Twain's Feast (44 page)

Read Twain's Feast Online

Authors: Andrew Beahrs

BOOK: Twain's Feast
2.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
120
slow the metabolism
Barrett, “The California Oyster Industry,” 13.
120
“Oysters in the shell”
Wilcox,
Buckeye Cookery,
258.
120
an Indiana cook to declare a sauce
A. M. Collins,
The Great Western Cookbook, or Table Receipts, Adapted to Western Housewifery
(New York: A. S. Barnes, 1857), 36.
120
“a more used-up, hungrier”
Powers,
Mark Twain,
363.
121
“this delicious article of food”
Barrett, “The California Oyster Industry,” 21.
121
champagne and pickled-oyster stew
Twain,
Autobiography,
136.
122
to bail out prostitutes
Muscatine,
Old San Francisco,
131.
122
“people who are unaccustomed”
Mitchell, “Old Mr. Flood,” 388.
123
Oyster Loaves
Jane Cunningham Croly,
Jennie June’s American Cookery Book
(New York: American News, 1870), 76.
123
“as the Americans assert”
Marryat,
A Diary in America,
36.
123
“the Northern oyster has”
De Voe,
The Market Assistant,
306.
124
“balances the saltiness”
Jaimarie Pomo,
The Hog Island Oyster Lover’s Cookbook
(Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2007), 35.
124
“no relation at all to the taste, if there is one”
Eleanor Clarke,
The Oysters of Locmariaquer
(New York: Pantheon, 1966), 6.
125
24 billion gallons
John Hart,
San Francisco Bay: Portrait of an Estuary
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 1.
125
a new North Beach bathing house
Mark Twain: San Francisco Correspondent,
Henry Nash Smith and Frederick Anderson, eds. (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1957), 55.
126
a cruise to Oakland, or San Leandro, or Alameda
SLC to Pamela A. Moffett, May18?, 1863, San Francisco,
Mark Twain’s Letters, 1853-1866,
Mark Twain Project Online,
www.marktwainproject.org/xtf/view?docId=letters/UCCL00065.xml;style=letter;brand=mtp, accessed Dec. 15, 2008
.
126
trawlers, feluccas
Muscatine,
Old San Francisco,
224.
126
oyster omelets
Clarence E. Edwords,
Bohemian San Francisco: Its Restaurants and Their Most Famous Recipes
(1914; San Francisco: Silhouette Press, 1973), 60.
126
Ed Ricketts
Edward F. Ricketts and Jack Calvin,
Between Pacific Tides
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1939), 253.
126
“the small-shelled oysters”
Wilcox,
Buckeye Cookery,
258.
127
six hundred bushels
Barrett, “The California Oyster Industry,” 22.
127
huge floods flushed the bay
Ibid.
127
“far superior to the poor”
Mark Twain: San Francisco Correspondent,
85.
127
a sailboat could arrive from Washington
Ibid.
128
“in San Francisco you earn”
W. Mackay Laffan, “Canvas-Back and Terrapin,”
Scribner’s Monthly
15, no. 1 (Nov. 1877), 1.
128
“the slightly coppery taste”
Edwords,
Bohemian San Francisco,
60.
129
“had abused the Scoofy oysters”
Mark Twain: San Francisco Correspondent,
84.
129
Roast Oysters in the Shell
Fanny Lemira Gillette,
White House Cook Book
(Chicago: R. S. Peale, 1887), 63.
130
“After a few months’ acquaintance”
Twain,
A Tramp Abroad,
3.
131
“we could scarcely see”
Twain,
The Washoe Giant in San Francisco,
87-88.
132
look pretty monotonous
Anne Wertheim Rosenfeld,
The Intertidal Wilderness: A Photographic Journey Through Pacific Coast Tidepools
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 36; see also Ricketts and Calvin,
Between Pacific Tides,
396.
133
To Stew Oysters
Carter,
The Frugal Housewife,
91.
133
Four hundred such shell mounds
Hart,
San Francisco Bay,
17-20.
134
A day’s haul
Edwords,
Bohemian San Francisco,
76-77.
134
fishermen never used ice
Muscatine,
Old San Francisco,
227.
134
some fifty large anchovies
Myrtle Elizabeth Johnson and Harry James Snook,
Seashore Animals of the Pacific Coast
(New York: Dover, 1955), 427.
134
venison, bear
Muscatine,
