Bohemian San Francisco
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Clarence E. Edwords >> Bohemian San Francisco
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9 Produced by David A. Schwan
THE ELEGANT ART OF DINING
Bohemian San Francisco
Its Restaurants and Their Most Famous Recipes--
The Elegant Art of Dining
By Clarence E. Edwords
1914
Dedication To Whom Shall I Dedicate This Book?
To Some Good Friend? To Some Pleasant Companion?
To None of These, For From Them Came Not The Inspiration.
To Whom, Then?
To The Best Of All Bohemian Comrades,
My Wife.
Foreword
No apologies are offered for this book. In fact, we rather like it. Many
years have been spent in gathering this information, and naught is
written in malice, nor through favoritism, our expressions of opinion
being unbiased by favor or compensation. We have made our own
investigation and given our own ideas.
That our opinion does not coincide with that of others does not concern
us in the least, for we are pleased only with that which pleases us, and
not that with which others say we ought to be pleased.
If this sound egotistical we are sorry, for it is not meant in that way.
We believe that each and every individual should judge for him or
herself, considering ourselves fortunate that our ideas and tastes are
held in common.
San Franciscans, both residential and transient, are a pleasure-loving
people, and dining out is a distinctive feature of their pleasure. With
hundreds of restaurants to select from, each specializing on some
particular dish, or some peculiar mode of preparation, one often becomes
bewildered and turns to familiar names on the menu card rather than
venture into fields that are new, of strange and rare dishes whose
unpronounceable names of themselves frequently are sufficient to
discourage those unaccustomed to the art and science of cooking
practiced by those whose lives have been spent devising means of
tickling fastidious palates of a city of gourmets.
In order that those who come within our gates, and many others who have
resided here in blindness for years, may know where to go and what to
eat, and that they may carry away with them a knowledge of how to
prepare some of the dishes pleasing to the taste and nourishing to the
body, that have spread San Francisco's fame over the world, we have
decided to set down the result of our experience and study of our
Bohemian population and their ways, and also tell where to find and how
to order the best special dishes.
Over North Beach way we asked the chef of a little restaurant how he
cooked crab. He replied:
"The right way."
One often wonders how certain dishes are cooked and we shall tell you
"the right way."
It is hoped that when you read what is herein written some of our
pleasure may be imparted to you, and with this hope the story of San
Francisco's Bohemianism is presented.
Clarence E. Edwords.
San Francisco, California,
September 22, 1914.
Our Toast
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
The Good Gray City
The Land of Bohemia
As it was in the Beginning
When the Gringo Came
Early Italian Impression
Birth of the French Restaurant
At the Cliff House
Some Italian Restaurants
Impress of Mexico
On the Barbary Coast
The City That Was Passes
Sang the Swan Song
Bohemia of the Present
As it is in Germany
In the Heart of Italy
A Breath of the Orient
Artistic Japan
Old and New Palace
At the Hotel St. Francis
Amid the Bright Lights
Around Little Italy
Where Fish Come In
Fish in Their Variety
Lobsters and Lobsters
King of Shell Fish
Lobster In Miniature
Clams and Abalone's
Where Fish Abound
Some Food Variants
About Dining
Something About Cooking
Told in A Whisper
Out of Nothing
Paste Makes Waist
Tips and Tipping
The Mythical Land
Appendix (How to Serve Wines, Recipes)
Index
Bohemian San Francisco
"The best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours
From the night, my dear."
The Good Gray City San Francisco!
San Francisco! Is there a land where the magic of that name has not been
felt? Bohemian San Francisco! Pleasure-loving San Francisco! Care-free
San Francisco! Yet withal the city where liberty never means license and
where Bohemianism is 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 enhances its flavor and establishes it
forever in your memory."
Were one to write of San Francisco and omit mention of its gustatory
delights the whole world would protest, for in San Francisco eating is
an art and cooking a science, and he who knows not what San Francisco
provides knows neither art nor science.
Here have congregated the world's greatest chefs, and when one exclaims
in ecstasy 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 "atmosphere."
