The Cook's Decameron: a study in taste, containing over two hundred recipes for Italian dishes by Mrs. W. G. (William George) Waters
page 90 of 196 (45%)
page 90 of 196 (45%)
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Sir John seated himself in a box, where there was one other luncher
in the corner, deeply absorbed over a paper. This luncher raised his head and Sir John recognised Van der Roet. "My dear Vander, whatever brought you here, where nothing is to be had but chops? I didn't know you could eat a chop." "I didn't know it myself till to-day," said Van der Roet, with a hungry glance at the waiter, who rushed by with a plate of smoking chops in each hand. "The fact is, I've had a sort of hankering after an Italian lunch, and I went out to find one, but I didn't exactly hit on the right shop, so I came here, where I've been told you can get a chop properly cooked, if you don't mind waiting." "Ah! I see," said Sir John, laughing. "We've both been on the same quest, and have been equally unlucky. Well, we shall satisfy our hunger here at any rate, and not unpleasantly either." "I went to one place," said Van der Roet "and before ordering I asked the waiter if there was any garlic in the dish I had ordered. 'Garlic, aglio, no, sir, never.' Whereupon I thought I would go somewhere else. Next I entered the establishment of Baldassare Romanelli. How could a man with such a name serve anything else than the purest Italian cookery, I reasoned, so I ordered, unquestioning, a piatio with an ideal Italian name, Manzo alla Terracina. Alas! the beef used in the composition thereof must have come in a refrigerating chamber from pastures more remote than those of Terracina, and the sauce served with it was simply fried onions. In short, my dish was beefsteak and onions, and very bad at that. So in despair I fell back upon the trusty British chop." |
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