Tapas

“ But the crowning audacity of his day was the purchase of a delicatessen dinner—cold chicken, sweet pickles, potato salad, Swiss cheese, bologna, rye bread, a wooden plate of butter, and four bottles of imported English ale. He spread it on the table, in the dishes of the "decorated English tea-set," drew up two chairs, and surveyed his work from the doorway with a chuckle of uncontainable delight. ”

“ Every man, woman and child had a torch and the sight of these flickering about in the moonlight long before they reached their destination resembled a convention of huge lightning-bugs.
Inside the main sala there was a tempting meal in the native style laid out. There was huge grapefruit and custard apples, a fruit filled with real custard, crisp bread-fruit roasted to a turn, fragrant frijoles, the national dish of the Latin-American from Mexico to Patagonia, and several kinds of meat and salted fish all cooked in the best style of old Matula’s wife, who waited on them. ”

“ It was the waiter who raised him from this other abyss where he had been like to perish, the waiter and the things, including tea: plates, forks, napkins, cups and saucers, tea and hot water, jam, biscuit, toast. There was something particularly reassuring about that plate of nicely matched triangles of buttered toast. It spoke of a sane and orderly world where you were never taken off your feet.
"How many lumps?" demanded the pouring flapper. ”

“ Decorated porcelain is cheap nowadays, and makes a table look extremely pretty. Each one of the household should have his own especial oatmeal set, either the bowl, plate, and pitcher, or one of the deep saucers that come for this purpose in dark blue and white ware, with a plate to match, while the cream or milk may be held for common use in one good-sized pitcher, to be served by the mother, or passed to each, as may seem best. Every tea or coffee drinker should have his own cup and saucer, and in his imagination his favorite beverage will taste better from that cup than from any other. ”

“ Very jolly groups of Spanish artisans does one see in the open shops at noon, gathered around a table. The board is chiefly adorned with earthen jars of an ancient pattern filled with oil and wine, platters of bread and sausage,—and the ever fragrant onion is generally perceptible. The personal qualities of these men are quite unknown to us; but they have an air of good-fellowship which gives pleasure. ”

“ Dinner was substantial enough in all conscience, and the wine nearly as heavy as the food. Imagine quenching one's thirst with sherry in the dog-days! Yet so we did, till about half-way through dinner, and then, on great occasions, a dark-coloured rill of champagne began to trickle into the V-shaped glasses. At the epoch of cheese, port made its appearance in company with home-brewed beer; and, as soon as the ladies and the schoolboys departed, the men applied themselves, with much seriousness of purpose, to the consumption of claret which was really vinous. ”

“ You will have for a holiday dinner, in Las Uvas, soup with meat balls and chile in it, chicken with chile, rice with chile, fried beans with more chile, enchilada, which is corn cake with a sauce of chile and tomatoes, onion, grated cheese, and olives, and for a relish chile tepines passed about in a dish, all of which is comfortable and corrective to the stomach. You will have wine which every man makes for himself, of good body and inimitable bouquet, and sweets that are not nearly so nice as they look. ”

“ Those who desire several things upon a plate at the same time, indulge their taste of course; and as variety is the spice of life with me, I paid but little attention to the rule observed by most of the Brazilians, in making frequent changes of plates at breakfast as well as at dinner.
The demonstrative character of this people is strikingly illustrated at their meals, as each man calls out for any thing not within his reach, or even rises to his feet and reaches over the table for what is wanted by himself, or another, at a distant part of the table. ”

“ You get a bowl of good soup, a course of fish, a cut from the joint, a salad, two kinds of vegetables, with bread and butter, a biscuit and a bit of rich Gorgonzola or dry Wiltshire cheese to wind up with, and your whole bill will be four shillings, to which add threepence for “attendance,” which is charged in the bill, and about threepence more which you will hand to the waiter. A feature of the place is that the hot joint, over a chafing dish and on a small table, is wheeled round to you, and it is there cut before your eyes and transferred to your plate. ”

