Europe Revised — 18 - Ch. IX: The Deadly Poulet Routine, pt. 1

The Deadly Poulet Routine Under the head of European disillusionments I would rate, along with the vin ordinaire of the French vineyard and inkworks, the barmaid of Britain.

From what you have heard on this subject you confidently expect the British barmaid to be buxom, blond, blooming, billowy, buoyant--but especially blond.

On the contrary she is generally brunette, frequently middle-aged, in appearance often fair-to-middling homely, and in manner nearly always abounding with a stiffness and hauteur that would do credit to a belted earl, if the belting had just taken place and the earl was still groggy from the effects of it.

Also, she has the notion of personal adornment that is common in more than one social stratum of women in England.

If she has a large, firm, solid mound of false hair overhanging her brow like an impending landslide, and at least three jingly bracelets on each wrist, she considers herself well dressed, no matter what else she may or may not be wearing.

Often this lady is found presiding over an American bar, which is an institution now commonly met with in all parts of London.

The American bar of London differs from the ordinary English bar of London in two respects, namely--there is an American flag draped over the mirror, and it is a place where they sell all the English drinks and are just out of all the American ones.

If you ask for a Bronx the barmaid tells you they do not carry seafood in stock and advises you to apply at the fishmongers'--second turning to the right, sir, and then over the way, sir--just before you come to the bottom of the road, sir.

If you ask for a Mamie Taylor she gets it confused in her mind with a Sally Lunn and sends out for yeastcake and a cookbook; and while you are waiting she will give you a genuine Yankee drink, such as a brandy and soda--or she will suggest that you smoke something and take a look at the evening paper.

If you do smoke something, beware--oh, beware!

--of the native English cigar.

When rolled between the fingers it gives off a dry, rustling sound similar to a shuck mattress.

For smoking purposes it is also open to the same criticisms that a shuck mattress is.

The flames smolder in the walls and then burst through in unexpected places, and the smoke sucks up the airshaft and mushrooms on your top floor; then the deadly back draft comes and the fatal firedamp, and when the firemen arrive you are a ruined tenement.

Except the German, the French, the Belgian, the Austrian and the Italian cigar, the English cigar is the worst cigar I ever saw.

I did not go to Spain; they tell me, though, the Spanish cigar has the high qualifications of badness.

Spanish cigars are not really cigars at all, I hear; they fall into the classification of defective flues.

Likewise beware of the alleged American cocktail occasionally dispensed, with an air of pride and accomplished triumph, by the British barmaid of an American bar.

If for purposes of experiment and research you feel that you must take one, order with it, instead of the customary olive or cherry, a nice boiled vegetable marrow.

The advantage to be derived from this is that the vegetable marrow takes away the taste of anything else and does not have any taste of its own.

In the eating line the Englishman depends on the staples.

He sticks to the old standbys.

What was good enough for his fathers is good enough for him--in some cases almost too good.

Monotony of victuals does not distress him.

He likes his food to be humdrum; the humdrummer the better.

Speaking with regard to the whole country, I am sure we have better beef uniformly in America than in England; but there is at least one restaurant on the Strand where the roast beef is just a little bit superior to any other roast beef on earth.

English mutton is incomparable, too, and English breakfast bacon is a joy forever.

But it never seems to occur to an Englishman to vary his diet.

I submit samples of the daily menu: LUNCHEON DINNER

Roast Beef Boiled Mutton Boiled Mutton Roast Beef Potatoes, Boiled Cabbage, Boiled Cabbage, Boiled Potatoes, Boiled Jam Tart Custard Custard Jam Tart Cheese Coffee Coffee Cheese TEA!

I know now why an Englishman dresses for dinner--it enables him to distinguish dinner from lunch.

His regular desserts are worthy of a line.

The jam tart is a death-mask that went wrong and in consequence became morose and heavy of spirit, and the custard is a soft-boiled egg which started out in life to be a soft-boiled egg and at the last moment--when it was too late--changed its mind and tried to be something else.

In the City, where lunching places abound, the steamer works overtime and the stewpan never rests.

There is one place, well advertised to American visitors, where they make a specialty of their beefsteak-and-kidney pudding.

This is a gummy concoction containing steak, kidney, mushroom, oyster, lark--and sometimes W and Y. Doctor Johnson is said to have been very fond of it; this, if true, accounts for the doctor's disposition.

A helping of it weighs two pounds before you eat it and ten pounds afterward.

The kidney is its predominating influence.

The favorite flower of the English is not the primrose.

It is the kidney.

Wherever you go, among the restaurants, there is always somebody operating on a steamed flour dumpling for kidney trouble.

The lower orders are much addicted to a dish known--if I remember the name aright--by the euphonious title of Toad in the Hole.

Toad in the Hole consists of a full-grown and fragrant sheep's kidney entombed in an excavated retreat at the heart of a large and powerful onion, and then cooked in a slow and painful manner, so that the onion and the kidney may swap perfumes and flavors.

These people do not use this combination for a weapon or for a disinfectant, or for anything else for which it is naturally purposed; they actually go so far as to eat it.

You pass a cabmen's lunchroom and get a whiff of a freshly opened Toad in the Hole--and you imagine it is the German invasion starting and wonder why they are not removing the women and children to a place of safety.

All England smells like something boiling, just as all France smells like something that needs boiling.

Seemingly the only Londoners who enjoy any extensive variety in their provender are the slum-dwellers.

Out Whitechapel-way the establishment of a tripe dresser and draper is a sight wondrous to behold, and will almost instantly eradicate the strongest appetite; but it is not to be compared with an East End meatshop, where there are skinned sheep faces on slabs, and various vital organs of various animals disposed about in clumps and clusters.

I was reminded of one of those Fourteenth Street museums of anatomy--tickets ten cents each; boys under fourteen not admitted.

The East End butcher is not only a thrifty but an inquiring soul.

Until I viewed his shop I had no idea that a sheep could be so untidy inside; and as for a cow--he finds things in a cow she didn't know she had.

Breakfast is the meal at which the Englishman rather excels; in fact England is the only country in Europe where the natives have the faintest conception of what a regular breakfast is, or should be.

Moreover, it is now possible in certain London hotels for an American to get hot bread and ice-water at breakfast, though the English round about look on with undisguised horror as he consumes them, and the manager only hopes that he will have the good taste not to die on the premises.

It is true that, in lieu of the fresh fruit an American prefers, the waiter brings at least three kinds of particularly sticky marmalade and, in accordance with a custom that dates back to the time of the Druids, spangles the breakfast cloth over with a large number of empty saucers and plates, which fulfill no earthly purpose except to keep getting in the way.

The English breakfast bacon, however, is a most worthy article, and the broiled kipper is juicy and plump, and does not resemble a dried autumn leaf, as our kipper often does.

And the fried sole, on which the Englishman banks his breakfast hopes, invariably repays one for one's undivided attention.

The English boast of their fish; but, excusing the kipper, they have but three of note--the turbot, the plaice and the sole.

And the turbot tastes like turbot, and the plaice tastes like fish; but the sole, when fried, is most appetizing.

I have been present when the English gooseberry and the English strawberry were very highly spoken of, too, but with me this is merely hearsay evidence; we reached England too late for berries.

Happily, though, we came in good season for the green filbert, which is gathered in the fall of the year, being known then as the Kentish cobnut.

The Kentish cob beats any nut we have except the paper-shell pecan.

The English postage stamp is also much tastier than ours.

The space for licking is no larger, if as large--but the flavor lasts.