It is these bar pilots who have a unique organization, virtually a family affair. To become a bar pilot you must either be born into the family or marry into it. Talk about your tight little corporations and monopolies! Bricklayers and other trade unions are accused of limiting memberships and daily numbers of bricks to be laid in order to hike wages. This "union" does the same thing by means of a sort of birth control feature. It's a honey of a trust. These bar pilots, I hear from pretty reliable source, get from twelve to fifteen thousand per year and work about six months of the year.
Last Tuesday morning, the Director of Commerce of the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans called to invite us on a tour of the harbor, along with some eight or 10 shippers. . . New Orleans shipping is tremendous, second only to New York. I casually mentioned San Francisco and was told that New Orleans had more shipping than the combined West Coast. Generally speaking, it draws the territory drained by the Mississippi River. New Orleans has 10 to 12 miles of wharves. On the trip we surely saw more than 100 ships, barges, ferries and other big water craft. Two ships were unloading thousands of cases of pineapples, so our local A&P store should be stocked with pineapple for you by now.
TIME IS A SEASONING AT ANTOINE'S
That evening the director and his wife took a local Democratic official and his wife and Aura May and me to Antoine's for dinner. Antoine's is an institution. Established in 1840, it has served food uninterruptedly, and is now owned and operated by a grandson of its founder.
The building, tableware and linen are severely plain. The waiters are noiseless and speak many languages. No bands, orchestras or entertainers—"You go to Antoine's to give your palate an undisturbed treat." No bar—"It is people who drink without eating who become paralyzed by alcohol." Yet it has a narrow wine cellar a block long, containing well over 5,000 bottles. The oldest wines date back to 1884, the oldest brandy to 1811.
Its gallery of celebrities contains over 2,000 autographs and pictures of distinguished visitors. Besides the main dining room, it has 15 others. One room's floor, the Mystery Room, is covered with sawdust. Guests have included Marshall Foch, Sarah Bernhardt, Will Rogers, Jenny Lind, Caruso, Edwin Booth, "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, General Pershing, down to enough U.S. Senators and Congressmen to ruin anybody's country.
The present head waiter has been there 40 years, his predecessor 50 years. Bus boys must serve an apprenticeship of 10 years. Time is a necessary element in the proper preparation of food at Antoine's. If you are in a hurry, Antoine's recommends you go to the corner drug store.
But let's get back to dinner before it gets cold. We started off with a cocktail of something. I think our host said it contained applejack, champagne and some other ingredient. It had a white collar like the beaten white of an egg. Then came "Oysters Rockefeller," so named because of the richness of the sauce . . . The recipe for this sauce is a closely guarded family secret. The dish consists of six oysters on the half shell. A much used pie tin is filled with rock salt to hold the heat indefinitely. The oysters covered with the sauce are imbedded in this salt and baked. The concoction, pie tin and all, is served on a plate.
Due to the salt, the oysters and sauce will remain hot for perhaps a half hour. Many a worthy brother's and sister's tongues have been blistered. Since 1899, the management has given with each order a post card showing the number of your order. Mine was 1301744. And so, figuring six oysters to each order, we find that the actual number of oysters used to date has been near eight million.
I had fish—Pompano en papillote—pompano served in paper bags (rumor hath it that the paper bag retains all the flavor), with Pommes Soufflees, or a glorified branch of fry or potato chips blown up like large flat pea pods with peas removed.