking of the physical system in the preparation of foods. Some of these are from chefs in restaurants and hotels, some from men and women of the foreign colonies and some from good friends who lent their aid in our pleasurable occupation. That we cannot print them all in a volume of this size is our regret, but another book now in preparation will contain them, together with other talks about San Francisco's foreign quarters.

From our store we have selected the following as being well worth trying:

Onion Soup

Cut four large onions in large pieces and put them in six ounces of butter with pepper and salt. Slowly stew this in a little beef stock and a little milk, stirring constantly, for one hour. Add more stock and milk and let cook slowly for another hour. In a tureen place slices of bread sprinkled with two tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese. Beat the yolks of four eggs and mix them with a tablespoonful of the soup and pour this over the bread and cheese. Cover this for five minutes and then pour over it the rest of the soup.

Creole Gumbo Soup

Take two young chickens, cut in pieces, roll in flour and fry to light brown. Take the fried chicken, a ham bone stripped of meat for flavor, a tablespoonful of chopped thyme, of rosemary, two bay leaves, a sprig of tarragon and boil in four quarts of water until the meat loosens from the bones. Slice and fry brown two large onions and add two heaping quarts of sliced okra and one cut up pod of red pepper. Stir all over the fire until the okra is thoroughly wilted then remove the larger bones and let cook three quarters of an hour before serving. Half an hour before serving add a can of tomatoes or an equal quantity of fresh ones, and a pint of shrimps, boiled and shredded. Have a dish of well boiled and dry rice and serve with two or three tablespoonfuls in each soup plate.

Oyster Salad

To a solid pint of oysters use a dressing made as follows: Beat well two eggs and add to them half a gill each of cream and vinegar, half teaspoonful mustard, celery seed, salt each, one-tenth teaspoonful cayenne, and a tablespoonful of butter. Put all in a double boiler and cook until it all is as thick as soft custard (about six minutes), stirring constantly. Take from the fire. Heat the oysters in their own liquor to a boiling point then drain and add the dressing, mixing lightly. Set away in cold place until needed.

Italian Salad

Soak two salt herrings in milk over night and then remove the bones and skin and cut up in small pieces. Cut in small pieces one and one-half pounds each of cold roast veal and cold boiled tongue and add to these and the herrings six boiled potatoes, half a dozen small cucumber pickles and two small boiled beets, all cut up, and two raw apples, three boiled carrots and one large boiled celery root, all minced. Mix all the above in salad bowl and pour over it mayonnaise dressing. Garnish the tops with hard boiled eggs, sliced, and capers, and ripe olives from which the stones have been removed. Garnish the bowl with parsley and in the center put hard boiled eggs stuffed with capers.

Solari's Crab Louis

Take meat of crab in large pieces and dress with the following: One-third mayonnaise, two-thirds chili sauce, small quantity chopped English chow-chow, a little Worcestershire sauce and minced tarragon, shallots and sweet parsley. Season with salt and pepper and keep on ice.

Soles with Wine

Take fillets of sole and pound lightly with blade of knife then soak them two hours in beaten eggs seasoned with salt and pepper. When ready to cook roll them in bread crumbs and fry in olive oil. Take a little of that oil and put in another pan with a tablespoonful of butter and season with salt and pepper and again cook fish in this, adding half a glass of dry white wine. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and let cook five minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and put slices of lemon around it. Serve on hot plates.

Grilled Mushrooms

Skin and remove stalks from large fresh mushrooms and lay on a dish with a little fine olive oil, pepper, and salt, over them for one hour. Broil on a gridiron over a clear sharp fire and serve them with the following sauce:

Mushroom Sauce

Mince the stalks or any spare pieces of mushrooms fine, put in a stewpan with a little broth, some chopped parsley, young onions, butter and the juice of a lemon, or instead of the latter the yolk of an egg beaten up in cream. Beat all together and pour around the mushrooms.

Italian Turta

Cut very fine the tender part of one dozen artichokes. Take one loaf of stale bread crumbs, moisten and squeeze, and add three tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, three cloves of garlic, bruised, one onion chopped fine, several sprigs of parsley chopped fine, a little celery and half a cup of olive oil. Mix all together thoroughly with plenty of pepper and salt and make into a loaf. Bake slowly forty-five minutes.

