The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 10, 1903, Page 13

society grows dull for want of noveity, then Mrs. Rus- sets her brains to something new is the nd delightful dinner on re S ncisco was the Ta- ta bast at which she and Dr. Cool were ess soon after their arrive to the South Seas. e en soon after, r the me ¢ brought along t » be eaten prompt- its release from o orage. s had a delightful trip to the ands about which most of us and they de that their triends whe could not dine with them ere in the shade of their banana palms and breadfruit trees should at least eat of the same viand they went to work collect the viands and bring them home =i Unique Mail Casks From the 77€5 (o0l T IV HINEJE DIWNER Sy 5 TR FoR e S TUOIE “One day as 1 was sitting beside our house I counted fourteen fruits that were good for food, all near by and growing lustily. I suggested that we bring home some of each of these and we did, and did it successfully. They all came In cold storage on the vessel,” says Mrs. Cool. Mangoes were one kind They grow to perfection in the islands and are a very favorite fruit of nati and of the French people as well. Some fine speci- mens of this fruit were brought for the famous dinner, which was largely made up of fruits, for they are a vastly im- portant article of diet to the Tahitian, Cocoanuts, oranges, bananas and limes were brough® In quantities. They are none of them novelties to us in name, but the travelers say that they are in kind. The Tahitlan fruits are so de- licious, as they are picked and eaten resh from the trees, that they claim we Scottish Isle of St. Kilda The Bcottish island of St. Kilda, the most westerly of the Hebrides, lies far out in the Atlantie, and is visited only two or three times a year by mailboats In the intervzls between these visits the 8t. Kildans adopt a curious mode of send- the outside world. a plece of plank is foot and a half in length, es wide and four inches thick. is pointed at one end like a wedge, end & hole is bored sideways through it, while the other end is cut like the stern of & thus forming the rough model of @ boat. In the center of the “boat” a hole six inches by four inches is cut. All the letters, along with the coppers g their letters to trawier, for postage, are then collected and put into a flask, which in turn is placed in the cavity of the “boat,” with a hatch, the nailed to the wood, so that no water may get in. On the bow is painted in large letters the word “‘Open.” Finally a buoy is attached to the boat by @ cord passed through the bow. When everything is ready the little craft is com- mitted to the sea, which in due course casts it somewhere on the west coast of Scotland. Whoever picks it up is expected to buy the necessary stamps with the money con- tained in the “boat,” and to post the let- ters that they may reach their destina- tions. do not really know anything about the possibilities of these fam.iar things. The guava was a great treat. Custard apples, t00, we know oniy by reputation, except that a few specimens are grown in Southern California for the sake of oddity. The pulp is delicious and soft like a custard. Pineapples were brought in large quan- U:Lfis. and these ‘adorned the dining table. hey are not & really pretty decora- tion,” Mrs. Cool says, ‘‘but they are al- tugether characteristic, und that is what I aimed at. 1 stood them in a long row down the center of the table just as the Tahitlans themselves do at a feast. They use no flowers. These pineapples stand like a row of plumed soldiers with thelr bushy heads upright.” The only table decorations were fruits and the beautiful green leaves 4which covered the white of the cloth. It was like sitting down to a table set on the lawn. The cool tint made the entire ground work. Not a hint of the gayer color of flowers appeared anywhere. Mrs. Cool covered her walls with the palm branches that are the Tahitian sign of festivity. Here and there against the green background were hung the | orgeous red and white quilts that the and covered over | latter being tightly | natives make and use like tapestry. Mrs. Cool brought a great many of these home, they having been given to her by her dark-skinned friends on the island. There was only one Imperfection to in- terfere with the careful realism of the picture. It was impossible to wear ap- propriate costumes. Neither the San Francisco climate nor the San Francisco customs permit Tahitlan costumes. Both are too rigorous. 8 “To tell the truth, T did wear the na- tive dress while I was on the island,” Mrs. Cool says. “I couldn't have stood the climate otherwise. - The closeness of our own styls of dress becomes unbear- NDAY THE CALL. TaHITIAN LINNER able in the Neat The nmafives wear & simple loose gown like & wrapper.” The best that could be done was to in- duce several of the men to appear in the white ducks that are worn by the French and other foreigners on the island. Dr. Cool has such a costume, and he is the fortunate possessor of a genuine Tahitlan hat as well, made of the finest hand- woven straw. These spots of white lent a trepical touch to the charming picture of green and red and white, with the golden and rosy fruits gleaming on the table. First came soup, and Mrs, Cool Jays that she had to use all her ingenuity to concoct & soup that should in any way reproduce that of the natives. The basis 1s pork, and there is no American pig that in any way compares with their own, so, presto, a Tahitian pig was packed In cold storage and brought over. The little animals run about there feed- ing In eplcurean fashion on the guava fruit. They eat scarcely anything else. This gives their meat an entirely differ- ent flavor from any that we know. It is a little like chicken, a little llke wild game and Infinitely more delicate than either. It makes a most deliclous soup. However, there are many vegetables used in it—wvegetables which Mrs. Cool could net bring or obtain