Where do we find such romanticism as in San Francisco? Where do we find
so many strange characters 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.
San Francisco's cosmopolitanism is peculiar to itself. Here are
represented the nations of earth in such distinctive colonies that one
might well imagine himself possessed of the magic carpet told of in
Arabian Nights Tales, as he is transported in the twinkling of an eye
from country to country. It is but a step across a street from America
into Japan, then another step into China. Cross another street and you
are in Mexico, close neighbor to France. Around the corner lies Italy,
and from Italy you pass to Lombardy, and on to Greece. So it goes until
one feels that he has been around the world in an afternoon.
But the stepping across the street and one passes from one land to the
other, finding all the peculiar characteristics of the various countries
as indelibly fixed as if they were thousands of miles away. Speech,
manners, customs, costumes and religions change with startling rapidity,
and as you enter into the life of the nation you find that each has
brought the best of its gastronomy for your delectation.
San Francisco has called to the world for its best, and the response has
been so prompt that no country has failed to send its tribute and give
the best thought of those who cater to the men and women who know.
This aggregation of cuisinaire, gathered where is to be found a most
wonderful variety of food products in highest state of excellence, has
made San Francisco the Mecca for lovers of gustatory delights, and this
is why the name of San Francisco is known wherever men and women sit at
table.
It has taken us years of patient research to learn how these chefs
prepare their combinations of fish, flesh, fowl, and herbs, in order
that we might put them down, giving recipes of dishes whose memories
linger in the minds of world wanderers, and to which their thoughts
revert with a sigh as they partake of unsatisfactory viands in other
countries and other cosmopolitan cities.
Those to whom only the surface of things is visible are prone to express
wonder at the love and enthusiasm of the San Franciscan for his home
city. The casual visitor cannot understand the enchantment, the mystery,
the witchery that holds one; they do not know that we steal the hours
from the night to lengthen our days because the gray, whispering wraiths
of fog hold for us the very breath of life; they do not know that the
call of the wind, and of the sea, and of the air, is the inspiration
that makes San Francisco the pleasure-ground of the world.
It is this that makes San Francisco the home of Bohemia, and whether it
be in the early morning hours as one rises to greet the first gray
streaks of dawn, or as the sun drops through the Golden Gate to its
ocean bed, so slowly that it seems loth to leave; whether it be in the
broad glare of noon-day sun, or under the dazzling blaze of midnight
lights, San Francisco ever holds out her arms, wide in welcome, to those
who see more in life than the dull routine of working each day in order
that they may gain sufficient to enable them to work again on the
morrow.
The Land of Bohemia
Bohemia! What vulgarities are perpetrated in thy name! How abused is the
word! Because of a misconception of an idea it has suffered more than
any other in the English language. It has done duty in describing almost
every form of license and licentiousness. It has been the cloak of
debauchery and the excuse for sex degradation. It has been so misused as
to bring the very word into disrepute.
To us Bohemianism means the naturalism of refined people.
That it may be protected from vulgarians Society prescribes conventional
rules and regulations, which, like morals, change with environment.
Bohemianism is the protest of naturalism against the too rigid, and,
oft-times, absurd restrictions established by Society.
The Bohemian requires no prescribed rules, for his or her innate
gentility prevents those things Society guards against. In Bohemia men
and women mingle in good fellowship and camaraderie without finding the
sex question a necessary topic of conversation. They do not find it
necessary to push exhilaration to intoxication; to increase their
animation to boisterousness. Their lack of conventionality does not tend
to boorishness.
Some of the most enjoyable Bohemian affairs we know of have been full
dress gatherings, carefully planned and delightfully carried out; others
have been impromptu, neither the hour, the place, nor the dress being
taken into consideration.
The unrefined get everywhere, even into the drawing rooms of royalty,
consequently we must expect to meet them in Bohemia. But the true
Bohemian has a way of forgetting to meet obnoxious personages and, as a
rule, is more choice in the selection of associates than the vaunted
"400." With the Bohemian but one thing counts: Fitness. Money, position,
personal appearance and even brains are of no avail if there be the bar
sinister--unfit.
