WAITERS AND SNAILS

The collocation of Waiters and Snails under one chapter-heading is not entirely fortuitous. The remote connexion which may fairly be said to exist between the two is not perhaps as marked to-day as it was some time ago, for waiters are improving rapidly, and snails—well, snails are remaining very much where they used to be. The advent of the well-trained foreign waiter has done much to improve our restaurant dinner-table, and, incidentally, the temper of the average diner. Of the expert, deft, and sober British waiter there is also nothing but good to be said. The snail has no family relationship with either of these classes.

Unfortunately, however, there are others, many others, who are slow, dirty, ignorant, and only occasionally sober. It is such as these who degrade waiterdom, and to whom the snail is a fit comparison—save that the waiter is not edible. Nothing could be smarter than a good English waiter with a knowledge of foreign dishes, or a good foreign waiter with a knowledge of English; and thanks to the interest now taken in everything appertaining to dining in public places, neither is now as uncommon as he used to be.

One P. Z. Didsbury, an American deipnosophist, once said in his wisdom: “In a restaurant when a waiter offers you turbot, ask for salmon, and when he offers you a sole, order a mackerel; as language to men, so fish has been given to the waiter to disguise his thoughts.”

This maligns the individual waiter, of course; the man who is used to attending on you, who knows your likes and dislikes, and takes a personal interest in your contentment, but it is fairly typical of the average restaurant waiter who sees you for the first time and thinks you just one of the ordinary mob. For the casual customer is the facile dupe of the waiter. He comes, he orders his dinner, or preferably, permits it to be ordered for him, pays his bill, and goes away. Eating with him partakes of the stoking process, and he recks little of the particular à la offered to him, if it be toothsome, and saucily disguised.

In the best restaurants, as well in England as on the Continent, deception, fraud, and trickery are comparatively rare. They would not pay. But in nearly every restaurant below the class of the best some one or other or all of the traditional time-honoured wiles of the waiter are practised on the more or less unsuspecting customer.

There is, for instance, the well-known trick of “Putting the change to bed.” It is preferably employed when a man is dining with a lady who, to the cynical and experienced eye of the waiter, is obviously not his wife. This is the very simple modus operandi. Your bill, we will say, as presented to you, discreetly folded in half on a plate, comes to one pound fifteen shillings. You place a couple of sovereigns under the upper fold of the bill. The waiter returns with the change. If you are careless you do not count it. You see half a crown on the bill, and say nonchalantly “All right.” Whereupon the waiter is exceeding glad, for you have given him five shillings. If, on the other hand, you are observant, accurate, and careful, you will say, “The change is not right.” The waiter, who has carefully concealed the second half-crown between the bill and the plate, will semi-indignantly say, “I beg your pardon, sir!” and drawing away the bill, the two half-crowns will be exposed to view. After having doubted his word, you cannot do less than give the poor man the two coins. So the waiter scores either way. “Putting the change to bed” rarely fails.

Mr. Pinero illustrated this trick very neatly in his delightful farce, “The Magistrate,” some years ago at the Old Court Theatre.

It is said that some of the most famous conjurers of to-day began life as restaurant waiters, and certainly the knack of palming the cork of the wine you ordered, and serving you with an inferior quality thereof, meanwhile gravely depositing the palmed cork next to the bottle, in its cradle, is a very old and usually successful trick. It is as well, too, to see that the label on the wine bottle is dry and stuck fast, because, unless you have ordered the man “just to take the chill off,” he may have helped himself from the common stock of red or white wine, and affixed the label of your particular vintage as he came upstairs.

It is quite extraordinary how many men who pride themselves on knowing a good bottle of wine are deceived in this way. There is an old story of three men dining together at a cheap restaurant. One ordered a pint of Pontet Canet, another a pint of Medoc, and the third a pint of Beaune. The waiter went to a speaking-tube, and shouted down it, “Three small reds!”

The question of the substitution of corks has many and quaint developments. An enormous trade is done at third- and fourth-rate restaurants with “faked” champagne, which it were mere flattery to call even “sparkling petrol.” The restaurateurs, foreigners it is to be hoped to a man, import a thoroughly innocuous thin white wine, and then bottle and aerate it, just as they would soda-water. The corks are replaced (after being drawn) by genuine corks of well-known brands, and there is a large market for good, sound, used champagne corks. This market is supplied by the waiters at good-class restaurants, where wines correct to designation are served. If the diner does not happen to collect champagne corks (and few of us have this weakness), the waiter carefully gathers them when clearing the table for dessert.

This is a genuine letter addressed by such a waiter to a reputable firm of champagne importers: “I beg to send you a hundred corks of the well-known brands of —— and ——. They may be useful to you. I am waiter at ——, and am often asked by customers to recommend a wine. Awaiting your favourable reply, I am, etc.”

