“Well, gentlemen,” says the landlord , “I reckoned you-all would be inquiring this morning. You all dropped off of the nine-thirty train here last night; and you was right tight. Yes, you was right smart in liquor. I can inform you that you are now in the town of Mountain Valley, in the State of Georgia.”
“On top of that,” says Caligula, “don’t say that we can’t have anything to eat.”
“Sit down, gentlemen,” says the landlord, “and in twenty minutes I’ll call you to the best breakfast you can get anywhere in town.”
That breakfast turned out to be composed of fried bacon and a yellowish edifice that proved up something between pound cake and flexible sandstone. The landlord calls it corn pone; and then he sets out a dish of the exaggerated breakfast food known as hominy; and so me and Caligula makes the acquaintance of the celebrated food that enabled every Johnny Reb to lick one and two-thirds Yankees for nearly four years at a stretch.
“The wonder to me is,” says Caligula, “that Uncle Robert Lee’s boys didn’t chase the Grant and Sherman outfit clear up into Hudson’s Bay. It would have made me that mad to eat this truck they call mahogany!”
“Hog and hominy,” I explains, “is the staple food of this section.”
“Then,” says Caligula, “they ought to keep it where it belongs. I thought this was a hotel and not a stable. Now, if we was in Muskogee at the St. Lucifer House, I’d show you some breakfast grub. Antelope steaks and fried liver to begin on, and venison cutlets with chili con carne and pine-apple fritters, and then some sardines and mixed pickles; and top it off with a can of yellow clings and a bottle of beer. You won’t find a layout like that on the bill of affairs of any of your Eastern restauraws.”
“Too lavish,” said I. “I’ve travelled, and I’m unprejudiced. There’ll never be a perfect breakfast eaten until some man grows arms long enough to stretch down to New Orleans for his coffee and over to Norfolk for his rolls, and reaches up to Vermont and digs a slice of butter out of a spring-house, and then turns over a beehive close to a white clover patch out in Indiana for the rest. Then he’d come pretty close to making a meal on the amber that the gods eat on Mount Olympia.”
“Too ephemeral,” says Caligula, “I’d want ham and eggs, or rabbit stew, anyhow, for a chaser. What do you consider the most edifying and casual in the way of a dinner?”
“I’ve been infatuated from time to time,” I answers, “with fancy ramifications of grub such as terrapins, lobsters, reed birds, jambolaya, and canvas-covered ducks; but after all there’s nothing less displeasing than a beefsteak smothered in mushrooms on a balcony in sound of the Broadway street cars, with a hand-organ playing down below, and the boys hollering extras about the latest suicide. For the wine, give me a reasonable Ponty Cany. And that’s all, except a demi-tasse.”
“Well,” says Caligula, “I reckon in New York you get to be a coniseer; and when you go around with a demi-tasse you are naturally bound to buy ’em stylish grub.”
“It’s a great town for epicures,” says I. “You’d soon fall into their ways if you was there.”
“I’ve heard it was,” says Caligula. “But I reckon I wouldn’t. I can polish my fingernails all they need myself.”
“On top of that,” says Caligula, “don’t say that we can’t have anything to eat.”
“Sit down, gentlemen,” says the landlord, “and in twenty minutes I’ll call you to the best breakfast you can get anywhere in town.”
That breakfast turned out to be composed of fried bacon and a yellowish edifice that proved up something between pound cake and flexible sandstone. The landlord calls it corn pone; and then he sets out a dish of the exaggerated breakfast food known as hominy; and so me and Caligula makes the acquaintance of the celebrated food that enabled every Johnny Reb to lick one and two-thirds Yankees for nearly four years at a stretch.
“The wonder to me is,” says Caligula, “that Uncle Robert Lee’s boys didn’t chase the Grant and Sherman outfit clear up into Hudson’s Bay. It would have made me that mad to eat this truck they call mahogany!”
“Hog and hominy,” I explains, “is the staple food of this section.”
“Then,” says Caligula, “they ought to keep it where it belongs. I thought this was a hotel and not a stable. Now, if we was in Muskogee at the St. Lucifer House, I’d show you some breakfast grub. Antelope steaks and fried liver to begin on, and venison cutlets with chili con carne and pine-apple fritters, and then some sardines and mixed pickles; and top it off with a can of yellow clings and a bottle of beer. You won’t find a layout like that on the bill of affairs of any of your Eastern restauraws.”
“Too lavish,” said I. “I’ve travelled, and I’m unprejudiced. There’ll never be a perfect breakfast eaten until some man grows arms long enough to stretch down to New Orleans for his coffee and over to Norfolk for his rolls, and reaches up to Vermont and digs a slice of butter out of a spring-house, and then turns over a beehive close to a white clover patch out in Indiana for the rest. Then he’d come pretty close to making a meal on the amber that the gods eat on Mount Olympia.”
“Too ephemeral,” says Caligula, “I’d want ham and eggs, or rabbit stew, anyhow, for a chaser. What do you consider the most edifying and casual in the way of a dinner?”
“I’ve been infatuated from time to time,” I answers, “with fancy ramifications of grub such as terrapins, lobsters, reed birds, jambolaya, and canvas-covered ducks; but after all there’s nothing less displeasing than a beefsteak smothered in mushrooms on a balcony in sound of the Broadway street cars, with a hand-organ playing down below, and the boys hollering extras about the latest suicide. For the wine, give me a reasonable Ponty Cany. And that’s all, except a demi-tasse.”
“Well,” says Caligula, “I reckon in New York you get to be a coniseer; and when you go around with a demi-tasse you are naturally bound to buy ’em stylish grub.”
“It’s a great town for epicures,” says I. “You’d soon fall into their ways if you was there.”
“I’ve heard it was,” says Caligula. “But I reckon I wouldn’t. I can polish my fingernails all they need myself.”
O. Henry, “Hostages to Momus”