These “gourmands” (if you please), and their number is legion, have, with the aid of the excellent resources of the American market and the encouragement given to the culinary art of the period, brought the modern American table to virtual perfection. This is saying a great deal, inasmuch as the famed restaurants of London, Paris, and Vienna have ever claimed a reputation and an ascendancy over others that seemed to form a part of history itself.
But as times change, so we change with them. Westward the course of Empire sways, and the great glory of the past has departed from those centres where the culinary art at one time defied all rivals. The sceptre of supremacy has passed into the hands of the great metropolis of the New World. It has been the writer’s good fortune to gain experience on this subject from his observations in Europe as well as in this country. He can state, without fear of contradiction, that more first-class, well-fatted, and corn-fed cattle reach the markets of New York, than any other market of the United States. Whenever a first-class article of beef is required by one of the inland hotels, they send to New York for it.
Ask the ordinary traveler, and he will tell you that a first-class steak, an “A 1” chop, or prime roast beef is a _rara avis_ in hotels outside of New York. London has excellent mutton and good beef; that is all. Paris gives plenty of variety, but it is all of an inferior quality with the exception of veal, which is good. The same may be said of northern Germany, where, in addition, the larger hotels in Hamburg and Bremen are able to supply good steaks, the cattle in that country being of fine quality.
Yet no American, accustomed to his prime beef at New York, can be pleased at any of these continental hotels, as he loses sight of his favorite roast and steak.
At the extensive cattle yards of Berlin, which are under control of an excellent administration, and perfectly arranged, it was impossible, for instance, on a well-supplied market day to find a single dozen corn-fed young steers that would make good enough beef for first-class custom in New York. The bulk of cattle offered for sale was made up of oxen that had been overworked--they had horns bigger than themselves--and the remainder were old cows and bulls.