Quaint Customs and Toothsome Dainties
By Frances R. Sterrett
Popular hotels and big cafés are much the same the world over, whether you find them in New York, Paris, Cairo or Calcutta. There is the same staff of uniformed, expectant servants, the same glittering decorations and appointments, the orchestra plays the same selections, and the throng of well-dressed guests looks as though it might have been transported bodily from one to the other. Love of variety sends the traveler, away from all this glare and glitter, to some quaint resort that had its group of patrons when the United States was young, and which still retains many of the customs that were features of the common life a century or more ago, and that now are so unusual that they prove strong magnets for the tourist.
Nearly everybody who goes to London finds his way, sooner or later, to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Wine Office Court. Tucked away, as it is, just off of Fleet Street, it presents anything but a pretentious appearance and more than one party of timid American women has hurried away, disappointed at sight of its dingy court. But the dinginess is all on the outside; within, there is light and warmth, and cheery greeting. The Cheese was a coffee house beloved by Samuel Johnson, and the chair in which the great man sat, night after night, while busy Boswell listened and took copious notes of the interchange of wits, is still there, standing now beneath the big portrait of Dr. Johnson that hangs on one side of the fireplace. Oliver Goldsmith was also a regular patron of the Cheese, which is one of the few meeting places of the literati of the eighteenth century that still remain. Indeed, these old relics of the past are fast disappearing. Five years ago, when I first visited the Cheese, the waiter, impressed with my interest in the old associations, asked if I would care to see the house in which Johnson lived. It was near at hand, but he said emphatically, "You'll have to hurry for they are tearing it down at this minute." Hurry we did and arrived in time to see the dismantling of the last row of windows.
Ye Olde Cheese is too good a source of revenue for it to be destroyed, and the prospects are that for years to come Americans will flock there to exclaim over the high paneled walls and the sanded floors. The tables still stand between high-backed benches, over which the newspapers are hung, as they were in Johnson's day. The old grill is on the second floor, and over its gleaming coals innumerable kidneys and chops have been brought to culinary perfection. Beefsteak pudding, which is served on Wednesdays, with all the pomp and ceremony of ancient days, is an attraction that fills the tables and sends away dozens of envious men and women, who can get no more than a sniff of the Old English dish, as it is borne in triumph through the rooms. Other days have their specialities, but it is the beefsteak pudding that is the favorite, and if you delay your arrival, the prospects are, you will have to be satisfied with a kidney or a chop, for not a scrap of pie is ever left.
But with toasted cheese to follow, the kidney is not a bad substitute, and it brings with it, also, a flavor of Dickens and Thackeray, whose heroes dined frequently on such fare. With the luncheon comes Devonshire cider, another speciality of the house, if you do not care for beer or ale, but beer or cider is served in reproductions of the pewter mugs that Dr. Johnson drank from, and, for a consideration, you can carry one away, wrapped in an odd bag of woven reeds.
The visitors' book at the Cheese makes interesting reading while you wait for your chop, for it is embellished with pen drawings by the famous artists of the world, and enriched with sentiments from poets, novelists, musicians, politicians, capitalists, and others whose names are known on more than one continent.
"Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, A Coffee House Beloved by Samuel Johnson"
Buszard's on Oxford Street is not as familiar to Americans, but it has an interest of its own, for it has made wedding cakes for royalty for many years, and the models displayed in the show-room form an amusing exhibition to the American who has little idea of what a royal wedding cake should be. There they stand six or seven feet tall and in as many tiers, each ornamented with almond icing, inches thick, and sugar piping, with coats of arms and heraldic devices, and bearing on top a sugar temple surmounted by doves and other hymeneal emblems.
The account of a fashionable wedding in the English society papers usually closes with the line, "Cake by Buszard" or Bolland, for Buszard in London and Bolland in Chester make most of the wedding cakes that are served in England, and they send hundreds of them to the colonies, so that the English bride, even if she be far from home, can have "Cake by Buszard."
