Breakfasts Then and Now
ensible have
about
ter in his father-in-law's house. He garded 25 have the right to speak with au- Then came the breakfast.
First there would be fruit per said to my mother that he would sense, and he won thority about breakfasts; for
2.71 orange, or some just as readily eat axle grease, it sternly and sent my forebears were among those haps half
slices of canta- But I, as a child, never saw any business. great and heroic figures who made grapes, or narrow breakfast-history-
loupe which my grandfather cut thing wrong with the butter. I and distributed with his own hand. thought it tasted better than the
which my grandfather would not I am the grandson of a man of me. These portions would not be boun- almost flavourless unsalted butter have approved. A dear friend of dium height, sturdy figure, and a tiful; for fruit was expensive in we had at home, fresh twice a week.
mine a poet, and one of the most manner of considerable severity those days, and my grandfather After the steak and potatoes we sardonic and acute minds of our
When his daughter, my mother, as was a prudent man and not really
as much
I have seen cer breakfast
somebody is
your ex you are
eggs! bacon! you wonder whether to be witty at It is only because leman that you do
a girl asked him; "But Father, why rich. To have any fruit at all for would have a few large, thick, per- generation took three bottles of must I do such and such a thing?" breakfast was remarkable at that fectly browned buckwheat cakes and beer and a little whiskey for his his invariable and firm reply was: time; I doubt whether one family maple syrup, to fill in the chinks. breakfast, and eventually killed "Daughter, because I tell you to" out of a hundred in this, middle- You took three cakes at a time, put himself with a pistol. Laugh if you ever heard chunks of the notable butter be like but his friends did not think He belonged to that titan genera- western town and had
tween them, and poured about half it funny. tion when parents were really par- of such a thing.
a cupful of rich maple-syrup over Hospital breakfasts are a more ents, and no ifs and ands about it.
After the fruit there came plen- the top. You could have as many cheerful subject. Not for the first In those days children did not lack tiful bowls of perfectly prepared cakes as you liked, and
day or two when, still sick and guidance, and there was none of
oatmeal, with as much cream as you syrup but it was bad manners, dizzy with ether, you are offered a that wishey-washiness and uncer-
cared to take. There was also and was reproved, if you over- loaths tainty which nowadays disgusts sugar, but you were not encouraged estimated the amount of syrup you coffee! children with their elders and bet to help yourself to it quite as lavish- required and left a pool of it on ters, Adults knew something in ly as you would wish. A rather your plate. And quite rightly, too those days. If a child asked:
thin sprinkling was the proper for this was no nasty chemical "Father, is there really a God?" the form. Greediness in using the product, but real-maple-syrup, sent not slay the nurse who brings in parent did not reply, as the modern sugar bowl was likely to draw from out by my grandfather's brother the tray. But that period passes. parent would do: "Well, my dear, my grandfather a remark to my from Vermont. It came in the that is a question that has occupied grandmother spoken not unkind- form of twenty-pound cans of After two or three or four days the best minds of the world for ly: "Mollie, give Arthur some oat- maple-sugar, and was then turned you notice an incredible improve- many centuries, and I would not meal to go with his sugar.". into syrup by heating it up with a ment in the quality of the breakfasts like to express a personal opinion:
little water. Lord, it was good! that are brought to you. Why, this Then came every day of the I can merely refer you to the pub-
is delicious coffee! And what a large During the meal a few cups of- lished works of Nietzsche, Bertrand year, winter or summer -
golden and silver eggs, so fresh Russell, Sir James Jeans, and thin beefsteak whose delicious odour, coffee were consumed by each of
and so perfectly cooked! And what others, and leave you to decide for as the platter was put down before the adults and a few cups of cocoa
crisp brown bacon, so fragrant and yourself." Far from it! In the my grandfather, made perfume in by each of the children. No grace
the dining-room. This steak my was said, either before or after the so beautiful!. It is amazing to note olden days the parent said: "Is
how hospitals manage invariably to grandfather proceeded to divide meal. My grandfather thought it there a God? There is! And never into rather narrow strips, justly excellent that the
women of the improve their cuisine during the first week of a patient's recovery. let me hear you ask such a question apportioning the whole brown juicy family should go to church on Sun-
Some scientist ought to study the. “again!"
slab into exactly the right number day mornings; but he himself I think it was the breakfasts of pieces for all present, with one needed no such spiritual susten phenomenon, and explain it. that produced parents of this stal- left over for the hired girl. Now- ance. wart integrity and force of charac- ter. My grandfather was one of them. You will get his picture per- fectly when I tell you that his favourite exhortation was: "Sho, sho! Be a man, not a mouse!”
He believed in the prose of
*
The worst breakfasts. I know anything about are in Greece. Long ago, when my cha
and learn-
By Arthur Davison Ficke a classmate, profesor Chandler
adays I would consider the steak Huxley and in the poetry of Scott. Promptly at seven o'clock every much overcooked; but then it seem- And of course in "God."
