There is a popular belief to the effect that the Neapolitan eats his spaghetti by a deft process of wrapping thirty or forty inches round the tines of his fork and then lifting it inboard, an ell at a time. This is not correct. The true Neapolitan does not eat his spaghetti at all—he inhales it. He gathers up a loose strand and starts it down his throat. He then respires from the diaphragm, and like a troupe of trained angleworms that entire mass of spaghetti uncoils itself, gets up off the plate and disappears inside him—en masse, as it were—and making him look like a man who is chinning himself over a set of bead portieres. I fear we in America will never learn to siphon our spaghetti into us thus. It takes a nation that has practiced deep breathing for centuries.
Chapter IX. The Deadly Poulet Routine
Under the head of European disillusionments I would rate, along with the vin ordinaire of the French vineyard and inkworks, the barmaid of Britain. From what you have heard on this subject you confidently expect the British barmaid to be buxom, blond, blooming, billowy, buoyant—but especially blond. On the contrary she is generally brunette, frequently middle-aged, in appearance often fair-to-middling homely, and in manner nearly always abounding with a stiffness and hauteur that would do credit to a belted earl, if the belting had just taken place and the earl was still groggy from the effects of it. Also, she has the notion of personal adornment that is common in more than one social stratum of women in England. If she has a large, firm, solid mound of false hair overhanging her brow like an impending landslide, and at least three jingly bracelets on each wrist, she considers herself well dressed, no matter what else she may or may not be wearing.
Often this lady is found presiding over an American bar, which is an institution now commonly met with in all parts of London. The American bar of London differs from the ordinary English bar of London in two respects, namely—there is an American flag draped over the mirror, and it is a place where they sell all the English drinks and are just out of all the American ones. If you ask for a Bronx the barmaid tells you they do not carry seafood in stock and advises you to apply at the fishmongers'—second turning to the right, sir, and then over the way, sir—just before you come to the bottom of the road, sir. If you ask for a Mamie Taylor she gets it confused in her mind with a Sally Lunn and sends out for yeastcake and a cookbook; and while you are waiting she will give you a genuine Yankee drink, such as a brandy and soda—or she will suggest that you smoke something and take a look at the evening paper.
If you do smoke something, beware—oh, beware!—of the native English cigar. When rolled between the fingers it gives off a dry, rustling sound similar to a shuck mattress. For smoking purposes it is also open to the same criticisms that a shuck mattress is. The flames smolder in the walls and then burst through in unexpected places, and the smoke sucks up the airshaft and mushrooms on your top floor; then the deadly back draft comes and the fatal firedamp, and when the firemen arrive you are a ruined tenement. Except the German, the French, the Belgian, the Austrian and the Italian cigar, the English cigar is the worst cigar I ever saw. I did not go to Spain; they tell me, though, the Spanish cigar has the high qualifications of badness. Spanish cigars are not really cigars at all, I hear; they fall into the classification of defective flues.
Likewise beware of the alleged American cocktail occasionally dispensed, with an air of pride and accomplished triumph, by the British barmaid of an American bar. If for purposes of experiment and research you feel that you must take one, order with it, instead of the customary olive or cherry, a nice boiled vegetable marrow. The advantage to be derived from this is that the vegetable marrow takes away the taste of anything else and does not have any taste of its own.
In the eating line the Englishman depends on the staples. He sticks to the old standbys. What was good enough for his fathers is good enough for him—in some cases almost too good. Monotony of victuals does not distress him. He likes his food to be humdrum; the humdrummer the better.
Speaking with regard to the whole country, I am sure we have better beef uniformly in America than in England; but there is at least one restaurant on the Strand where the roast beef is just a little bit superior to any other roast beef on earth. English mutton is incomparable, too, and English breakfast bacon is a joy forever. But it never seems to occur to an Englishman to vary his diet. I submit samples of the daily menu: