To Panama and back

by Henry T. Byford

I confess that I was considerably surprised at the old-fashioned provincial aspect of the town, and concluded that it was a better place than it appeared to be. Like New Orleans, it had a good harbor, had wealth, was the seaport of a prosperous Southern state, and imported bananas; yet it looked to me very much like a large country town of one business street. It belonged to the older generation of cities, already in a senile stage of existence. But the old aristocrats, who had been too proud to engage in commercial pursuits or to encourage their sons to do so, were nearly all dead, and the town, under the influence of new ideas, was beginning a new life and taking on new growth and development. So I resolved to test her with café-au-lait, and hurried out in search of the Battle House of antebellum fame. I finally found a shabby old building that had seen better days, with an unexpectedly aristocratic-looking restaurant under it full of well-dressed negro waiters, who bowed and scraped and ran on tiptoe as they always do where the tipping system is in vogue. It was the waiters’ way of announcing the fact to their victims. But the poor fellows (the waiters) served them (their victims) with a sort of feverish anxiety, and served them well and swell, and thus almost justified the system. My waiter was not, however, as good a Frenchman in scholarship as in manners, for although he understood my order for an omelette, he did not understand “café-au-lait,” or “coffee with hot milk.” Hot milk was too plebeian—cream was served in his restaurant.

After a long wait my breakfast came. The omelette was good, but the rolls were American biscuit rolls, damp, soft, lukewarm and flavorless. And the hot milk was in a tiny lunch-counter pitcher that held less than two tablespoonfuls. The coffee was clear and unadulterated, and therefore genuine United States made coffee. When U. S. makes coffee that is clear, U. S. thinks she has made coffee. She uses good or bad Mocha and Java in moderate quantity, but in order to make it clear she puts an egg in it which hardens about the grounds before the full flavor has been extracted, and thus much of the flavor remains at the bottom of the pot to be boiled out and developed for the servants and the waste-pail. Then the drinker covers up the taste with rich cream, thinking that the flavor, being covered up, cannot get away. Such coffee is comparatively harmless to the commonwealth, and on that account deserves its popularity. It is one of the few popular things that are harmless.

One of the advantages of café-au-lait is that the proportion of the two ingredients can be varied to suit the taste or idiosyncrasy of the drinker. Those who can not drink strong coffee can diminish the proportion of coffee with milk until but little coffee is used, and those who can not drink full strength milk can reduce the quantity of milk until but little milk is used. The palate will soon become accustomed to what is habitually drunk and may finally be taught to prefer either dilution.

I ate my breakfast and my hunger was appeased; but as I had started out to get a hot drink rather than something to eat, I was not satisfied, and the enjoyment of the meal was incomplete. I do not wish to say anything derogatory to the Battle House restaurant, for the hotel has died since (was burned up) and therefore deserves to be eulogized. In fact, I wish to praise the restaurant on patriotic grounds. It made American coffee and deserves praise for being American instead of French, which in itself is the highest praise I can give. But it did not occur to me to feel patriotic at the time. The temperature, following the “norther,” was 36 degrees F., the most chilling and unpatriotic temperature of the whole Fahrenheit system, and as I went out into the street my thoughts were still upon a good, hot, comforting cup of coffee. I therefore resolved to try again, and finally found a low-down restaurant on the corner of Royal Street near the station and got a cup of their cheap coffee, probably ordinary South American or Central American, which might have been thickened and blackened by a little chicory. It was not as clear and delicate as that of the Battle House, but it had more flavor. I asked for hot milk and when I had diluted the coffee nearly one half, the mixture still had flavor. I could have drunk three or four cupfuls. The charge for it was five cents. The price was the only bad thing about it, and I almost felt un-American at having enjoyed five cents so hugely. I felt humiliated, but I felt good.

The Central American coffee is quite bitter when well made. I was told that in order to develop the bitter flavor the Central Americans burn the coffee beans when they roast them, and thus render it more bitter than natural. This scorching takes away some of its delicacy of flavor and renders it unpalatable to many North Americans, but by using plenty of sugar when it is taken black, or by diluting it with an equal quantity of hot unskimmed milk and using but a small quantity of sugar, its bitterness is modified and it has a richness of flavor that makes it preferable to the so-called Mocha and Java as ordinarily made. It differs from ordinary U. S. restaurant coffee as champagne from cider. But, of course, many prefer cider.

Cereal coffee is possibly a good substitute for young people whose nerves are more easily injured than their stomachs. But for middle-aged and old people it is too heavy, for the amount of starch in it which must be swallowed without mastication tends to produce acid fermentation in the alimentary canal and hasten the advent of gout, which is the goal of all good eaters and drinkers. Cereal coffee has just one excuse for existing, but I’ve forgotten what it is. Old-fashioned chicory has more flavor and is less fermentable, and therefore is preferable for both the young and old. Pure coffee contains no starch and not enough tannin to injure a canary bird, and the stimulation of moderate coffee drinking is not very injurious to people past middle age. The only real contraindication is youth—but youth is always contradictory. Next to the sugar put into the coffee, the most injurious feature is the manner of drinking it, viz., sipping it while eating, and thus washing down food that should be chewed until dissolved and washed down by the saliva.

But the best solution of the whole coffee problem is to sip a glass of hot, slightly salted milk at the beginning and another at the end of the meal, and to eat the meal dry between them. If persisted in to the exclusion of coffee this hot milk habit will after a time take away all desire for coffee drinking, which is a habit of civilization and a very ancient and barbarous one. But many of us who consider ourselves civilized have barbarous tastes and habits, and do not wish to relinquish them. We bequeath the refining of our barbarous tastes to posterity—to our heirs. Let them fight over them, as they do over the other things.

After the train had finally pulled out I heard the sleeping-car stranger telling the sleeping-car conductor of his misfortune and the reason why he had been obliged to stay away from his home, which was in Hyde Park, Chicago. He said he couldn’t stand the cold there, and that it was impossible to get a hot drink within walking distance of his house.

“Just imagine,” he said, “living in Chicago and not being able to get a hot drink; to have to keep a saloon in your own house. There is something wrong about a community that makes every man keep a private saloon.”

“You’re right, sir. There must be something wrong about a city that can not provide saloons enough for its citizens. They must be tea-totalers,” replied the conductor sympathetically.