Another kind of waiter, neither as sharp nor as business-like as the foregoing, on being asked what liqueur brandies they had, replied, “Two, sir; one’s 1854 and the other’s a shilling.” That kind of waiter, however, is more fool than thief.

A very pretty dodge, and one, moreover, which the continental waiter finds very remunerative, is to add the date of the month to the amount of the bill. If you are dining on 24 June, and the addition comes to thirty-five francs, it is very easy to combine the two sums, particularly if the date be somewhat carelessly inscribed at the head of the account. The foreign waiter is a rare judge of character, and can usually (though not always) tell beforehand whether or no it be safe to try any of his little games.

A favourite truc in foreign cafés, and one for which one should always be on the look out, is the giving of bad silver in the way of change, as many foreign coinages are now obsolete, and one cannot be too careful in this respect. It is usually a matter of date. The coin is not a bad coin, but simply not current. The Swiss two-franc piece, for instance, is all right if Madame Helvetia is depicted sitting down, but all wrong if she be standing up. Then the Greek, Roumanian, and Turkish coins are non-admissible, and certain Italian cart-wheels or five-lire pieces no longer acceptable. It requires some experience to recognize at a glance in a handful of silver how many coins are right and how many wrong.

A fraud of this kind was defeated, and met with its own just reward, only last summer at a French casino, a notorious haunt of the “slim” waiter. An Englishman having had consommations to the amount of two francs, paid with a louis, and received eighteen francs change. Of this change he subsequently found that seven francs, a five-franc and a two-franc piece, were useless. He returned the next night with some friends, found out the same waiter, ordered sundry refreshment, and when paying-time came, settled the bill with the useless coins he had received the night before. The waiter refused to accept them, the guest refused on his part to pay in any other coin. The matter was referred to an official of the casino, the matter explained, and the English guest was supported. For once, therefore, the waiter was hoist with his own petard.

It is common knowledge that the waiters among themselves have a regular trade in these coins; they change hands at about one-third of their face value, and the dupe is, nine times out of ten, the British tourist.

It would be unfair to suggest that all waiters are guilty of these or similar wiles. There are hundreds of good, trustworthy waiters who would disdain them, and who know by experience, precept, or intuition that honesty is the best policy in the dining as in other worlds.

At a first-class waiters’ training school or college, such as the well-known Radunski’s, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, or one or other of the Swiss establishments, all such tricks are sternly discouraged, and the budding maître d’hôtel is strongly impressed with the golden rule that it does not pay, in the long run, to cheat clients in any shape or form.

This is especially true of the highest class of restaurant, for waiters travel about Europe a great deal, and the man who waits on you at the Carlton to-night may turn up at the Ritz in Paris next week, at Monte Carlo next month, and at Homburg next year. If he has cheated you badly, you will remember him (though not in the time-honoured waiter’s sense), and his good name will be gone once and for all.

I referred just now to the foreign schools for waiters where they are systematically, and one might almost say scientifically, trained for their profession, which is neither an easy nor, in the end, an unremunerative one. Many sons of well-to-do German, Swiss, and Italian hotel and restaurant proprietors, lads who have been to good schools and received a first-class education, are content to begin at the very bottom of the ladder, even as piccolo or boy attendant, and gradually to work their way through all the ranks even to that of maître d’hôtel.

A German lad who wishes to become a waiter goes, first to Radunski, at Frankfort, or to some other regular training school for waiters. At the end of two years’ hard work, if he has gained his certificate, he goes to an hotel or restaurant as an improver, without salary, for two years or more.

Then he comes to London, and, for the sake of learning English, enters an English family at a very small wage. Having mastered English, he is off to France to learn French on similar terms.

Finally, he returns to London as an “aid” waiter, and by attending to business he can rise to be a superintendent or a manager.

But the Englishman wants to undertake skilled labour and earn full money without a proper training. Look, on the other hand, at the case of the English butler. He is renowned throughout the world, but then he was content to begin as a page and pass through the second stage of footman.

A well-known restaurant manager once said to me: “Though we are patriotic, we cannot allow patriotism to stand in the way of efficiency. We must, for our customers’ sakes, employ the best men we can get, irrespective of nationality, although we should prefer Englishmen, of course.”

Some attempt has been made, is being made in fact, to establish a training school for British waiters, but its success is, I fear, problematical. And this for various reasons. Few, if any, professional men would dream of their boys being trained to be waiters; it would be beneath their shoddy suburban dignity. Also, the class from which the average British waiter is drawn seems to be constitutionally incapable of acquiring even the merest smattering of a foreign language. He despises any tongue but his own.

The British Waiters’ Association has done excellent work on the right lines, but very much remains still to be accomplished.