Old San Francisco,
132; see also Andrew Neal Cohen,
An Introduction to the Ecology of the San Francisco Bay,
2nd ed. (Save San Francisco Bay Association, San Francisco Estuary Project, June 1991), 8.
135
nearly eight hundred ships in the cove
Muscatine,
Old San Francisco,
109.
135
One of the town’s first Italian restaurants
Ibid., 110.
136
Much of the Gold Rush consisted
Walton Bean and James J. Rawls,
California: An Interpretive History,
4th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1983), 92-93; see also S. T. Harding,
Water in California
(Palo Alto, CA: N-P Publications, 1960), 62-65.
136
some 1.5
billion
Ibid.
137
an 1884 lawsuit
Harding,
Water in California,
57.
137
train-car loads
Barrett, “The California Oyster Industry,” 27.
137
2.5 million pounds of oyster meat
Fred S. Conte, “California Oyster Culture,” in
California Aquaculture
(UC Davis Department of Animal Science, 1996), 1-3.
138
“Mr. Taft’s beds”
Jack London, “A Raid on the Oyster Pirates,” in
Tales of the Fish Patrol
(Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2005), 27-40.
138
two hundred thousand fish
Cohen,
An Introduction to the Ecology of the San Francisco Bay,
2.
138
The bay fishery for crabs
Hart,
San Francisco Bay,
120.
139
some fisheries do survive
Ibid., 12.
139
Oyster Soup
Mary Randolph,
The Virginia Housewife
(Baltimore: Plaskitt, Fite, 1838), 16.
140
earliest oyster pens
Christine Sculati, “Still Hanging On: The Bay’s Native Oysters,”
Bay Nature,
Oct. 2004.
142
“Methinks a toddy, piping hot”
Twain,
The Washoe Giant in San Francisco,
50.
143
“repackage” some of the nutrients
Ibid.
144
describing oyster beds under the heading
Mark Twain, “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once,” in
Collected Tales, 1852-1890,
412-17.
144
To Boil a Shoulder
Esther Allen Howland,
The New England Economical Housekeeper
(Cincinnati: H. W. Derby, 1845), 57.
5. DINNER WAS LEISURELY SERVED: PHILADELPHIA TERRAPIN
148
Canadians used the crustaceans
Farley Mowat,
Sea of Slaughter
(Toronto: Bantam, 1984), 200.
148
“signs of poverty”
Ibid.
148
the first lobsters sent from New York
Williams,
Food in the United States,
28.
149
two average lobsters
Mowat,
Sea of Slaughter,
201.
150
“laying claim to being a pretentious affair”
“A Talk About Terrapins: How Maryland’s Favorite Delicacy Is Obtained and Stewed,”
New York Times,
Dec. 5, 1880 (repr.
Washington Post
), p. 9.
150
Terrapin Clear Soup
Corson,
Practical American Cookery,
192.
151
Diamondback terrapins rule
Barbara Brennessel,
Diamonds in the Marsh: A Natural History of the Diamondback Terrapin
(Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2006), 3-42.
151 “
Terrapin” is a corruption
Brennessel,
Diamonds in the Marsh
, 137.
151
North Carolinians tracked
“Hunting for Terrapin: A Profitable Industry Along the Chesapeake,”
New York Times,
Nov. 20, 1892, p. 9.
152
Chesapeake tribes such as the Delaware
Brennessel,
Diamonds in the Marsh,
137.
152
“an art about making terrapin”
“A Talk About Terrapins,”
New York Times,
Dec. 5, 1880.
152
“original bandana-crowned”
“Hints for the Household: Miss Corson’s Lecture on the Cooking of Terrapin,”
New York Times,
Mar. 13, 1881, p. 9.
152
“require[d] the native born culinary genius of the African”
Ward McAllister, “Success in Entertaining,” from
Society as I Have Found It,
excerpted in O’Neill,
American Food Writing,
99.
152
“raised their voices in loud complaint”
“Terrapin Season Begun,”
New York Times,
Nov. 6, 1898 (repr.
Baltimore Sun
), p. 6.
153
Lafayette’s love for the dish
Evan Jones,
American Food: The Gastronomic Story
(Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1990), 53.
153
“Turttle, and every other Thing”
John Adams, Journal entry for Sept. 22, 1774, online at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea/diary
