6
EATING IS THE BIGGEST INDUSTRY IN BUENOS AIRES
It Comes Before Business in the Argentine Capital Which Has Supplanted Berlin as a City
f Gormandizing When Business Interferes With Eating the Argentine Cuts Out Business
THB BOISroS ill KH!S waiter was
trylns out his newly arrived
Tankt customer-, .nd th latteT
floundered in the deep water of te
elnnei'a Spanish for the first time.
There vi a. difference of language,
yes.
Bnt the real dlfflcnltr 1T In differ
ence of viewpoint concerning eating.
For the Yankee, ordering a light
tunch, Mew York style, wanted one
elmple dish, an entree, with a bit of
Balad, and then a sweet and coffee.
Which aa lunch is absolutely un
thinkable In Buenos Aires ahsolute
atnentef The Yankee wanted to snatch a btte
tx eat end get back to 'business. But
the Buenos Aires idea is Just the
ether way round to da a little busi
ness and then get back to eating.
In the days of yore the gourmand
Sxlng capital of the world was un
questionably Berlin, where the popu
lation started In the morning with
several breakfasts, first from the
fingers, then reaching the "fork
breakfast and mingling business
iwlth meals and lunches all day until
far into the night, when business was
happily outdistanced and eating pre-!
trailed.
Buenos Aires now has very good
claims as the capital of a new league
of gourmets, first because its eating
habits are strikingly like those of
Berlin, and, secondly, because, as the
gateway of one of the greatest food
producing regions in the world, with
only the surface of its rich soil
scratched, it stands the best chance
of being a permanent capital.
The Yankee wanted an entree and
salad and a sweet.
What the Buenos Aires waiter con
siders a lunch is something like this:
First the "fiambre," or cold meat,
the indispensable overture to every
Buenos Aires meaL This is strikingly
like the "kaltespelssen" of Berlin,
where fifty cold dishes decorated the
entrance of every restaurant, fish and
lobsters frozen In blocks of Ice, color
effects of caviar and mayonnaise, egg
and sausage, pate and cold meat, and
three waiters appeared on one side
find four on the other, each bearing
t
1 -V r
4 fS 3
i s
fits.
'i
several dishes on his arm, and heaped
your plate until you eaid "Alzo!" The
Buenos Aires array of fiambre is
somewhat simpler, but Includes de
licious slices of breast meat from the
Juiciest turkey in the world, then
shavings of ham cured in the Smith
field style, tongue, roast beef, game.
35H
V
ll.
V
it 5-
One of Buenos Aires' modern hotels.
delicious Argentine pate in the form
of castles, meat jellies, stuffed eggs,
salads and relishes. The waiters
bring assortment after assortment?
displaying fiambre to the cold eye ot
the sated Argentine and heaping his
plate until he says "Bustante!" Being
a Latirvfce can say"Eastante!" silent
THE SUNDAY OKEGONIAJi. rOETLAJTD,
,Jr i -
iS3h
k.
0 'm
1 T,4
t- Is,
1
-v
1--.. ' : f i"rl.
ly, with his left little finger or rght
eyebrow.
Hed the American ordered simply
fiambre and then paid the check it
would have made an ample lunch, but
the waiter would have concluded that
he was a poor man and felt sympa
thetic and apologized. In bringing the
. i Mi
Min
im ""VT . : iK"''-
vrtr''--' --nil, i - " "i
ST
L
P.M.
ir
'3 !
- 11
check, smilingly protesting "Muy
chico, aenor, which is Argentine
idiom for very small.
To the Argentines, however, fiam
bre is only the beginning of a meat
Then come soup, fish, spaghetti, a
hot-meat course, a vegetable course
served alone, with chicken later, fol
lowed by a sweet and coffee and a
cordiaL
Xhe soup, is --no dishwater affair.
OCTOBER IP, 1910.
PUS X
but a delicious mixture of several
well-cooked, vegetables or a thick
cream soup. The fish is not the scrap
of tasteless flounder filet served at a
New York banquet, but one of the
local fishes of the Rio Flata, eooked
whole, which the waiter brings lt
cutting filets on the spot. The spag
hetti is invariably called "taglievlni."
and is usually made fresh from Ar
gentine wheat an4 perhaps colored
green with spinach. The meat may be
a delicious casserole d.ish. followed
by a single vegetable as a slight in
terruption of the steady flow of
meat, and then comes the chicken,
which calls for description all by
itself. Only when the sweets are
reached does the bUl of fare begin to
break down, for pie and1 ice cream
and like desserts are not common in
Buenos Aires, and the "dulce" is often
replaced with cheese or fruit.
JYhejn. the Argentine does not feel
.-55
.it
4
Mii1
I !
1 -
fi-'ii
Interior of the Jockey Club, Buenos Aires.
particularly hungry, and would lunch1
on a single dish, be orders a pu-
chero." The Spanish word means a
glazed earthen pot or the meat boiled
la such a pot. but the Argentine
puchero is more on the order of a
super-New England boiled dinner.
Even when ordered for one person
'the waiter brings it on an enormous
platter, with the different ingredients
carefully arranged. It consists of
boiled beef, supplemented by boiled
chicken in a "puchero galllno," slices
of salt pork, sections of savory little
EpanlBh sausages, potatoes, sweet po
tatoes, carrots, slices cf winter
squash, cabbage, rice and garbanzaa.
or Spanish chick-peas. In the res
taurants these are boiled separately
and arranged on the platter, but true
puchero is one made at heme, with all
the ingredients cooked together.
