Twain's Feast - Andrew Beahrs [4]
But Twain didn’t stop with breakfast. He went on to list some eighty American foods, which he said he wanted served at a “modest, private affair,” all to himself, the moment he stepped off his steamer:
Radishes. Baked apples, with cream.
Fried oysters; stewed oysters. Frogs.
American coffee, with real cream.
American butter.
Fried chicken, Southern style.
Porter-house steak.
Saratoga potatoes.
Broiled chicken, American style.
Hot biscuits, Southern style.
Hot wheat-bread, Southern style.
Hot buckwheat cakes.
American toast. Clear maple syrup.
Virginia bacon, broiled.
Blue points, on the half shell.
Cherry-stone clams.
San Francisco mussels, steamed.
Oyster soup. Clam soup.
Philadelphia Ter[r]apin soup.
Bacon and greens, Southern style.
Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips.
Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus.
Butter beans. Sweet potatoes.
Lettuce. Succotash. String beans.
Mashed potatoes. Catsup.
Boiled potatoes, in their skins.
New potatoes, minus the skins.
Early rose potatoes, roasted in the ashes, Southern style, served hot.
Sliced tomatoes, with sugar or vinegar. Stewed tomatoes.
Green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper.
Oysters roasted in shell—Northern style.
Soft-shell crabs. Connecticut shad.
Baltimore perch.
Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas.
Lake trout, from Tahoe.
Sheep-head and croakers, from New Orleans.
Black bass from the Mississippi.
American roast beef.
Roast turkey, Thanksgiving style.
Cranberry sauce. Celery.
Roast wild turkey. Woodcock.
Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore.
Prairie-hens, from Illinois.
Missouri partridges, broiled.
’Possum. Coon.
Boston bacon and beans.
Green corn, on the ear.
Hot corn-pone, with chitlings, Southern style.
Hot hoe-cake, Southern style.
Hot egg-bread, Southern style.
Hot light-bread, Southern style.
Buttermilk. Iced sweet milk.
Apple dumplings, with real cream.
Apple pie. Apple fritters.
Apple puffs, Southern style.
Peach cobbler, Southern style.
Peach pie. American mince pie.
Pumpkin pie. Squash pie.
All sorts of American pastry.
“Fresh American fruits of all sorts,” he went on, “including strawberries which are not to be doled out as if they were jewelry, but in a more liberal way.” And “ice-water—not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincere and capable refrigerator.”
Now, that is a meal. Twain’s wide-ranging enthusiasm extends even to properly fresh, cold ice water. At times he jumps around at random; at others he riffs for five or six lines on vegetables, game birds, or pie. When he lists corn pone, hoecake, egg bread, and light bread, all served Southern style, he’s almost audibly excited. And his enthusiasm is not just due to hunger. If it were, surely he’d never have opened the menu with radishes. Radishes! I thought of a bowl of them, fresh and crisp, dipped in butter, sprinkled with salt. Peppery, refreshing radishes: wonderful, yes, but probably not the first thing most hungry men think of.
It was different reading the menu after I’d cooked breakfast. I understood better what Twain had meant when he used the words “earnest” and “generous,” “genuine” and “real”; I understood better what he thought of when he thought of American food. Reading it again, with the dense, strong, fresh flavors of breakfast still lingering, the menu spoke to me.
I’ve always hated it when people say that America doesn’t have a real cuisine, as though fast food were the only thing we can truly call our own. Granted, the growing national trend toward fresh, high-quality, local food is greatly inspired by the incredible depth of French and Italian cookery. But food is our most basic connection to the world, our fundamental