When breakfast was over, Memy. morning my grandfather arose from ed to me perfect. Accompanying the spacious conjugal bed, put on the steak there was always a dish grandfather would disappear for
five minutes. vanishing in the direc his undershirt and trousers, and of steaming creamed potatoes high boots, and proceeded with one of the most delightful articles tion of the outhouse. Returning, the front hall, firm tread to the kit of food that I have ever eaten. I he would go into
his stovepipe hat, put it chen. There with the assistance have no idea how my grandmother brush of the pump and a tin water-basin, managed to instill the secret of this firmly on his head, and take from he scrubbed his hair, inserted his masterpiece into the skulls of a the hall-rack his gold-headed cane.
ed
Post, and I had a lovely. mo ins of
lands ly lost our
it. The breakfast in the mountains fishermen, were har lieve it
ing ex sonously
light.
false teeth, and shaved. The pre- long succession of stupid hired And then my grandfather. Davison is un sence of the bedraggled hired girl girls; but she did it somehow. ("Lawyer Davison" to you, and to in no way embarrased him as he These creamed potatoes always had all ordinary mortals) would emerge the flavour of real potato; they did from his home and castle to walk performed these solemn rites. Doubtless she was so busy attend not taste like stale bill-board paste; two miles to his office and take up ing to the preparations for break they were never too foury or too the responsibilities of the day.
soft or too anything except heaven- fast that she had no time to spare ly. They were worthy of being in watching him. His reproof to
her would probably have rved as a separate course in the
those
almost their their friends except to adopt thei
It seems to me fasts have per
we
the
ich
There were breakfasts in days! greatest restaurants of Pāris - I am sure that my grandfather my brain. "Pommes a la Mme. Mary Davison" would call me a “minny" his of being aware of his presence. My grandfather would serve "them favourite word of scorn-if he could After completing his toilet, he with a spoon, putting a portion onto see the breakfasts I eat now. no way of avoiding this topic? Can
severe if she had shown any
At
As to Paris breakfasts-is there
marched back to the bedroom-
I, an experienced writer, find no each plate beside the strip of steak. the slovenly hour of ten o'clock I where by this time my grandmother Often there would be a few drops slouch into the dining-room in my the trail, and ignoring the matter? way of drawing a herring across would have finished her dressing of juice from the steak left on the pyjamas and bath-robe, and take a Can I not pretend that people in and donned a clean white shirt meat platter; and a taste of this small glass of orange-juice and one Paris do not have breakfast? Sure- with starched bosom and cuffs, would be added by my grandfather slice of toast and one cup of coffee a tall stiff collar, a narrow black to the potatoes Hedia all the sexy and one glass of milk. How are they anyone anywhere would be- bow-tie with very long ends and a ing; when he had completed a mighty fallen!
lieve me if I said that the ent population of Paris spent the entire long black coat. And there stood plate, it was passed around the Abner Davison, once more com- table the first plate to my grand- Even the great captain of indus night in the resorts of Montma plete, and decidedly a man, not a mother, the next to any guest, and try of to-day does not live up to my tre, and was then so happy with -like champagne and vice that breakfast after that just anyway." But woe grandfather's standard.": My grandfather then marched to any child who, espying an es--ly to be bag-ridden by some dietetic would be merely superfluous. Isn't
"Healtho that a fair and flattering pecially nice portion, tried to select theory, and
mouse.
nibbles
or
easeless
into the dining-room and sat down it for himself! "Arthur, since you Granules" or "Corpusco Crumbs, ment? at the head of the large table, with apparently consider that a very nice and sips "Coffisco
I fear not I must
onest. his sleepy-eyed but correctly dress-
And I will tell what I know abo ed family around him, he sat portion, you will kindly rise and Tea" for his breakfast. down at the hour of seven-thirty carry it around to your Aunt Ela, How can such a man hope to the French breakfast
with your compliments.” and you do not know my grand-
confront modern problems when he thing never to be mentioned father if you think the hour was With this course there was bread gets to ms office? Doubtless it was with bated breath and with Lever seven twenty-nine or seven and
thirty-one; it was not. And
if you suppose that
any in
very bad bought
fall, when it w
of his sons or daughters ar- eaper than rived at the table in bath-robes ored it heavily, negligeen, or with their hair large stone curl-papers then all I have been round
trying to tell you about father has simply been wa
this bad habit among business-men gical mask over butter and bankers and lawyers
brought on the depression.
ute ertain that m
had he lived beyo
which was Iris eis
never Bjon
butter: would never toue
tolerated
man fas
that person in
feel French
ctually
1900
simply would not have he
Share
face
It is
ave
he wise
refer sui-