The Buenos Aires restaurateur not
only understands chicken more inti
mately than any other host In the
world, but has an admirable frank
ness concerning the bird. Chicken is
simply chicken with us, whether it
be rooster or hen, and regardless of
age. But a young chicken on the
Buenos Aires blll-of-fare is always
"pello," or pullet, and the more ma
ture bird, is frankly listed as "gel
Una," or hen. Like the Jew, who long
ago settled this question .of good
chicken in bis Uosaio law, the Ar
gentine will buy chicken only on the
hoof the live birds are freshly killed
for the table and cold-storage poultry
Is unknown. Galllna Is boiled tender,
while Buenos Aires polio ean best be
described in the words of Edouard,
an expert:
"It is a young chicken of either sex
that never gets up until 11 A. MJ. and
s
then, after taking its roll and coffee.
gees back to bed again."
Breakfast consists of a roll and
coffee. Then there is an hour at the
office and two hours for a hearty
meal, during which many business
places close The Americans and
British commute home to ranch,
reaching Balgrano, the Brooklyn of
Buenos Aires, in 2A minutes by train.
from 2 to. A pfficas are open, again.
and then everybody goes out to tea.
which is a real meal, consisting of
tea. coffee or chocolate, with liberal
helpings of sandwiches and cakes.
At this meal the true son of Argen
tina really gets down to the business
of eating.
On Sunday people gather and de
vote two hours to this function. It
absolutely spoils the new arrival's
dinner, but at t o'clock the Argen
tines sit down to the heaviest meal
of the day. then go to the opera or
theater, where performances seldom
begin before. 9 or 10 o'clock. After
the show the restaurants fill again,
but here, rather curiously, the Ar
gentine appetite balks.
The restaurants of Buenos Aires
are many and of a surprisingly good
character, with plenty of middle
class places where well-cooked food
is served at reasonable prices. Like
the restaurants of Paris, there seem
to be none of the monstrous estab
lishments for spoiling good food so
common in the United States and
England. But Buenos AireaJs not in ;
the least cosmopolitan. It has in
numerable establishments where its
combination of French. Italian and
Spanish cooking are all pretty much
alike.
The cabaret has not yet reached
Buenos Aires, and perhaps nevlr will,
for lt is hard to imagine the Argen
tine gourmet interrupting the many
courses of his lunch or dinner to rise
and dance a foxtrot.
The business day of Buenos Aires Is
arranged with eating first and busi
ness secondary. The rising hour is
late, t to 10 o'clock in the morning,
because the Argentine capital Is truly
an allnlght town, with restaurants
filled at 3 A M., an hour when New
York, though widely advertising its
midnight frolics, is safely abed.
The day winds up with tea, coffee,
chocolate, wine or liquors, accom
panied by just a bite of delicatessen.
The Argentine is then willing to call
it a day, and quit and it has cer
tainly been some day in a gaetrono
mlo sense from 10 o'clock la the
morning until 1AM.
Dingo Dog Is Worst' of
Australian Pests.
Wild CTanlae Constaat Mesaee to
to bhees-KjUsing Isdnstry.
THE dingo dog is the name given
to the wild canine of Australia.
He la to that country what the
wolf is to eastern Europe or the coy
ote to the United States. Hunting
with a pack or alone, be is a constant
menace to Australia's chief Industry,
the breeding of sheep.
Many are the schemes devised for
the dingo's extermination, but his cap
ture or death is a comparatively rare
occurrence when set against his con
stant depredations. There are dog
trappers who spend their whole time
trying to catch dingos. men who have
studied every aspect of their work and
who spare no pains and avoid no hard
ship in a continual warfare with the
wiles and cunning of this sheep slayer.
Although the dingo la met with
from time to time In almost every part
of the Australian bush, his principal
habitat is the rough range country in
the center and north of New South
Wales and the deep dark scrubs of
Queensland.
The dog trapper's life is of the lone
liest kind. For weeks, perhaps
months, he camps in the desolate
ranges, setting his traps and watching
with ready rifle in the moonlit night
for a chance shot at tbe enemy. In
the bush there is a price en the head
of every dingo. In some parts a dingo
is worth 50 or even 175 to the man
who delivers his scalp to the pastoral
board or to the squatter.
This is made up by suras contrib
uted by the sheep breeders and al
lowed by the district councils, so gen
erally recognised an enemy is the
wild dog. 'With such handsome emolu
ments to encourage him, the profes
sional dog trapper is not easily daunt
ed, and his patience and perseverance
are remarkable Sometimes he may
get as many as three or four dogs in
a week, but as a rule he la doing very
well if he gets three in three months.
For the most part the dingo con
fines his murderous attacks to sheep
and weakling calves, but in the far
out Queensland districts, where large
packs travel together, hunger has
been known to make them bold
enough to attack men in their lonely
camps after th.e manner of wolves.
The dingo never barks, but his
weird howl is a familiar sound in the
bush at night, and is bloodcurdling
in the extreme, being especially try
ing on the nerves of the newcomers
in the camps. Owing to the dingo's '
cunning and swiftness in changing
quarters, he holds his own and is like
ly to do so for many a day to come,
even though the very generous price
set upon his head should be doubled
px. trebled.
Iff