AMERICAN APPETITES.
It is an imposing spectacle (says a, correspondent of the Capricornian ) to see a thoroughbred Yankee of iron digestion ordering breakfast or dinner. He glances over the bill of fare, picks out two or three dishes from every course, and rims over the list volubly to the obsequious waiter, who produces the required viands in a marvellously short time. To hoar the list of dishes he generally demands, ono would imagine that he must be laying in stores for about six weeks, on the principle so ably exemplified by Captain Dugald Dalgetty, of provident memory. I used to find, however, that the men whom I had seen gorging at breakfast like Indians after a four days’ fast would “.come to the scratch” again at twoo’clock as fresh as ever, and demolish a dinner such as Sancho Panza himself might have found difficulty •in assimilating. At the hotel I went to in San Francisco, I dined on the day we landed along with a couple of friends. In ordering dinner, when it came to the joints, I looked at the bill of fare and said to one of ray companions, ‘-Shall Isay, roast beef or boiled leg of mutton?” “Oh, you can have both, sir ! ” said the waiter promptly. I thought at the time that he was' “ chaffing,” as we had already shown what appetites can become after a month at sea; but further experience assures me that'he was genuinely surprised at my moderation in not ordering both beef aud mutton, two dishes out of every course in the menu being the statutory allowance for an adult.. The American waiter, by the way, is as a rule much less offensive than his average English counterpart. All over the world waiters are a superior race who minister to the wants of poor humanity out of pure condescension. In America, among the white waiters at least, this condescension is not quite so marked and imposing as in Europe. Negro waiters, again, are not disposed to forget, or allow their customers to forget, that the “ culla'd gen’lman ” belongs to a loftier order of being than the ordinary white man, lb is true that they often temper their condescension by au assumption of facetious honhommic, but ono always feels that their attention, when they deign to grant it, is conferring au obligation for whose repayment the dime (or “ two bits ”), given as an honorarium, is quite inadequate. .
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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5416, 6 August 1878, Page 3
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404AMERICAN APPETITES. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5416, 6 August 1878, Page 3
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