And most delectable cake it is, too, and if you wander into the heavily furnished, rather gloomy tea-room at the tea hour, you will find it well filled with city and country people and a sprinkling of foreigners who are partaking of the conventional afternoon refreshment where their grandparents or great grandparents, perhaps, were refreshed. Tea for two shillings allows you to eat all the cake you wish, but unfortunately physical limitations prevent you from trying half of the delicious confections in the tray beside you, the almond pound, Dundee, Maderia simnel, rich currant, muscatel, green ginger, cheese cakes and Scotch short bread, all made from ancient recipes. It is difficult to choose a favorite, although the Scotch short bread never tastes quite the same as it does in one of the popular tea rooms on Princes Street in Edinburgh.
Newhaven, just outside of Edinburgh, used to be more famous for its fish dinners than it is now and, perhaps, you will find no other party in the hotel coffee room where at least four kinds of fried fish, no one of which you can find on this side of the water, are served for a shilling, sixpence. Newhaven is visited for its picturesque fishwives; and the women look more as though they had just been brought from Holland than as descendants of Scandinavians who crossed in the time of James IV. They have been singularly conservative in their habits, and, owing to a strict custom of intermarriages, there are only a few names to be found in this colony of fisher folk, who have to resort to nicknames for identification.
From the Coffee-Room Window you can
see the Quaint Newhaven Fishwives
If you are a tourist of the feminine gender, you will probably stop at the Globe Inn, in Dumfries, for a lemon squash, or a ginger ale, although you may be brave enough to ask the rosy-cheeked landlady for a small glass of what Robert Burns used to order; for the Globe Inn is the Burns' Howff, and down its narrow court the poet slipped nightly to the brightly-lighted room where his companions waited. The chair in which the poet lolled is still there, and a right stout affair it is, and with stout arms. It is kept securely locked behind wooden doors, and the landlady made a great ceremony of opening them and insisted on each of us trying the capacious seat.
"Perhaps you write poetry yourself?" she asked; but we had to confess that we felt no more gifted with rhymes in Burns' chair than in our own inglenook in America, and followed her up the stairs to the old-time room filled with relics.
"Americans come a long way to see these old pieces," she said, as she motioned majestically to a punch bowl, and then moved to the window on whose pane the poet had written the verses to "The Lovely Polly Stewart." "You seem to think a sight of Burns? There was one American gentleman who offered me a pot of money, if I would let him take the Howff to a fair in America, but I make a tidy living out of it here and God knows if we would ever live to cross the ocean. Burns lived and died here, and what would do for him will do for me," humbly.
There are many colleges in Oxford, but at no one of them is the tourist supposed to find refreshment in the dining halls, so that it was something of a triumph to be given a tart in one of the quaint old kitchens. The tart was really a tribute to an interest in the pantry shelves which were filled with pastry, and in the explanatory list that hung beside them. Tarts have been made in the same fashion at this Oxford college for several hundred years, in order, the cook explained, with a twinkle in his eye, that the students might get what they wanted, when they slipped down on a night tart raid. It is the nick in the edge that has told generations of students the contents of the tart; an apple has only one nick, a mince has two at each end, a gooseberry three, and so on until a student who has learned the rule can choose his favorite in the dark.
Winchester, the old royal city of England, has so many places of interest, the cathedral, the famous Winchester school, the castle, in which hangs King Arthur's round table as it has hung for several hundred years, that the traveler who is there but for a day may not have time to share the wayfarer's dole at St. Cross hospital which is distributed today just as Bishop Henry de Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror, arranged almost eight hundred years ago. This wayfarer's dole consists of a horn of ale and piece of white bread, and anyone who knocks at the hatchway of the porter's gate is entitled to receive it. About thirty wayfarers are given it daily as well as many notable people and curious travelers who knock at the door for the novelty of sharing in a picturesque survival of a mediæval charity. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of his experience, "Just before entering Winchester we stopped at the Church of St. Cross, and after looking through the quaint antiquity we demanded a piece of bread and a draught of ale, which the founder, Henry de Blois, in 1136, commanded should be given to everyone who should ask it at the gate. We had both from the old couple who take care of the church."
