A Beefsteak Feed

New York, 1895

The Chub Club Visits a Famous New York Resort.

The Chub Club, with a number of invited guests, on Wednesday evening visited the world renowned establishment of "Beefsteak John" in New York, where they indulged in one of the beefsteak dinners for which this resort is noted. A member of the party describes this unique affair as a most enjoyable one.

The ceremony of cooking and eating the beefsteak takes place in a carpenter shop, the divers being seated on stools, boxes, nail kegs, or whatever may be handy. No tables, crockery or cutlery are used, the steak being eaten from the hand. The proprietor, a man over 80 years of age, cooks the steaks in a stove made in 1785, over a fire of hickory wood, the juicy slices being laid on small pieces of bread and passed around, the guests being provided with large towels to prevent soiling their clothing. Celery and radishes are served in tin pans or pails and "brown October ale" in mugs or cups. The steak is most delicious and as tender as chicken.

Henry Miller, the aged proprietor, has often visited Jamaica in years gone by, and on Wednesday evening related some of his experiences here, particularly some reminiscences of "Cale" Weekes. Upon the register of guests appear the names of celebrated judges, actors, statesmen, and writers, many of whom have attested their enjoyment of the feasts they attended.

It is reported that a member of the Chub Club took copious notes of the proceedings and will re-produce the dinner with new and interesting features in the near future.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 1, 1895, p. 1.

No Cause For Him to Complain

1902

"See here," remarked the guest to the new waiter, "there doesn't seem to be any soup on this menu card."
"Oh, no, sir," replied the waiter, nervously, "I didn't spill it at this table — it was the one on the other side of the room." — Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.


Satiric

"Don't you think that some people in society are very deficient in manners?" said the man who had been annoyed by a box party.
"Perhaps," answered Miss Cayenne; "but possibly they are not to blame. They have to meet so many customs house inspectors, you know." — Washington Star.


As She Reasoned It

"It is but natural," said Mrs. Van Scadders, "that those who possess wealth should consider themselves the best people."
"I don't quite follow you?"
"It is an axiom that everything is for the best."
"Yes."
"And the people with money are the only ones who have a chance to get everything." — Washington Star.

Current Turkey Models Are Bigger and Heavier

1934

Shifting of styles in turkeys is under way, according to L. E. Cline of the Nevada agricultural extension service, who recently finished a study of the present market for the holiday birds. The 1934 model will be bigger and heavier, Mr. Cline says, reflecting a consumer demand for a different type of bird which has been increasing since last Christmas.

The shift is a return to the turkey in greatest demand some time ago, the extension man says, and may be an indication of better economic conditions. In recent years the smaller birds have brought the best prices. Demands from restaurants and cabarets for larger breast meat has been an important factor in the change in consumer requirements.

A premium of one or more cents a pound is now being paid for the heavier turkeys, while for the last two or three years the price was that amount under the sum paid for lighter birds.

This condition always shows a decidedly healthy tone of the market, and if it prevails through the coming marketing season, as indications point, there will be a distinct advantage to the turkey producer.

Head Waiters

1917

A head waiter must always be able to tell at a glance how much money you are going to spend so that he will be able to sneer at you accordingly. When a restaurant proprietor hires a new head waiter he expects to be greatly humiliated. To make a favorable impression the head waiter mast be able to give the proprietor a look that will make him feel pretty cheap. Before the interview is over the proprietor is showing the head waiter his family portrait album.

The head waiters in the magazines and movies could never hold real jobs because they have been seen to smile and bow. If a real head waiter ever smiled at a customer he would break out with a rash, and if he ever bowed it would cause internal injuries.

There may come a day when a head waiter's bows and smiles may be had at moderate prices. At present, however, they are within the reach of few. - Brooklyn Eagle.