here, so she attempt- ed to imitate thelr flavors as nearly as possible by using our own products. “My boy is Chinese, and he didn’t know a thing about Tahitlan cooking, of course, so I had to prepare almost everything . myself, and 1 assure you I got into = good many quandaries before the affair ‘wag over, for there were some things that we could not bring, and, besides, the materials had to be prepared in any case, and I was se afraid that nothing would taste as it does in the island.” The raw fish was next. It was the tona, the most popular kind. The fish is so large that one was enough for the forty guests present. The fish was pre- pared by being soaked in limejuice and dipped in salt, which is far better than cooking, according to the brown natives’ ideas. The fashionable sauce called mitl was served with this. It is made by grat- ing the meat of the cocoanut and press- ing out the juice. The sauce is used in many ways for many courses. Hot bread- fruit was passed with the tona. Next came pota, also with mitl sauce. Pota consists of small pleces of salt pork wrapped In taro leaves and roasted. The leaves cannot be had here, so Mrs. Cool sdbstituted spinach, and with delightful results. She had brought over the tars roots, however, and thess were roasted They have a crusty taste llke brown bread 13 Alligator pear salad Is something which the hostess thinks should be eaten here all the time, as there is no salad in the world quite so good. The pulp o the f is removed from the rind, masn ed xed with the conventional ingre dients of a French dressing—oil, mustard. vinegar and so on—and put back into the ri “It is one of the Tahitian delicacles that we can ha n San Franecisco just South Seas, for alliga in all our markets, so we enjoy it? Tahitian er, they are good French chefs who live be ar ac well as in th tor pears are why shouldn't dishes are not q concocted b on the island, so they ought to tistie. It is different with the Chinese food. Our palates cannot be trained to it After my Chinese dinner I re teit that I sent most of my g [ But It wasn't so with the Tahitian They couldn’t help liking it.” The baked fish that followed brought the guests back to America in some de- gree, aithough the dressing of decidedly erfental in flavor. The is made from a plant resembling canna The whole pig roasted was the plece de resistance. It was a dainty little mor sel, another of the guava-fed pets. It was served with cocoanut sauce, hot and de- liclous. San Francisco roast pig w hereafter be to those forty diners rabbit was to the whilom Belgian hare. The dessert was entirely according civilization. Water ices are extremely eommon in Tahiti, for there are two | plants and the French have intro the freezer and its magic lore. Ice is_yet unknown, for milk is too much of y was curry eam a rarity, but pineapple ice Is a favorite delicacy. Mrs. Cool served hers on slices of the pineapple fruit. The fruits that were heaped upon the table and passed at the end Included rose pineapples and Martinique cherries; feu, which are similar to bananas; the bar badines, a giant passion frult served al- ways with white wine and sugar In the same fashion as our grape fruit, and the beautiful guava fruit, Coffee was entirely appropriate, and any and all of the French wines are Ta- kitian now by adoption, so Burgundy and champagne carried out the realism. Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the guests and she said the dinner was so truly Tahitian that it made her homesick. “This was the greatest compliment that could have been,” Mrs. Cool. Goodness only knows what this most original hostess will think up next. It is rot many months since her Chinese din- ner in a real Chinese restaurant gave her fame. That dinner was much described at the time and the twenty-four courses wers celebrated as the same that had Dbeen planned for McKinley's banquet. They ranged from soup to soup again, all the way through chop suey and paste balls and birds’ nests. The guests met at the Cool residence, had cocktalls and drove tc Chinatown, the women splendidly ar- rayed in Oriental costumes. Mrs. Cool's own Chinese dress was worth a small for- tune In embroidery and she wore a won- derful mandolin necklace that reached the floor, all beads, and hung with pea- dants of amethys! “The dinner was mercilessly realistio, even to chopsticks,” she says, “and the few who were brave enough to swallow the courses had difficulty in picking up enough to swallow. Not more than haif a dozen ats a square meal. I felt dread- tully guilty about it.” But who would have minded ging home bungry for once if that were the cheap price of attending so unique a function? .WWW. Were You Ever Greeted With “Hib! Hib!"" or A Turk will solemnly cross his hands up his breast and make a profound obels- ance when he bids you farewell. The genial Japanese will take his slipper oft as you depart and say with a smile: “You are going to leave my despicable house In your honorable journeying—I re- gard thee!” The Filipino's parting benediction is be- stowed by rubbing his friend's face with his hand. The German “Lebe wohl” is not particu- larly sympathetic in its sound, but it Is less embarrassing to those it speeds than the performance of the Hindoo, whe, when you go from him, falls in the dust at your feet Sneezy “Praschai?”’ Fiji Islanders cross two red feathers. Natives of New Guinea exchangs choco- lates. The Burmese bend low and say: “Hib! Hib!" The “Auf weiderschen™ of the Austrians s the most feeling expression of farewell. A Cuban would consider his good-by ything but a cordial one unless he was given a good cigar. The South Sea Islanders rattle each oth- er's whale-teeth necklace. The Russian form of parting salutation is brief, consisting of the single word “Praschal,” said to sound like a sneeze. The Otaheite Islander will twist the end of the departing guest's robe and then solemnly shakes bhis two hands thres times.