In a restaurant, one evening, a number of men and women were seated
conspicuously at a table in the center of the room. Flowing neckties
such as are affected by Parisian art students were worn by the men; all
were coarse, loud and much in evidence. They not only attracted
attention by their loudness and outre actions, but they called notice by
pelting other diners with missiles of bread. To us they were the last
word in vulgarity, but to a young woman who had come to the place
because she had heard it was "so Bohemian" they were ideal, and she
remarked to her companion:
"I do so love to associate with real Bohemians like these. Can't we get
acquainted with them?"
"Sure," was the response. "All we have to do is to buy them a drink."
In San Francisco there are Bohemians and Near-Bohemians, and if you are
like the young woman mentioned you are apt to miss the real and take the
imitation for the genuine article.
We mean no derogation of San Francisco's restaurants when we say that
San Francisco's highest form of Bohemianism is rarely in evidence in
restaurants. We have enjoyed wonderful Bohemian dinners in restaurants,
but the other diners were not aware of it. Some far more interesting
gatherings have been in the rooms of Bohemian friends. Not always is it
the artistic combination of famous chef that brings greatest delight,
for we have as frequently had pleasure over a supper of some simple dish
in the attic room of a good friend.
This brings us to the crux of Bohemianism. It depends so little on
environment that it means nothing, and so much on companionship that it
means all.
To achieve a comprehensive idea of San Francisco's Bohemianism let us
divide its history into five eras. First we have the old Spanish days--
the days "before the Gringo came." Then reigned conviviality held within
most discreet bounds of convention, and it would be a misnomer, indeed,
to call the pre-pioneer days of San Francisco "Bohemian" in any sense of
the word.
Courtesy unfailing, good-fellowship always in tune, and lavish
hospitality, marked the days of the Dons--those wonderfully considerate
hosts who always placed a pile of gold and silver coins on the table of
the guest chamber, in order that none might go away in need. Their
feasts were events of careful consideration and long preparation, and
those whose memories carry them back to the early days, recall bounteous
loading of tables when festal occasion called for display.
Lips linger lovingly over such names as the Vallejos, the Picos, and
those other Spanish families who spread their hospitality with such
wondrous prodigality that their open welcome became a by-word in all
parts of the West.
But it was not in the grand fiestas that the finest and most palatable
dishes were to be found. In the family of each of these Spanish Grandees
were culinary secrets known to none except the "Senora de la Casa," and
transmitted by her to her sons and daughters.
We have considered ourselves fortunate in being taken into the
confidence of one of the descendants of Senora Benicia Vallejo, and
honored with some of her prize recipes, which find place in this book,
not as the famous recipe of some Bohemian restaurants but as the tribute
to the spirit of the land that made those Bohemian restaurants possible.
Of these there is no more tasty and satisfying dish than Spanish Eggs,
prepared as follows:
Spanish Eggs
Empty a can of tomatoes in a frying pan; thicken with bread and add two
or three small green peppers and an onion sliced fine. Add a little
butter and salt to taste. Let this simmer gently and then carefully
break on top the number of eggs desired. Dip the simmering tomato
mixture over the eggs until they are cooked.
Another favorite recipe of Mrs. Vallejo was Spanish Beefsteak prepared
as follows:
Spanish Beefsteak
Cut the steak into pieces the size desired for serving. Place these
pieces on a meat board and sprinkle liberally with flour. With a wooden
corrugated mallet beat the flour into the steak. Fry the steak in a pan
with olive oil. In another frying pan, at the same time, fry three
good-sized onions and three green peppers. When the steak is cooked
sufficiently put it to one side of the pan and let the oil run to the
other side. On the oil pour sufficient water to cover the meat and add
the onions and peppers, letting all simmer for a few minutes. Serve on
hot platter.
Spanish mode of cooking rice is savory and most palatable, and Mrs.
Vallejo's recipe for this is as follows:
Spanish Rice
Slice together three good-sized onions and three small green peppers.
Fry them in olive oil. Take one-half cup of rice and boil it until
nearly done, then drain it well and add it to the frying onions and
peppers. Fry all together until thoroughly brown, which will take some
time. Season with salt and serve.
