Chateau Filhot: Of rich color and good flavor.
Chateau Latour Blanche: A white sauterne of exquisite bouquet.
Haut Sauterne: Soft and mild. Of good flavor.
Vin de Graves: Good and Strong. Good aroma and flavor.
Vintage years have much to do with the quality of wines. The best vintage years are as follows:
Champagnes: 1892. Rhein and Moselle: 1893. Burgandy: 1892, 1899 and 1904. Claret: 1898 and 1904. Port: 1896 and 1904. Sherry: 1882, 1890, 1898 and 1900.
A Good Bohemian Dinner
Sometimes people desire to give a dinner and are at loss as to the proper time to serve wines. The following menu will give some ideas on the subject:
Menu
Gibson Cocktail Canape Norwegian
(Serve these before entering dining room)
Artichoke Hearts in Oil Ripe Olives Celery
Amontillado Sherry
Oysters on Half Shell
Bisque of Ecrevisse Chablis, or White Sauterne
Sand-dabs Edward VII Sliced Cucumbers, Iced
Escargot Francais Chateau Lafitte
Cassolette of Terrapin, Maryland Romanee
Tagliarini des Beaux Arts
Punch Pistache Cigarettes
Alligator Pears with Cumquats, French Dressing
Chicken Portola Krug Private Cuvee Brut
Creamed New Potatoes Celery Victor French Peas
Zabaione
Reina Cabot
Coffee Royal Cigarettes
Grand Marnier
In our travels through Bohemia it has been our good fortune to gather hundreds of recipes of new, strange and rare dishes, prepared by those who look farther than the stoking of the physical system in the preparation of foods. Some of these are from chefs in restaurants and hotels, some from men and women of the foreign colonies and some from good friends who lent their aid in our pleasurable occupation. That we cannot print them all in a volume of this size is our regret, but another book now in preparation will contain them, together with other talks about San Francisco's foreign quarters.
From our store we have selected the following as being well worth trying:
Onion Soup
Cut four large onions in large pieces and put them in six ounces of butter with pepper and salt. Slowly stew this in a little beef stock and a little milk, stirring constantly, for one hour. Add more stock and milk and let cook slowly for another hour. In a tureen place slices of bread sprinkled with two tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese. Beat the yolks of four eggs and mix them with a tablespoonful of the soup and pour this over the bread and cheese. Cover this for five minutes and then pour over it the rest of the soup.
Creole Gumbo Soup
Take two young chickens, cut in pieces, roll in flour and fry to light brown. Take the fried chicken, a ham bone stripped of meat for flavor, a tablespoonful of chopped thyme, of rosemary, two bay leaves, a sprig of tarragon and boil in four quarts of water until the meat loosens from the bones. Slice and fry brown two large onions and add two heaping quarts of sliced okra and one cut up pod of red pepper. Stir all over the fire until the okra is thoroughly wilted then remove the larger bones and let cook three quarters of an hour before serving. Half an hour before serving add a can of tomatoes or an equal quantity of fresh ones, and a pint of shrimps, boiled and shredded. Have a dish of well boiled and dry rice and serve with two or three tablespoonfuls in each soup plate.
Oyster Salad
To a solid pint of oysters use a dressing made as follows: Beat well two eggs and add to them half a gill each of cream and vinegar, half teaspoonful mustard, celery seed, salt each, one-tenth teaspoonful cayenne, and a tablespoonful of butter. Put all in a double boiler and cook until it all is as thick as soft custard (about six minutes), stirring constantly. Take from the fire. Heat the oysters in their own liquor to a boiling point then drain and add the dressing, mixing lightly. Set away in cold place until needed.
Italian Salad
Soak two salt herrings in milk over night and then remove the bones and skin and cut up in small pieces.