Oeuffs Au Soliel

Poach eight fresh eggs then take them out and place in cold water until cool; lay them for a quarter of an hour to marinade in a glass of white wine with sweet herbs. Dry on a cloth and dip in a batter of flour mixed with equal quantities of ale and water to the consistency of double cream. Fry to light brown.

Eggs with Wine

Put three cupfuls of red wine Into a casserole and add three tablespoonfuls of sugar, rind of half a lemon, raisins, and sweet almonds, blanched and chopped. When the wine boils break the eggs into it as in poaching eggs. Let them cook well and then put in serving dish. Add one tablespoonful of flour to the wine and cook to a cream then pour over the eggs.

Italian Risotto

Soak two level teacups of rice. Mash two cloves of garlic and mix with a little minced parsley. Soak a dozen dried mushrooms in a little water until soft, then chop fine and drain. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with olive oil, place over the fire until quite hot, then put in the garlic, parsley, and mushrooms, add half a can of tomatoes and cook half an hour. Drain the rice and put in a saucepan, adding a little broth, half a cup at a time, to keep from burning, and add, stirring constantly, the other ingredients, cooking all together until the rice is done. Salt to taste; sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Scallops of Sweetbread

Parboil the sweetbreads and then glaze in reduced Allemande sauce. Dip in bread crumbs and fry in butter until a light brown. When done dish in close order and fill center with Toulouse Ragout, as follows:

Toulouse Ragout

Prepare half a dozen fine, large cockscombs, two dozen button mushrooms, small pieces of sweetbreads and a proportionate quantity of truffles. Place all in a stewpan and add a small ladleful of drawn butter sauce, and the juice of a lemon. Cook a few minutes.

Lamb Chops Marinade

Soak kidney lamb chops in the following mixture for twelve hours and then broil: Four tablespoonfuls olive oil, one tablespoonful tarragon vinegar, one small sliced onion, one mashed clove of garlic, one broken up bay leaf, twelve whole black peppers, six cloves, one saltspoon of salt, two teaspoonfuls dried thyme, strips of parsley and lemon peel.

Spanish Chicken Pie

Cut up a chicken and boil until tender. Cut up and fry in chicken fat two onions, two green peppers, stirring in one and one-half tablespoonfuls of flour. Have ready five tomatoes, stewed, and put in two dozen ripe olives with a small clove of garlic, mashed. Grate seven large ears of corn, season with salt and put a layer in a greased baking pan, then chicken, then the other ingredients, with a little of the gravy. Stir all together and bake until brown.

Chicken Jambalaya

Cut a young chicken into small pieces and stew until tender, having the meat covered with the broth when done. Remove the meat, drain and fry to light brown with two slices of onion. Put in the chicken, onion, and one hundred California oysters, back into the broth and season with salt, pepper, juice of a lemon, bruised clove of garlic, chopped green pepper, and a pinch of red pepper. Let all come to a boil. Wash and dry two cups of rice and put into the soup and cook until thoroughly done and moderately dry (twenty-five minutes). Serve hot or cold.

Quajatale En Mole

This is Mexican Turkey in Red Pepper, a favorite banquet dish. Cut a young turkey into small pieces and boil with shallots and salt. Take half a pound of red peppers, scalded and seeded, and grind fine with black peppers, celery seed, cloves, allspice, and mustard (about half a teaspoonful of each) and add to this some of the broth in which the turkey was cooked. Put a pound of lard in a skillet and, when boiling, put in the mixture with the turkey and let cook ten minutes, sending it to the table hot.

Delmonico Raisin Sauce

Brown butter in a skillet and stir in a teaspoonful of flour, forming a smooth paste. Add one cup of hot soup stock, stirring constantly. While boiling put into this a handful of raisins, handful of blanched almonds, pounded, half a lemon, sliced thin, a few cloves, a pinch of cinnamon, and a little horseradish. Fine for roast beef.

Poulet a la Napoli

Cut and trim a chicken as for fricassee. Take the wings, drumsticks, thighs and two pieces of the breast and steep them in cold water half an hour. Drain and wipe dry and dust over with flour and set aside.