, accessed Dec. 27, 2008.
153 “
precious cordial”
“Hints for the Household,”
New York Times.
153
Stewed Terrapin
Gillette,
White House Cook Book,
58.
155
“something more than a human”
Quoted in Powers,
Mark Twain,
213.
155
artists, social reformers, and writers
Ibid., 251.
155
“The Facts Concerning”
Everett Emerson,
Mark Twain: A Literary Life
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 105-6.
155
under the name Sam Clemens
Ibid.
155
“row of venerable and still active”
From autobiographical dictations in Jan. 1906, quoted in
Mark Twain: Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims and Other Speeches,
Charles Neider, ed. (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000), 56.
156
the evening’s menu
Boston Daily Globe,
Dec. 18, 1877. Online at
http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/onstage/whitnews.html
.
158
ice-cream knives and fish cutters
Susan Williams,
Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian America
(New York: Pantheon, 1985), 87-90.
158
“Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed”
Mark Twain, “Whittier Birthday Speech,” in
Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims,
51.
158
“I didn’t know enough to give it up”
From autobiographical dictations in Jan. 1906, 57.
159
“Bishop was away up”
Twain, “Whittier Birthday Speech,” 57.
160
“high-flavored Nevada delirium”
Powers,
Mark Twain,
411.
160
“I feel my misfortune”
Emerson,
Mark Twain: A Literary Life,
110.
160
Maryland Terrapins
Carrie V. Shuman,
Favorite Dishes
(Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 1893), 43.
161
“been agitated for thirty years”
Quoted in O’Neill,
American Food Writing,
101.
161
Colonel John Forney
John Forney, “Terrapin,” in
The Epicure,
quoted in Williams,
Food in the United States,
119.
161
met before an impartial jury
Jones,
American Food,
53.
161
“contained the meat, hearts and livers”
Joseph Mitchell, “The Same as Monkey Glands,” in
Up in the Old Hotel,
322.
162
Amelia Simmons had begun
Amelia Simmons,
American Cookery
(Hartford, CT: Hudson and Goodwin, 1796); facsimile in
The First American Cookbook
(New York: Oxford University Press: 1958), 20-22.
162
“no longer used in cooking”
Gillette,
White House Cook Book,
57.
162
Baltimore’s Hotel Rennert
Michael W. Fincham, “The Men Who Would Be Kings: How Grand Plans for the Terrapin Went Somewhat Awry,”
Chesapeake Quarterly,
Dec. 2008. Online at
www.mdsg.umd.edu/cq/v07n4/main2/
.
162
“very small raw oysters”
SLC to Olivia L. Clemens, Nov. 18,1885,
Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Manuscript Letters Now in the Mark Twain Papers,
Mark Twain Project, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA.
163
“There is no need to prepare”
Laffan, “Canvas-back and Terrapin,” 10.
163
“as national a dish as canvasback”
Quoted in O’Neill,
American Food Writing,
99.
163
“the great delicacies in America”
Marryat,
A Diary in America,
36.
163
“necessary to a very swell dinner”
“Canvas-Back Duck Trust: No Monopoly in Terrapin Possible,”
New York Times,
Feb. 5, 1888, p. 10.
163
baby mushrooms
Mitchell, “The Same as Monkey Glands,” 322.
163
A recent
Baltimore Sun
article
Arthur Hirsch, “These Terrapin Aren’t So Popular,”
Baltimore Sun,
Mar. 26, 2003, p. 1F.
164
“if there was a better way of taking away her life”
“Hints for the Household,”
New York Times,
p. 9.
164
“be careful not to cut off their heads”
Shuman,
Favorite Dishes,
43.

Other books

The Man in Possession by Hilda Pressley
The Shaman: And other shadows by Manzetti, Alessandro
Remember by Barbara Taylor Bradford
On Christmas Hill by Nichole Chase
The Woman Next Door by Joanne Locker
This Love's Not for Sale by Ella Dominguez
The Quality of Mercy by Faye Kellerman