Why Restaurants Are Sometimes Insanitary

1916

By Woods Hutchinson
The World's Best Known Writer on Medical Subjects

There is little actual reason for the public to become wildly alarmed over this 99½% per cent badness in the official scoring of restaurants and lunch counters, because conditions in public eating places have probably always been just as bad as they are now since the time when memory of man runneth not back to the contrary — and we still survive in a moderate state of preservation. The only reason why we didn't know of them was that no private individual had the stomach, and no public official took the trouble to penetrate those steamy and smelly regions of mystery behind the battered and sweat-marked swinging door at the back of the eating room. The occasional whiffs which escaped from there when the wind was in the right quarter were quite enough.

In the language of the hymn, there are some things which "'tis better not to know." But now that their nauseating secrets have been discovered and dragged out into the pitiless light of day and published broadcast, there is only one thing to be done, and that is, wipe them out of existence, as the restaurateurs have crestfallenly recognized and are proceeding to do with the best grace they may. Of twenty-two reinspected over half were found to have made marked improvement.

Not Finicky Verdict

Nor can it fairly be claimed that this extraordinary low rating of a great group of successful restaurants is due to finicky and unattainable standards of healthfulness. This was the not unnatural conclusion suggested in a good many of the first comments upon the findings. There is nothing superfine or fantastic about the shortcomings reported, nothing that requires a microscope to see or a chemical reaction to detect. Just an ordinary eye and an unspoiled nose and an average sense of decency and cleanliness are all that is required.

No scrapings were made from walls or refrigerators, or the cuffs and lapels of waiters' jackets, no bacteriologic counts made of the platings, no analyses for tenths of a per cent of some adulterant, or for the use of wood vinegar in place of cider vinegar in the dressings. Every fault found was perfectly visible to the naked eye. Food was found standing or stored on the floor. Cooks were found preparing dishes with unwashed hands and in filthy, ragged clothing.

Scraps and leavings from the plates were resurrected in the next day's soups and stews and minces. "Spot" eggs and low grade, that is, rancid, butter, were used in the pastry and puddings which could not be sold upon the delicatessen counters in open daylight was sent back to the restaurant and concocted into goulashes and ragouts and hamburger steaks. The phrase "in the soup" has acquired a new and sinister significance. Dishes and plates were only half cleaned in greasy, reeking dishwater, or wiped upon slimy, filthy dish towels. Dish washers, scullery men, and even cooks and waiters were found with skin diseases of the hands and face, catarrh, tuberculosis, even typhoid, and other disgusting or communicable disorders.

Dark Kitchens Menace

In fact, as Inspector Brown quietly remarks, "The requirements for scoring the grade 'good' are only such as any citizen would wish and expect for the handling of his own food." They are nothing more than would be expected as a matter of course, in any decent private kitchens. Not that all home kitchens do come up to these standards, but a good many of them do.

One of the reasons why public kitchens have got into this slipshod, unhygienic custom of the trade way of doing things is partly because they are Over-crowded and badly lighted, and either on account of high rents, or of the desirability of using as much as possible of the front and well lighted, attractive parts of their space for dining rooms, show windows and display purposes generally, the kitchens and sculleries are crowded into back rooms or driven underground into cellars or basements.

Anything can happen and usually will happen in the dark or in a bad light, and practically every dark corner sooner or later becomes dirty and unsanitary. Commercialism and cooking don't mix well and when the cook's eye is chiefly on profits, stomachs are apt to suffer.

Men Gloomy at Breakfast, Waiter Says

1903

"Our business wouldn't be so disagreeable if we didn't have to serve breakfast to men," said a waiter in one of the better cafes one morning last week. "See that fellow over there? Well, naturally he's one of the best fellows that eats here, and at dinner he is a prince and never growls at anything, but at breakfast he always has a kick coming.

"It's the same way with nearly all men. They act as if they had got out of bed backward. In the morning they are nearly all of them cross, hard to please.

"It isn't the same with women. The reverse is true of them. If they find fault at all it is generally at dinner. Most women are as sweet-tempered in the morning as in the evening. If the men were as consistent we would not have so hard a time of it."