These three recipes are given because they are simple and easily
prepared. Many complex recipes could be given, and some of these will
appear in the part of the book devoted to recipes, but when one
considers the simplicity of the recipes mentioned, it can readily be
seen that it takes little preparation to get something out of the
ordinary.
When the Gringo Came
To its pioneer days much of San Francisco's Bohemian spirit is due. When
the cry of "Gold" rang around the world adventurous wanderers of all
lands answered the call, and during the year following Marshall's
discovery two thousand ships sailed into San Francisco Bay, many to be
abandoned on the beach by the gold-mad throng, and it was in some of
these deserted sailing vessels that San Francisco's restaurant life had
its inception. With the immediately succeeding years the horde of gold
hunters was augmented by those who brought necessities and luxuries to
exchange for the yellow metal given up by the streams flowing from the
Mother Lode. With them also came cooks to prepare delectable dishes for
those who had passed the flap-jack stage, and desired the good things of
life to repay them for the hardships, privations and dearth of woman's
companionship. As the male human was largely dominant in numbers it was
but natural that they should gather together for companionship, and here
began the Bohemian spirit that has marked the city for its own to the
present day.
These men were all individualists, and their individualism has been
transmitted to their offspring together with independence of action.
Hence comes the Bohemianism born of individuality and independence.
It was only natural that the early San Franciscans should foregather
where good cheer was to be found, and the old El Dorado House, at
Portsmouth Square, was really what may be called the first Bohemian
restaurant of the city. So well was this place patronized and so
exorbitant the prices charged that twenty-five thousand dollars a month
was not considered an impossible rental.
Next in importance was the most fashionable restaurant of early days,
the Iron House. It was built of heavy sheet iron that had been brought
around the Horn in a sailing vessel, and catered well, becoming for
several years the most famed restaurant of the city. Here, in Montgomery
street, between Jackson and Pacific, was the rendezvous of pioneers, and
here the Society of California Pioneers had its inception, receiving
impressions felt to the present day in San Francisco and California
history. Here, also, was first served Chicken in the Shell, the dish
from which so many later restaurants gained fame. The recipe for this as
prepared by the Iron House is still extant, and we are indebted to a
lady, who was a little girl when that restaurant was waning, whose
mother secured the recipe. It was prepared as follows:
Chicken in a Shell
Into a kettle containing a quart of water put a young chicken, one
sliced onion, a bay leaf, two cloves, a blade of mace and six
pepper-corns. Simmer in the covered kettle for one hour and set aside to
cool. When cool remove the meat from the bones, rejecting the skin. Cut
the meat into small dice. Mix in a saucepan, over a fire without
browning, a tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of flour, then add
half a pint of cream. Stir this constantly until it boils, then add a
truffle, two dozen mushrooms chopped fine, a dash of white pepper and
then the dice of chicken. Let the whole stand in a bain marie, or
chafing dish, until quite hot. Add the yolks of two eggs and let cook
two minutes. Stir in half a glass of sherry and serve in cockle shells.
Early Italian Impression
Almost coincident with the opening of the Iron House an Italian named
Bazzuro took possession of one of the stranded sailing vessels
encumbering the Bay, and anchored it out in the water at the point where
Davis and Pacific streets now intersect. He opened a restaurant which
immediately attracted attention and gained good reputation for its
service and its cooking. Later, when the land was filled in, Bazzuro
built a house at almost the same spot and opened his restaurant there,
continuing it up to the time of the great fire in 1906.
After the fire one of the earliest restaurants to be established in that
part of the city was Bazzuro's, at the same corner, and it is still run
by the family, who took charge after the death of the original
proprietor. Here one can get the finest Italian peasant meal in the
city, and many of the Italian merchants and bankers still go there for
their luncheons every day, preferring it to the more pretentious
establishments.