The average British waiter at the ordinary railway refreshment-room is usually a terribly slow and untidy individual. True, one has learned not to expect too much at a railway station. A la gare, comme à la gare!

Mr. Jerome K. Jerome has an amusing tirade on the subject. He says: “The slowest waiter I know is the British railway refreshment-room waiter. His very breathing, regular, harmonious, penetrating, instinct as it is with all the better attributes of a well-preserved grandfather’s clock, conveys suggestion of dignity and peace. He is a huge, impressive person. There emanates from him an atmosphere of Lotusland. The otherwise unattractive room becomes an oasis of repose amid the turmoil of a fretful world.”

Of course the waiter’s life is a trying and arduous one. There is much worry by thoughtless clients. There are disappointments, and swindlers, and rogues. Then the actual pedestrian exercise is not little. A waiter in a restaurant in Christiania one day provided himself with a pedometer before starting his work. According to his calculations he took rather under 100,000 steps, covering some thirty-seven miles, between 8 a.m. and 12.30 a.m. Working and walking four days a week, he calculated that he covered more than 7000 miles in a year.

Another danger is threatened by the waiter’s serviette. In the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift Professor Kron inaugurated a crusade against the napkin which the waiter flourishes as a sign of his profession, but which, in the Professor’s opinion, is a deplorably unhygienic piece of linen and should be summarily abolished in all civilized countries.

Dr. Kron notices how waiters carry this thing, now in their hands, now in their trousers pockets, and sometimes under their arm. They wipe table-tops with it, wipe glasses, knives, forks with it, wipe the manly perspiration from their brows and the beer froth from their lips. No civilized man should tolerate its presence, and the Professor closes his article with the war-cry, “Away with the waiter’s napkin!” The Professor, it will be noticed, refers to the “rough” waiter only, and not to the civilized kind. He also fails to suggest a substitute for the serviette.

In a book entitled “Trouble in the Balkans” Mr. J. L. C. Booth says of Athenian waiters: “Robbery among the Greeks is not a cultivated art; it is a gift. They are all born with it. There is only one known method of getting square with an Athenian waiter, and that is to dine twice at the same place, near the door. You pay the first night.”

Enough of Waiters, however; let us to a more congenial, if allied topic, the edible Snail.

It is surely quite superfluous to enter upon any defence of Snails as an article of food. If you like them, well, you like them. If you do not, then you probably detest them. No one ever just tolerated snails. There is good historical precedent, as shall be shown hereafter, for their systematic cultivation. They are most nutritious, containing, it is alleged, twice the amount of proteid possessed by the oyster. Be that as it may, they have been a desirable article of food for many centuries past.

Paris, according to the “Figaro,” consumes eight hundred thousand kilogrammes of snails annually. High though this figure is, it will probably be exceeded, for, after having been in disgrace for some time, the escargot has reconquered the favour of the gourmets.

Burgundy and the two departments of Savoy are the great sources of supply. There they are bought for 8 fr. or 9 fr. the thousand. The interesting molluscs are first sent to Auxerre, whence they are resold to Paris as coming from the vines of Macon and Dijon.

A number of intelligent speculators also practise the breeding of snails, which they place in parks enclosed in fences made of smoothly planed planks covered with tar to prevent their climbing out and escaping.

Snails, too, play a very important part in our ordinary daily food, although the snail-hater would scoff at the idea. But it is even so. What think you imparts to South Down and Dartmoor mutton its fine flavour and highly nutritive properties? Snails! The grass upon which they feed teems with small snails of the Helix caperata species, and these, with or without the will of the sheep, form part of the diet of the latter, taken with the grass.

The Burgundy snail, however, has become more and more scarce during the past few seasons. The Council General of the Department of the Côte d’Or seriously took up the question, and asked the Prefect of the department to authorize a close time for snails between 15 April and 15 June. The Prefect replied that he had no power to make such an order, as the snail was not game. The Council thereupon voted a protest, and expressed the hope that the snail might rank in the category of game, and be accorded a close time.

The French sportsman’s category of game is tolerably wide, and includes birds which we do not rightly understand under that generic title. Still, to include snails as game seems a trifle—well, far-fetched. It would be difficult to shoot snails, save with a pop-gun at perhaps six feet. It might be easier to stalk them. After all, we have a close time for oysters, which are not much more game-like than snails. The point for France surely is not whether snails should rank as reptiles or insects, vermin or cattle, but whether they are worth preserving. And the Burgundy snail is.

In the time of Pliny, we are told, a concoction of snails beaten up in warm water was recommended for coughs. The Romans were very fond of snails, which they fattened in special “cochlearia,” feeding them with bran soaked in wine until they attained quite large dimensions. Charles the Fifth of Spain died of indigestion brought on by eating immoderately of snails.