Take the rest of the chicken with the giblets and chop small. With water let this simmer for two hours, making a strong broth with a little veal (two ounces or more). Slice an onion into rings which place in the bottom of a stewpan with an ounce of butter. To this add the meat and giblets and a pint of white broth. Let all simmer but not boil or let color. Over this pour common broth until covered and bring slowly to boiling point. Add a small bouquet of herbs and simmer for an hour, then strain. Thicken a little and then simmer in this the stalks and peelings of a quarter of a pound of mushrooms and the chicken that was previously prepared and dusted with flour. When done strain them and drain the chicken. Strain the sauce and thicken with flour until it is of the consistency of a rather thin batter.

Dip the pieces of chicken into the batter until well coated and set aside until it is cold. Then dip the chicken into well-beaten eggs and cover with bread crumbs. Let set and then repeat. In hot olive oil fry the chicken until a golden brown. Serve on a napkin and garnish with parsley and potatoes Duchesse. Cook the peeled mushrooms in the remaining sauce before the last thickening, and serve in gravy boat to pour over the chicken.

Zabaione

Beat together, hard, for six minutes, six eggs and four teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar in a double boiler and place over a gentle fire, never ceasing to whip until the contents become stiff enough to sustain a coffee spoon upright in the middle. While whipping add three wine-glassfuls of Marsala and one liqueur glass of Maraschino brandy. Pour into tall glasses or cups and serve either hot or cold.

Peaches a la Princesse

Halve six fine peaches, not too ripe, and place in saucepan with concave side up. Take one peach, peeled, and mince with a dozen macaroons, adding the yolk of an egg and half an ounce of sugar. Mix all well together and with this fill the half peaches. Moisten all with half a cup of white wine and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in a hot oven ten minutes and pour over zabaione and serve. This will make a most delicious dessert dish.

Sultana Roll

Add the beaten yolks of seven eggs to one pint of boiling milk, one cup of sugar, one-half teaspoonful of vanilla, one-quarter teaspoonful of almond extract. When thick add two and a half cups of thick cream. Cool and freeze. Line the bottom of a mold with Sultana raisins which have been soaked in sherry wine twenty-four hours. Put a layer of frozen cream, then raisins, continuing until all is used. Pack in ice and salt two hours and serve with caramel sauce.

Caramel Sauce

Butter the inside of a saucepan. Put in two ounces of unsweetened chocolate and melt over hot water. Add two cups of light brown sugar and mix well. Add one ounce of butter and half a cup of rich milk. Cook until mixture forms a soft ball when tested in cold water. Flavor with vanilla and pour, while hot, over each service of the roll. It immediately hardens, forming a delicious caramel covering to the ice cream.

Welsh Rarebit

Take one pound of mild American cheese and put in saucepan. Add five wineglassful of old ale, place over the fire and stir until it is thoroughly blended and melted. Pour this over slices of delicately browned toast, serving hot.

Coffee Royal

Take of the best Mocha coffee one part, of the best Java coffee two parts. Put six tablespoonfuls of the mixture into a bowl and add an egg, well beaten. Stir the mixture five minutes. Add half a cup of cold water, cover tightly and let stand several hours. Put into a coffeepot the coffee mixture and add four large cups of boiling water, stirring constantly. Let it boil briskly for five minutes only then set on the back of the stove five minutes. Before serving add a small tablespoonful of pure French brandy to each cup. Sweeten to taste.

Reina Cabot

Mix at table and serve on hot, toasted Bent's biscuit. Take a quarter of a pound of ripe, dark Roquefort cheese and rub with a piece of butter the size of a walnut until smooth, adding a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce and a wineglassful of sherry, with a pinch of paprika, rubbing until it is smooth. This is best mixed in shallow bowl or soup plate.

Virginia Egg Nog

Beat separately the yolks and whites of ten eggs, the yolks to a soft cream. To the beaten yolks add one pound of granulated sugar, beating until fully blended and very light. Let one quart of fresh milk come to a boil and pour over the yolk of egg and sugar, stirring constantly until well blended. To this add one gill of French brandy or one-half pint of good whisky. On top of this place the beaten white of egg and grated nutmeg. Serve either hot or cold.

Mint Julep

Bruise several sprigs of mint in a mixing glass with pulverized sugar. Fill the glass with ice and pour over it a jigger of whisky. Let stand for ten minutes and then put in a dash of Jamaica rum. Dress with sprigs of mint, and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve with straws.