The French peasant style came a little later, beginning in a little
dining room opened in Washington street, just above Kearny, by a French
woman whose name was a carefully guarded secret. She was known far and
wide as "Ma Tanta" (My Aunt). Her cooking was considered the best of all
in the city, and her patrons sat at a long common table, neat and clean
to the last degree. Peasant style of serving was followed. First
appeared Ma Tanta with a great bowl of salad which she passed around,
each patron helping himself. This was followed by an immense tureen of
soup, held aloft in the hands of Ma Tanta, and again each was his own
waiter. Fish, entree, roast, and dessert, were served in the same
manner, and with the black coffee Ma Tanta changed from servitor to
hostess and sat with her guests and discussed the topics of the day on
equal terms.
In California street, just below Dupont, the California House boasted a
great chef in the person of John Somali, who in later years opened the
Maison Riche, a famous restaurant that went out of existence in the fire
of 1906. Gourmets soon discovered that the California House offered
something unusual and it became a famed resort. Somali's specialties
were roast turkey, chateaubriand steak and coffee frappe. It is said of
his turkeys that their flavor was of such excellence that one of the
gourmands of that day, Michael Reece, would always order two when he
gave a dinner--one for his guests and one for himself. It is also said
that our well-beloved Bohemian, Rafael Weill, still holds memories of
the old California House, of which he was an habitue, and from whose
excellent chef he learned to appreciate the art and science of cooking
as evidenced by the breakfasts and dinners with which he regales his
guests at the present day.
But many of the hardy pioneers were of English and American stock and
preferred the plainer foods of their old homes to the highly seasoned
dishes of the Latin chefs, and to cater to this growing demand the
Nevada was opened in Pine street between Montgomery and Kearny. This
place became noted for its roast beef and also for its corned beef and
cabbage, which was said to be of most excellent flavor.
Most famous of all the old oyster houses was Mannings, at the corner of
Pine and Webb streets. He specialized in oysters and many of his dishes
have survived to the present day. It is said that the style now called
"Oysters Kirkpatrick," is but a variant of Manning's "Oyster Salt
Roast."
At the corner of California and Sansome streets, where now stands the
Bank of California, was the Tehama House, one of the most famous of the
city's early hostelries, whose restaurant was famed for its excellence.
The Tehama House was the rendezvous of army and navy officers and high
state officials. Lieutenant John Derby, of the United States Army, one
of the most widely known western authors of that day, made it his
headquarters. Derby wrote under the names of "John Phoenix," and
"Squibob."
Perini's, in Post street between Grant avenue and Stockton, specialized
in pastes and veal risotto, and was much patronized by uptown men.
The original Marchand began business in a little room in Dupont street,
between Jackson and Washington, which district at that time had not been
given over to the Chinese, and he cooked over a charcoal brazier, in his
window, in view of passing people who were attracted by the novelty and
retained by the good cooking. With the extension of his fame he found
his room too small and he rented a cottage at Bush and Dupont street,
but his business grew so rapidly that he was compelled to move to more
commodious quarters at Post and Dupont and later to a much larger place
at Geary and Stockton, where he enjoyed good patronage until the fire
destroyed his place. There is now a restaurant in Geary street near
Mason which has on its windows in very small letters "Michael, formerly
of," and then in bold lettering, "Marchands." But Michael has neither
the art nor the viands that made Marchands famous, and he is content to
say that his most famous dish is tripe--just plain, plebeian tripe.
Christian Good, at Washington and Kearny, Big John, at Merchant street
between Montgomery and Sansome, Marshall's Chop House, in the old Center
Market, and Johnson's Oyster House, in a basement at Clay and
Leidesdorff streets, were all noted places and much patronized, the
latter laying the foundation of one of San Francisco's "First Families."
Martin's was much patronized by the Old Comstock crowd, and this was the
favorite dining place of the late William C. Ralston.
One of the most famous restaurants of the early '70s was the Mint, in
Commercial street, between Montgomery and Kearny, where the present
restaurant of the same name is located. It was noted for its Southern
cooking and was the favorite resort of W. W. Foote and other prominent
Southerners. The kitchen was presided over by old Billy Jackson, an
old-time Southern darkey, who made a specialty of fried chicken, cream
gravy, and corn fritters.
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