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THE ELEGANT ART OF DINING
The City That Was Passes
Times change and we change with them is well evidenced by the restaurant
life of the present day San Francisco. Now, as before the fire, we have
the greatest restaurant city of the world--a city where home life is
subordinated to the convenience of apartment dwelling and restaurant
meals-but the old-time Bohemian finds neither the same atmosphere nor
the same restaurants.
True, many of the old names have been retained or revived, but there is
not felt the old spirit of camaraderie. Old personalities have passed
away and old customs have degenerated. Those who await The Call feel
that with the passing of the old city there passed much that made life
worth living, and as they prepare to cross to the Great Beyond, they
live in their memories of the Past.
With reverence we think of the men and women of the early San Francisco
- those who made the city the Home of Bohemia--and it is with this
feeling that we now come to discuss the Bohemian restaurants of the New
San Francisco.
Sang the Swan Song
In the latter part of April, 1906, when the fire-swept streets presented
their most forbidding aspect, and when the only moving figures to be
seen after nightfall were armed soldiers guarding the little remaining
of value from depredations of skulking vagabonds, a number of the old
Bohemian spirits gathered at the corner of Montgomery and Commercial
streets, and gazed through the shattered windows into the old dining
room where they had held many a royal feast. On the blackened walls
might still be seen scarred pictures, fringed by a row of black cats
along the ceiling. They turned their steps out toward the Presidio,
hunted among the Italian refugees and there found Coppa--he of the
wonderful black cats, and it took little persuasion to induce him to go
back to his ruined restaurant and prepare a dinner, such as had made his
place famous among artists, writers, and other Bohemians, in the days
when San Francisco was care-free and held her arms wide open in welcome
to all the world.
It was such a dinner as has been accorded to few. Few there are who have
the heart to make merry amid crumbling ruins of all they held dear in
the material world. The favored ones who assembled there will always
hold that dinner in most affectionate memory, and to this day not one
thinks of it without the choking that comes from over-full emotion. It
was more than a tribute to the days of old--it marked the passing of
the old San Francisco and the inauguration of the new.
It was Bohemia's Swan Song, sung by those to whom San Francisco held
more than pleasure--more than sentimentality. It held for them
close-knit ties that nothing less than a worldshaking cataclysm could
sever--and the cataclysm had arrived.
The old Coppa restaurant in Montgomery street became a memory and on its
ashes came the new one, located in Pine street between Montgomery and
Kearny streets, and for a number of years this remained the idol of
Bohemia until changed conditions drove the tide of patronage far up
toward Powell, Ellis, Eddy and O'Farrell streets. At that time there
grew up a mushroom crop of so-called restaurants in Columbus avenue
close to Barbary Coast such as Caesar's, the Follies Cabaret, Jupiter
and El Paradiso, where space was reserved in the middle of the floor for
dancing. Coppa emulated the new idea by fitting out a gorgeous basement
room at the corner of Kearny and Jackson, which he called the Neptune
Palace. It represented a great grotto under the ocean, and here throngs
gathered nightly to dance and eat until the police commissioners closed
all of these resorts, as well as Barbary Coast.
Coppa became financially injured by this venture and was forced to take
a partner in his old restaurant, and finally gave up his share and went
beyond the city limits and opened the Pompeiian Garden, on the San Mateo
road, and there with his heroic little wife tried to rebuild his
shrunken fortunes, leaving the historic restaurant with its string of
black cats and its memorable pictures on the walls to less skilled
hands. He struggled against hard times and at the time of this writing
he, with his wife, their son and his wife, are giving the old-time
dinners and trying to make the venture a success.
In the old days it was considered a feat of gormandizing to go through
one of Coppa's dinners and eat everything set before you for one dollar.
Notwithstanding the delicious dishes he prepared and the wonderful
recipes, the quantity served was so great that one would have to be
possessed of enormous capacity, indeed, to be able to say at the end of
the meal that he had eaten all that was given him.
In his Pompeiian Garden Coppa still maintains his old reputation for
most tasty viands and liberal portions, and if one desire to find the
true Bohemian restaurant of San Francisco today, one that approaches the
old spirit of the days before the fire, he need but go out to Coppa's
and while he will not have his eyes regaled by the quaint drawings with
which the old-time artists decorated the walls, nor the hurrying
footsteps along the ceiling to the famous center table where sat some of
the world's most notable Bohemians on their visits to San Francisco, nor
the frieze of black cats around the cornice, nor the Bohemian verse,
written under inspiration of "Dago red," he will find the same old
cooking, done by Coppa himself.
We asked Coppa what he considered his best dish and he gave us the
Irishman's reply by asking another question:
"What do you think of it?"