“ The soup is brought in and placed on the central table; each one helps himself, and, taking it to one of the small tables, eats at his leisure; the soup finished you serve yourself with fish, roast meats, chicken, and vegetables, in quantity and variety as you choose, and return to your table. The servants replenish the supplies on the large table, remove soiled plates and bring tea, coffee, beer, or wine, as ordered, to the occupants of the small tables, but each one must serve himself from the various courses, ending with pudding and nuts and raisins. ”

“ When the dinner is over, at a signal from the hostess, the women rise and retire to the drawing-room, where coffee is usually served, the men remaining in the dining-room for coffee and cigars.
Five o’clock tea may be served in a variety of ways: the hostess may brew it herself in a teapot upon her tea-table in the parlor; she may make it by pouring boiling water over a tea-ball; or it may be served by either a man or maid servant in the dining-room. Its proper accompaniments are sugar, cream, sliced lemon, and either wafers, thin sandwiches, or cake. ”

“ The well-worn black-board became an elegant buffet, and instead of long rows of figures, held pails of crystal water and jugs of sweet, fresh milk. A solar lamp of diminutive size graced the centre of the table, which groaned under the weight of cake, dough-nuts, bread and butter, and a variety of other articles too numerous to mention. ”

“ Generally the taproom is the best dining-room that is at your service, and you mustn't be particular if the place is full of tobacco smoke, or if horse-play and larking is going on all the while. Some publicans give you more decent quarters, but not many. But, lor! for that matter, when a man fumbles his way down off his box in the winter time with his feet like lumps of ice, and his face feeling as though it had been warnished and froze dry, he isn't very particular what place he puts his head into, so long as it is warm and snug. ”

“ In the morning he presents a slovenly appearance, because breakfast, as Englishmen understand it, is either an unimportant or a non-existent meal, and the waiter is reserving his energies for the feast that counts, the lunch. The native is content to start the day on coffee and a roll without butter—for which omission he has reason for gratitude, because Galician butter is neither good nor plentiful—or on a small cup of chocolate and bread. ”

“ All the dishes are dressed at an inn, and brought ready to be served at table. The Spanish houses, even those of the best sort, are so ill provided with every thing required at table, that wine, plates, glasses, knives and forks, are brought from the inn together with the dinner. The noise and confusion of these feasts is inconceivable. Every one tries to repay the hospitable treat with mirth and noise; and though Spaniards are, commonly, water-drinkers, the bottle is used very freely on these occasions ”

“ I was seated at my favorite table against the wall on the right-hand side in Stephano's restaurant, with a newspaper propped up before me, a glass of hock by my side, and a portion of the plat du jour, which happened to be chicken en casserole, on the plate in front of me.
I was, in fact, halfway through dinner when, without a word of warning, a man who seemed to enter with a lightfooted speed that, considering his size, was almost incredible, drew a chair toward him and took the vacant place at my table. My glass of wine and my plate were moved with smooth and marvelous haste to his vicinity. ”

“ On the outside of the tavern, whither we betake ourselves to wash, are a tub of water, a basin and a towel, for all the guests; but as only one person can perform his ablutions at a time, it will be necessary for us to form ourselves in a line, and take our turn—the first comers being entitled to the front places. We are now ready to replenish the inner man. The bar is convenient for those who wish to imbibe. Breakfast is announced. We seat ourselves at the table. Before us is a reasonable quantity of beans, pork and flapjacks, served up in tin plates. ”

“ Suppose you are to serve panned oysters, on squares of toast, lettuce salad, bread and butter sandwiches and coffee, or Welsh rarebit, potato salad and coffee and sandwiches. Any of these is a good menu as you will not want sweets or ice cream at such a supper.
For safety place your chafing dishes on metal trays and do not fill the lamp too full. Many hostesses prefer to have their ingredients on the table in bowls which will not break and on Japanese trays and use wooden spoons for stirring as they do not become hot, and do not scratch the dishes. ”

