FoodNet

Bohemian San Francisco

1914

Page 1

Presented as published in 1914. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Not to the Future, nor to the Past; No drink of Joy or Sorrow; We drink alone to what will last; Memories on the Morrow. Let us live as Old Time passes; To the Present let Bohemia bow. Let us raise on high our glasses To Eternity -the ever-living Now. CONTENTS Foreword ix The Good Gray City 3 The Land of Bohemia 6 As It Was in the Beginning 8 When the Gringo Game 10 Early Italian Impression 12 Birth of the French Restaurant ... 16 At the Cliff House 21 Some Italian Restaurants 23 Impress of Mexico 29 On the Barbary Coast 33 The City That Was Passes 35 Sang the Swan Song 36 Bohemia of the Present 41 As It Is in Germany 46 In the Heart of Italy 50 A Breath of the Orient 54 Artistic Japan 57 Old and New Palace 60 At the Hotel St. Francis 63 Amid the Bright Lights 65 Around Little Italy 66 Where Fish Come in 76 Fish in Their Variety 80 Lobsters and Lobsters 85 King of Shell Fish 87 Lobster in Miniature 89 Clams and Abalones 91 Where Fish Abound 94 Some Food Variants 97 xiii CONTENTS About Dining 100 SoMKTiiiNG About Cooking 106 Told in a Whisper 110 Out of Nothing 115 Paste Makes Waist 117 Tips and Tipping 119 The Mythical Land 121 Appendix (How to Serve Wines, Recipes) . . 125 Index 137 TUf BOHEMIAN SAN FRANCISCO "The best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours From the night, my dear. 1 SAN FRANCISCO San Francisco! Is there a land where the magic of that name has not been felt? Bohemian San Fran- cisco ! Pleasure-loving San Francisco ! Care-free San Francisco ! Yet withal THE GOOD the city where liberty never means GRAY license and where Bohemianism is CITY not synonymous with Boorishness. It was in Paris that a world traveler said to us: "San Francisco! That wonderful city where you get the best there is to eat, served in a manner that en- hances its flavor and establishes it forever in your memory." Were one to write of San Francisco and omit men- tion of its gustatory delights the whole world would protest, for in San Francisco eating is an art and cook- ing a science, and he who knows not what San Fran- cisco provides knows neither art nor science. Here have congregated the world's greatest chefs, and when one exclaims in ecstacy over a wonderful flavor found in some dingy restaurant, let him not be surprised if he learn that the chef who concocted the dish boasts royal decoration for tickling the palate of some epicurean ruler of foreign land. And why should San Francisco have achieved this distinction in the minds of the gourmets? Do not other cities have equally as good chefs, and do not the people of other cities have equally as fine gastronomic taste? They have all this but with them is lacking "at- mosphere." Where do we find such romanticism as in San Francisco? Where do we find so many strange char- acters and happenings? All lending almost mystic charm to the environment surrounding queer little restaurants, where rare dishes are served, and where one feels that he is in foreign land, even though he be in the center of a high representative American city. BOHEMIAN San Francisco's cosmopolitanism is peculiar to itself. Here are represented the nations of earth in such distinctive colonies that one THE GOOD might well imagine himself pos- GRAY sessed of the magic carpet told of