Identifier: cu31924032492773 (find matches)
Title: Our Philadelphia
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, 1855-1936 Pennell, Joseph, 1857-1926
Subjects:
Publisher: Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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testmutton he ever saw, Cobbett, though an Englishman,found in Philadelphia—its fruits and vegetables of themost various, its butter, good Darlington butter, famedfrom one end of the land to the other. And in the prepara-tion of its materials, for the sake of eating better, Phila-delphians never have hesitated to take their good wherethey have found it. Dishes we prize as the most essentiallyPhiladelphian have sometimes the shortest pedigree. Why,the Ice-cream that is now one of Philadelphias most re-spected institutions, came so recently that people we, ofmy generation, knew could remember its coming. Onmy return to Philadelphia, with the advantage the per-spective absence gives, I could appreciate more clearlythan if I had stayed at home how well Philadelphia eatsand how nobly it has maintained its old ideals, how noblyaccepted new ones. It has not wavered in the practiceof eating well and taking pleasure in the eating—thereputation of giving good dinners is, as in my youth, the
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GIRARD STREET PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 443 most highly prized. To quote Janvier: The person whoachieves celebrity of this sort in Philadelphia is not unlikethe seraph who attains eminence in the heavenly choir.But I am conscious of a latitude that would not have beenallowed before in the choice of a place to eat them in, andamazed at the number of new dishes. Ill The back-building dining-room was the one scene Iknew for the feast. If I were a man I could tell a differ-ent tale. As a woman I used to hear—all Philadelphiawomen used to hear—of colossal masculine banquets at thePhiladelphia Club and the Union League, of revels at theClover Club, of fastidious feasts at more esoteric clubs—the State in Schuylkill, the Fish-House Club, and whatwere the others?—clubs carrying on the great Colonialtraditions, perpetuating the old Colonial Punch as zeal-ously as the Vestal Virgins watched their sacred fire,observing mystic practices in the Kitchen, the Philadelphiaman himself, it was said

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