“ Taking our bags for pillows, we lay down to rest,—sleep, I can not say, for fleas and cockroaches were too abundant to permit this.
"What is tapa, aunty?" asked Willie.
Tapa is their native cloth made from the bark of trees. They take the inner part of the bark, I believe, and beat it with mallets of very hard wood until it is soft and flexible, wetting the bark from time to time. It looks like a kind of paper, rather than cloth. These cloths the natives dye with various colors, in patterns to suit their own fancy. ”

“ By night a servant sleeps just inside the front door, leaving room between it and his cot for the belated guest to squeeze through; in the daytime the pateo is an uproar of unguided servants and ill-bred children. If you ask to have your bread brushed off after the waiter has dropped it on the floor you are henceforth known as “that curious gringo”; if you prefer your coffee or soup made without having an unwashed cook frequently dip in her spoon to taste the progress and toss the residue back into the pot, there is just one way to get it—by bringing your own cook with you. ”

“ The moment you sit down a waiter with the inevitable teapot is at your elbow, depositing on the table before you a cup containing one grimy thumb. The tea and watermelon seeds are, as they say in the Moulin Rouge, “obligatoire”, but you are free to refuse threescore flies resting on a bar of candy, eggs of uncertain age whose whites have become black, or apples just the proper softness with which to pelt [177] actors. At the tables all around you men are audibly sipping tea or eating dishes of steaming viands, after which they wipe face and hands on hot towels which the waiters are passing. ”

“ Place a folded napkin at the left of the plate, a bread and butter plate at the tips of the forks with butter spreader laid across the plate. Near the top of each plate individual pepper and salt cellars, at the right of each plate place a glass for water, and sugar bowl and cream pitcher at each end of the table.
Food should be passed at the left and placed at the right. When coffee and tea is served, place a cup at the right of each person.
When clearing off the table, food must be first removed, then the soiled dishes, glass, silver, then crumb. ”

“ The meal is a very fair sample of Spanish cookery, and you are given soup or eggs, according to the time of day, an entrée, a joint, and fish. I can still recall a Bobadillian meal, with the taste of garlic acting as a sort of Leitmotiv in all the dishes, of omelette, stewed beef and beans, a [Pg 191] ragout of veal, fried fish in butter, and cheese. Do not omit to cast an eye on the fair damsel behind the bar. She is a typical Andalusian beauty and is used to admiration. ”

“ For breakfast and tea, set the waiter on square, put the cups and saucers in front, and the sugar and slop bowls, and cream cup the back side. Put a sugar spoon, or tongs, by the sugar bowl. Then set the plates around the table at regular distances with a knife in front, and a napkin on one side and a cup mat the back side of it. Put mats for dishes of food in a regular manner, and set these dishes on, square and orderly. Set the tea or coffee either on the waiter, or on a mat at the right hand. ”

“ A tavern-keeper brought in some wine glasses stinking of whiskey, to which a cloth seemed never to have been applied; out of a pitcher of water he poured some into a glass, just shook it, and then throwing the water into the waiter upon which the wine stood, walked away satisfied with this proof of his cleanliness: and a female the other evening, in order to brush away the flies while we were at supper, flourished over our heads her dirty pocket handkerchief, in the absence of the brush of feathers fixed upon a long stick, which is generally waved over the dishes during the repast. ”

“ A glittering restaurant drew him in presently, and here he had a jovial dinner; all alone, it is true, but with plenty to look at.
He had also a half-bottle of champagne and a maraschino.
He had already consumed that day a cocktail coloured, two glasses of brandy-and-water cold and a half-bottle of champagne. His ordinary consumption of alcohol was moderate. A glass of green-seal sherry at twelve, and a half-bottle of St. Estéphe at lunch, and, shall we say, a small whisky-and-soda at dinner, or, if dining out or with guests, a couple of glasses of Pommery. ”