When you are in Paris you must not forget Rumpelmeyer, the "king of pastry makers." His shop is unpretentious, considering his vogue, and the room is all too small on a pleasant afternoon for the throng which would invade it. There are representatives from the far corners of the world. Americans are all about you; at the next table is a Russian grand duchess, perhaps, with her cavaliers; nearer the wall sits a woman from the Orient, whose soft silk draperies are in strange contrast to the modish Parisiennes; a group of children chatter of South Africa to their attendants and two natives from India have not doffed their spotless white turbans.
Sharing in a Picturesque Survival of a Mediæval Charity
Rumpelmeyer's might be considered a glorified cafeteria, and the great moment of your visit to the café is when you have taken the fork and plate from the smiling maid, and stand hesitating beside the table laden with cakes. And such cakes! Fluffy balls rolled in chocolate and cocoanut, maple crescents, diamonds of paste enriched with French fruits, tiny tarts filled with glacéd cherries, half an apricot or a plum; cornets heaped with cream of pistachio or strawberries, pastry and sweetmeats in every appetizing form, until it is difficult to make a choice. At last with plate laden you find your way to the table where something new in ices, cool or hot drinks, is served. And as you go away, you cast a lingering glance at the patisserie table and plan to come, again and again, until you have tried every kind, not knowing that new confections are offered every few days to make such a plan almost an impossibility.
The Hospitable People of Volendam
In strange contrast to the smart Parisian café is the Hotel Spaander in quaint Volendam, and if it is not the season you may be alone on the piazza which is swept by the bracing winds from the Zuyder Zee, and where the picturesque hospitable people give you a cordial greeting. And palatable as were the marvelous cakes of Paris, they were no better than the Dutch raisin bread, Edam cheese and mild beer that forms your luncheon. Volendam is but next door to Edam, the home of the popular cheeses, and the thin shavings seem to have been made to accompany the delicious raisin bread of Holland. The Spaander is a popular rendezvous for artists, and the big rooms have been adorned with paintings and sketches by the men and women who have enjoyed its hospitality. The bright-faced girl, who serves you, was taught to speak English, perhaps, by some artist who may be a member of the British Royal Academy now, and she loves to tell you of the notable people who have come and gone, and she fairly carries you away to see the homes of the fisher folk. She explains their marvelous clothes, and declares that the huge silver buttons worn by the men and boys were used as a mark of identification in case of drowning, for each district in Holland has its own design. She calls your attention to the old china, pewter and brass, and giggles approval when you pass the school and slip a copper into each of the wooden shoes at the door.
Everybody takes at least one ice at Florian's on St. Mark's Square in Venice for at Florian's you are sure to see the world and his wife, especially, if you are there on an evening when the band plays in the square. Florian's ices are world renowned, and its patrons are as cosmopolitan as Rumpelmeyer's, and, as you eat your way through the pink or chocolate cone of sweetness, you will find the price of it in the bottom of the dish. There is no room for argument over the charge, for in the bottom of every dish, in plain figures, is its cost, two francs or two francs, fifty. And after you have paid the reckoning, the waiter turns over the dish as a sign that your debt is canceled, and you are at liberty to sit and listen to the music and watch the people for as long as you wish.
Nearly every European city has a café or a restaurant that is of special interest, not because of its smart patronage or high prices, but for its quaint customs, old dishes or drinks, and it varies the routine of galleries and historic buildings to hunt them out. They add a spice, a zest, to what might become rather a dreary round of sight seeing, for no one appreciates the old customs more than the American. There are some travelers who make a point of stopping at the Three Tuns in Durham, no more to see Durham's beautiful cathedral, if the truth were told, than to have the trim maid bring them a tiny glass of cherry brandy to "drink to the health of the house," a custom that was young two hundred years or more ago, although it must be confessed that, while the custom has been retained, the glasses that hold the delicious cordial are considerably smaller than they were in the days when the request was first made.