Where buckwheat meal, as in the Western prairies, cannot always be had, a good and orthodox substitute is the slap-jack, which is made and served in precisely the same way, the only difference being that of the material, which is wheaten flour. As this latter preparation is capable, and I think worthy, of acclimatisation, I will mention that the batter from which it is made has no other ingredients than flour, water, and soda. The griddle must be rubbed with a piece of suet before it is heated, and again before it is used. Serve in threes—very hot—with butter and syrup, as with the buckwheat cakes. I picked up this bit of culinary lore at a solitary ranche on the plains, where, having exhausted all the more obvious resources of the place, there was nothing else to do.
At the great hotels five meals a day are allowed. This is too much, not for the hotels, for such liberality is attractive (of course they all have a fixed price per day, ranging from three and a half to five dollars, for bed and board), but it is too much for the guests who avail themselves of it.
I need not go into particulars as to how the great American nation dines. If a man has breakfasted as he ought, and spent the day as he ought, he may dine as he pleases. No people in the world have a greater variety of materials for dining well than they have; perhaps no people so great a variety. Their beef and mutton are (thanks to our climate) not quite up to the English mark, but they are better than any on the continent of Europe. In variety, however, of materials they far exceed us. In Ohio and Kentucky they have naturalised the pheasant. The domestic turkey, as might be expected in the native region of its race, is so abundant as to be almost within everybody’s reach. The same may be said of all kinds of poultry. This results from the great number and smallness of the farms in America, and from the abundance of Indian corn. There is also no scarcity of prairie game and quail. Wild venison is to be had everywhere, which, when properly kept and cooked, as I have seen it at Southern tables, is as tender as chicken, though entirely devoid of fat. I once saw terrapin soup and stewed terrapin on the menu; and thinking that I should frequently see them there again, I let that opportunity for qualifying myself to form some opinion of their merits pass by, and no other opportunity occurred—I suppose because it was not the season for it. I let pass in the same way all opportunities at New York for making myself acquainted with the merits of the buffalo, thinking that I should frequently meet with it in the West. When at Denver I received an invitation to sup on buffalo, which was the only chance I had in the West; and this invitation I was unable to accept. Stewed clams and clam soup are not bad. Soft-shelled crabs are not good. There is a very great variety of wild fowl: at Mobile, and in a still greater degree at New Orleans, I was astonished at the number of species I saw in the market. At the head of all these stands the world-renowned canvas-back. No one, I believe, ever found him inferior to his reputation: of all the feathered tribe he is the tenderest and the most juicy. If he has come from the Potomac, he has a fine flavour of the wild celery, which is there his chief food. The red-head duck has the second place in point of excellence.
American Vivres.
But what I put first on the list of all the good things of America is its oyster. It is two or three times the size of the European bivalve; I think more tender, and certainly of a more delicate flavour. It has also the great merit of being entirely free from any trace of a coppery taste, which habit and necessity only have brought us to tolerate in our own mollusk. To all its other merits it adds this great one—that it exists in incredible and inexhaustible quantities: and we know that it was abundant in the remote epochs of the past; because on the coasts of the Southern States we find long ridges of its shells, which must have been the slow accumulations of the thousands of years during which some savage race, that has left behind it in these mounds no record of any capacity for improvement or progress, was in the habit of fishing it from the contiguous beds, and leaving its shells on the nearest beach. This race has passed away without having left any record of its existence except these heaps of oyster shells. But the descendants of the oysters they lived upon still exist, and their shells are dispersed, by the aid of the locomotive, over the whole continent. How interesting and suggestive a contrast is here! But to keep to our subject: these oysters exist in such abundance that in the Gulf of Mexico I saw them bailed into the boats as fast as the men who were taking them could work their rakes. There are enough of them taken for a large trade with the towns in the interior, to which they are sent either fresh or in tins. Wherever you go you have them in some form or other—scalloped, stewed, uncooked, or in soup—every day; at some places you see them on the bills of fare for breakfast, dinner, and supper. As on my return to England we were supplied with them throughout the voyage, and as our own oysters have of late been selling at a famine price, I do not see why we should not import a part of our supply from America.
As far as I was able to judge from what I saw (my experience was confined to the winter), I thought that in fish we had the advantage of the Americans, both in variety and quality. Their white fish and bass are good. The latter is best when broiled. I mention this as I am not aware that we cook our bass in this way.
Maize enters largely into the dietary of Americans, and is used in a hundred forms. Well-prepared hominy is a good substitute for rice as a vegetable adjunct to roast meat or stews. It ought to be as white as paper, but to prepare it in this way requires a tedious process, for it must be soaked for a long time in a strong lye, to get rid of its yellow skin. Maize bread is good only for a few minutes after it is taken out of the oven. As soon as it ceases to be warm, moist, and soft, it ceases to be eatable. The sweet potatoes of America are as superior to those of Algeria and the south of Europe as Stilton cheese is to that of Suffolk. The best are grown in the sandy soils of the South. In South Carolina from two to five hundred bushels per acre are harvested. Pigs will fatten on them, and men can live on pork and sweet potatoes. But no dependence can be placed on this root, as in some years, for reasons that have not been discovered, they will not keep.
To those who are desirous of introducing a little variety into their Christmas dinner I would recommend an American practice of serving the turkey with hot apple jam. I need hardly say this is a very different thing from apple sauce. There may, however, be some difficulty in getting the jam made, as I do not recollect having often seen it in England. I would also recommend for that festive season an American method of improving mince pies. On this side it is sometimes objected to this time-honoured institution, that there is a ha’p’orth of mincemeat to an intolerable quantity of crust: with their unfailing readiness of invention they have hit on the method of uniting what with us would be two or three dozen small pies, almost all crust, into one large raised pie, which they help in pieces or slices. This completely meets the objection.
The fire which the Confederates kindled in Richmond to destroy the tobacco that was in the city at the time the Northern army were about to enter spread rapidly, as there was a strong wind at the time, and destroyed the whole of the lower part of the town. This was the quarter that was chiefly occupied by the large flour-mills and other manufactories of the place; it contained also many of the largest stores. A great part of what was burnt has been rebuilt, chiefly, I understood, by Northern capital. At the time, however, of my visit the work of reconstruction was at a standstill; and I saw considerable spaces occupied only with the débris of former buildings. One might have expected that factories would not be rebuilt just yet, as trade has been dull everywhere since the war, and as the Virginians themselves, like all the Southern people, are utterly ruined. But that any part of Richmond will ever remain in ruins it is difficult to believe, for one cannot imagine a city more advantageously situated. Nature has made it the commercial centre of a State which in climate, soil, and abundance of water communication is unrivalled in the Union. It may be regarded as the inland point upon which a great extent of natural navigation converges. In the rapids of the James River it possesses within the city great manufacturing power. In tobacco also it has an agricultural product for export which is already enormous, and which, as all the world wants it, may be increased to a practically unlimited extent. Nothing, I think, is needed for enabling it to go ahead as fast as any Western city but just a little time for arranging matters in the town and in the neighbouring country on the new basis, and so launching it on a career of prosperity which nothing henceforth will be likely to check. As far as I am able to judge, the two best speculations in the United States are buying land in Virginia (where it may now be had in abundance at two or three shillings an acre—land that must soon be settled in the Northern fashion) and in California, which will be flooded with immigrants as soon as the Pacific Railroad is opened through, and this is advertised for next year.
Prospects of Richmond.