There are so many to choose from that our answer was difficult but we
finally stopped at "Chicken Portola." It was then that the old smile
came back to Coppa's face.
"Ah! Chicken Portola. That is my own idea. It is the most delicious way
chicken was ever cooked."
This is the recipe as Coppa gave it to us, his little wife standing at
his side and giving, now and then, a suggestion as Coppa's memory
halted:
Chicken Portola a la Coppa
Take a fresh cocoanut and cut off the top, removing nearly all of the
meat. Put together three tablespoonfuls of chopped cocoanut meat and two
ears of fresh, green corn, taken from the cob. Slice two onions into
four tablespoonfuls of olive oil, together with a tablespoonful of diced
bacon fried in olive oil, add one chopped green pepper, half a dozen
tomatoes stewed with salt and pepper, one clove of garlic, and cook all
together until it thickens. Strain this into the corn and cocoanut and
add one spring chicken cut in four pieces. Put the mixture into the
shell of the cocoanut, using the cut-off top as a cover, and close
tightly with a covering of paste around the jointure to keep in the
flavors. Put the cocoanut into a pan with water in it and set in the
oven, well heated, for one hour, basting frequently to prevent the
cocoanut's burning.
A bare recital of the terms of the recipe cannot bring to the
uninitiated even a suspicion of the delightful aroma that comes from the
cocoanut when its top is lifted, nor can it give the slightest idea of
the delicacy of the savor arising from the combination of the cocoanut
with young chicken. It is not a difficult dish to prepare, and if you
cannot get it at any of the restaurants, and we are sure you cannot, try
it at home some time and surprise your friends with a dish to be found
in only one restaurant in the world. If you desire it at Coppa's on your
visit to San Francisco you will have to telephone out to him in advance
(unless he has succeeded in getting back to the city, which he
contemplates) so that he can prepare it for you, and, take our word for
it, you will never regret doing so.
Coppa has many wonderful dishes to serve, and he delights so much in
your appreciation that he is always fearful something is wrong if you
fail to do full justice to his meal. He showed this one evening when he
had filled a little party of us to repletion by his lavish provision for
our entertainment, and nature rebelled against anything more. To us came
Coppa in tears.
"What is the matter with the chicken, Doctor? Is it not cooked just
right?"
It was with difficulty that we made him understand that there was a
limit to capacity, and that he had fed us with such bountiful hand we
could eat no more. Even now when we go to Coppa's we have a little
feeling of fear lest we offend him by not eating enough to convince him
that we are pleased.
Coppa's walls were always adorned with strange conceits of the artists
and writers who frequented his place, and after a picture, or a bit of
verse had remained until it was too familiar some one erased it and
replaced it with something he thought was better. We preserved one
written by an unknown Bohemian. We give it just as it was:
Through the fog of centuries, dim and dense,
I sometimes seem to see
The shadowy line of a backyard fence
And a feline shape of me.
I hear the growl, and yowl and howl
Of each nocturnal fight,
And the throaty stir, half cry, half purr
Of passionate delight,
As seeking an amorous rendezvous
My ancient brothers go stealing
Through the purple gloom of night.
I've seen your eyes, with a greenish glint;
You move with a feline grace;
And when you are pleased I catch the hint
Of a purr in your throat and face.
Then I wonder if you are dreaming, too,
Of temples along the Nile,
Where you yowled and howled, and loved and prowled,
With many a sensuous wile,
And borrowed the grace you own today
From that other life in the far-away;
And if such dreams beguile.
I know that you sit by your cozy fire,
When shadows crowd the room,
And my soul responds to an old desire
To roam through the velvety gloom,
So stealthily stealing, softly shod,
My spirit is hurrying thence
To the lure of an ancient mystic god,
Whose magnet is intense,
Where I know your soul, too, roams in fur,
For I hear it call with a throaty purr,
From the shadowy backyard fence.
The Elegant Art of Dining
Contents
Foreword
The Good Gray City
The Land of Bohemia
When the Gringo Came
Early Italian Impression
Birth of the French Restaurant
At the Cliff House
Some Italian Restaurants
Impress of Mexico
On the Barbary Coast
The City That Was Passes
Bohemia of the Present
As it is in Germany
In the Heart of Italy
A Breath of the Orient
Artistic Japan
Old and New Palace
At the Hotel St. Francis
Amid the Bright Lights
Around Little Italy
Where Fish Come In
Fish in Their Variety
Where Fish Abound
Some Food Variants
About Dining
Something About Cooking
Told in A Whisper
Out of Nothing
Paste Makes Waist
Tips and Tipping
The Mythical Land
A Good Bohemian Dinner
Restaurant Famous Recipes
Appendix (How to Serve Wines, Recipes)
Art of Dining Index
Mailing Lists
Forums
Webrings
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