To Panama and back

by Henry T. Byford

This out-and-out, straightforward, honest North American only wanted his rights, and did not stop or care to consider that politeness made it obligatory, and that a finer feeling would have made it a pleasure, to pay even double dues to the half dozen physicians of the smallest and poorest republic on the continent who were straining themselves to entertain a crowd of physicians from the largest and richest republic in the world, and who would be responsible to the printer for the cost of the transactions. He did not refuse, however, to partake of his share of the $25,000 appropriated by their government for our entertainment. A Spaniard under similar circumstances might have felt imposed upon, but he would have smiled and paid—which is politeness. “He who sows courtesy reaps friendship,” is another Spanish proverb. But the honest, home-made doctor could not appreciate foreign manners and methods, and remarked to a friend, on another occasion, that those Spanish fellows were too blamed polite for him. They reminded him of Josh Billings’ geese who lowered their heads while going through a barn doorway eighteen feet high. But that sort of doctors are gradually dying off. Better be such a goose than such a doctor.

I do not know whether I ought to say anything about our American gourmands or not. Gourmands are indigenous to all countries but there are certain species in this country that are more or less characteristic. In foreign nations, as everywhere, the healthy child is always a gourmand, but he is usually taught table manners quite early unless he belongs to the lower classes, where caste immures him, and where polished manners do not form a part of politeness. But in this country so many men whose parents were uncultured or negligent in their parental duties, are successful in obtaining the means with which to live well and travel, that the American gourmand is met everywhere. When you see him eat, you know what he is, no matter where he is or what he eats. His palate and purse are not in the same class. He carries cowboy manners among cultivated people, advertising abroad the American brand of “Liberty, equality and fraternity.”

I will mention three concrete cases: one, of the youthful starved gourmand; another, of the mature, temperamental variety, the gourmet; and another, the deliberate, systematic complete gourmand.

The young gourmand first attracted my attention by his pale complexion, sunken cheeks and spindle legs. I diagnosed consumption at first sight, but was only half right. His sunken uneasy eye suggested starvation. In our conversation which inevitably turned to eating and drinking, he said that he did not see how people could eat too much, and that he never injured himself eating—he did not live to eat. I naturally inferred that he really was in need of a little gourmandizing.

I watched him at dinner. He was the first at table and as I came in he sat there eating olives and flirting with wild-eyed impatience, first with one dish, then with another. When soup was served he stretched out his arm to assist the waiter in putting it down, as if afraid that a drop might be spilled; and immediately bowed down his head over it and “done his level best.” He had finished it by the time the others were fairly started. He then reached for the chow-chow, put a few pieces on his bread-plate, ate them quickly and sat glancing at the hors-d’oeuvres that were out of his reach. He spoke to no one, but sat leaning slightly forward like a panther ready to spring at meat or whatever might come within his reach. Pretty soon he asked his neighbor to pass him the radishes, and put a few on his plate. Finishing these, he asked for the olives. He was very quiet, and perhaps no one but myself, who sat opposite to him, noticed his famine. When the meats began to come, his head went up and his nose was leveled at it like a pointer dog’s. He did not, however, eat very much of the meat or vegetables, but took a large quantity of jelly with it, and afterward more jelly. When the dessert came he helped himself liberally, ate it rapidly and looked at the plates of the others as if he wanted more. While they were eating theirs leisurely and conversing, he handed his plate to the waiter and asked for a clean one. As soon as he got it he reached across the table for an orange and ate it, then an apple, then some raisins. While the others were finishing he sat and watched their plates, first looking longingly at one and then at another, thus tantalizing himself until the last person had left the table. Then as he got up he put an apple and an orange in his pocket. The dinner seemed to be an hour of anxiety and longing rather than an hour of rest and enjoyment. Two hours later he was eating an apple on deck, when his friend, upon noticing it, said, “I declare, you eat about every five minutes in the day.”

I suppose that this stuffed gourmand, this food-consumptive, this sweetmeat starveling, this hors d’oeuvre horror, really thought that he did not eat much because he did not believe in eating much hearty food and that hors d’oeuvres, sweets and fruit did not count heavily as food, and that he could eat them all of the time without injury to himself. It is true that there is not a large proportion of food value in most of our Northern fruits nor much proportionate digestion required, but there is often a great deal of indigestion to them. The amount of stomach space and absorption required to accommodate the constant influx of the mass of fruits and sweetmeats he ate would have enabled him to appropriate enough meat and bread and butter to fill out the sockets in his eyes, the cups in his cheeks and the bows in his thighs, and convert his restive panther expression to that of a sleek, mild-eyed pussy cat.

The mature, temperamental gourmand is a square trotter with a record. He goes straight for the goal and beats the field. He is talkative and good-natured, and not only enjoys good food but enjoys himself and his surroundings while eating. He is greedy from selfishness and a desire to get all there is out of a meal, rather than greedy from any unnatural craving for food. He has the best he can afford. He fees the waiter and gets served first and well, to the disadvantage of others who depend upon the same waiter and always have to wait; he makes waiters of us all. He is frank and open in his conduct and unconscious of inconveniencing others. He is apt to be a good manager, and enjoys his success in getting the best of the meal, and supposes that others are also looking out for number one. He has the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin, for we all love the best to eat, and Christian charity should lead us to enjoy seeing others get it.

The third kind, the many-sided, systematic gourmand, has not the wild greed of the panther nor the competitive go of the race-horse; he is more like the domestic animal. He adapts himself to his surroundings, and watches for chances. You may eat with him once and notice nothing, for he knows he eats as he ought not, and may dissemble and restrain himself in company. But among intimate friends or among entire strangers he indulges himself more or less covertly. When he sits down at table he soon begins to help himself to such hors d’oeuvres as are near. He talks a little when not daft after some dish; but if maneuvering for something, answers questions absent-mindedly, although he may start up and answer more in detail after having obtained what he was after. If the soup is good he eats it quickly, and if he can catch the waiter’s eye he may, without attracting attention, get another plate of it. Between courses he keeps himself busy eating of the dainties within reach, or quietly asks his neighbor to pass what is out of his reach. His jaws work constantly and contentedly. If anything is passed he takes some and eats it immediately, and is ready for more, should it be passed back to its place. He is a master of opportunity. If a friend has wine or other delicacy and offers it to him he invariably accepts and takes a liberal quantity, and will usually accept a second time although with a half-expressed excuse for taking it. Or, if his neighbor does not offer it he will delicately hint for it by questioning or by praising it, and when it is offered say, “Just a taste, to see what it is like,” and will help himself liberally. He eats steadily and cares but little for conversation until there is an interval when nothing is being passed or can be reached or be asked for, or until the dessert is served and there is nothing more to be had, when he becomes quite congenial. He is not a suborner of the morals and manners of waiters. He is stingy out of selfishness and smallness, and usually obtains what he wants without recourse to tipping.

Nature is kind to him in not killing him outright. As a rule, she has arranged our systems so that the excesses partly correct themselves. The superfluous food acts mechanically to evacuate itself from the system and may for a time act less harmfully than would a constant moderate excess. But Nature is consistent. Appendicitis and gallstones lie in wait for him; ulceration and cancer of the stomach, diabetes, Bright’s disease, rheumatism, gout, asthma, dropsy, apoplexy, etc., are at the other end of his path, and if one of them does not attack him soon, another will later. The danger of living lies in eating. To die of one of these diseases, or to require an operation for appendicitis or gallstones ought to make the victim ashamed of himself.

I have not wasted words on our ordinary, every-day business gourmand, the one who dines at home or in a boarding-house, and lunches at restaurants, and goes but little into what is called society. He is a hard worker, perhaps a hustler. He is a necessary evil and is tolerable until he eats, which he does as an automobile travels. He takes large bites in rapid succession, fingers his food to help make schedule time and talks with his mouth full, if he is a talker. He is too numerous to mention and too common to require a description.