Mrs. Delaney, writing in 1758, says: “Two or three Snails should be boiled in the barley-water which Mary takes, who coughs at night. She must know nothing of it. They give no manner of taste.”

The first importation of Snails into England has been attributed to Sir Kenelm Digby (1645) for his wife. Also the apple snail was brought to the South Downs of Surrey and Sussex, as well as to Box Hill in the sixteenth century, by one of the Earls of Arundel for his Countess, who dressed and ate them to promote the cure of consumption, from which she suffered.

Snails did not really come into French vogue until the return of Louis XVIII, in 1814, on which occasion the Bishop of Autun entertained the Emperor Alexander of Russia. The popular host, who was a famous gastronome, had in his service a most accomplished cook, the best in Paris at that time; they put their heads together and hit upon Snails as the most suitable novelty for presenting to the imperial guest. Together with this dish, which was handed round, there appeared on the card under the heading Escargots à la Bourgignonne a description of the delicious seasoning with which each shell was filled up.

In 1854, M. de la Marr, of Paris, set forth the virtues of Helicin as a glutinous extract obtained from snails, and which had long been given in broth as a successful domestic remedy for pulmonary phthisis.

Gipsies are great snail eaters, but they first starve these gasteropods, which are given to devour poisonous plants, and must be rendered free from the same, for it is certain that Snails retain for a time the flavour and odour of the vegetables on which they feed.

The above most interesting particulars may be read, at greater length, in a compendious and reliable work, entitled “Meals Medicinal,” by Dr. W. T. Fernie.

There is an increasing export of Snails from England to America. As many as ten thousand are packed in a cask, of which hundreds are shipped annually. But there is and always has been a large home consumption, particularly in certain counties. In some Gloucestershire towns they quite outclass whelks and winkles as a snack to accompany a glass of beer, and they are commonly hawked by the basket, cooked ready for eating, round the public-houses. Snail broth or stewed snails is a well-known and thoroughly approved rural remedy for consumption, and indeed all chest complaints. In Hampshire, to help weak eyes, snails are made into a poultice with soaked breadcrusts. The glass men at Newcastle have a Snail Feast once a year. They collect the snails in the fields and hedgerows on the Sunday before the anniversary, and their wives wash, clean, and stuff them according to established tradition. According to the authority of Mr. F. H. Elsey, librarian of the Surrey Archæological Society, the edible snail, Helix pomatia, was most probably introduced into this country by the Romans from Gaul. It is not peculiar to Surrey, for it is found in Kent; and Sowerby, in his “Illustrated Index of British Shells,” gives the southern chalky districts. It is no doubt confined to these by the large size of its shell, requiring the secretion of lime for its formation. This snail hibernates from October to April in a subterranean burrow.

It has been said this snail was brought to this country from Italy by Thomas, Earl of Arundel (Earl Marshal). “His lady,” says Salmon, “delighting in such food.” Evelyn remarks that “this huge and fleshy snail was had in delicus by the Earl himself.” Mr. Elsey entirely agrees with Lieut.-Col. Godwin-Austen, the well-known authority upon mollusca, that the snail was here long before the Earl of Arundel’s time.

Two very fine shells of this snail, one measuring 1¾ in. long, 1⅛ in. broad, and 1⅛ in. high, can be seen in the Surrey Archæological Museum, Castle Arch, Guildford. These two specimens were found by Mr. Elsey a few years ago just below where Mr. W. P. Trench’s house is built adjoining the Echo Pits, Guildford, in a hedge now grubbed up.

There is a suggestion in Spenser that the edible snail is the poor man’s oyster, and Dr. Yeo confirms this. Some little while ago Canon Horsley strongly recommended the more general adoption of snails as an article of food, although he naively admitted that he had never eaten one himself. Thereupon the “Lancet” said: “There is nothing to be said against the proposal from a dietetic point of view; the snail is both nutritious and tasty.” The professional journal goes on to say:—

According to an excellent gastronomic authority, the best snails in Paris are to be found at Prunier’s, in the Rue Duphot, near the Madeleine. He boils his snails in a liquid which is partly composed of good white wine, with a little garlic and bay leaves, thyme, onions, and carrots in it. The snails are served in small silver bowls, and the weapon of offence is a two-pronged silver fork. The first time that one holds a long black steaming thing on a fork, and hesitates whether to put it into one’s mouth or not, is rather a strange moment.

Most people who try the experiment of snail-eating take the snail out of their mouths quicker than they put it in. Burgundy is the correct wine to drink with your snails.

The Hungarian manner of cooking snails is, after the boiling and cleaning, to cut them small, mix them with chopped-up anchovies, and to serve them hot on hot toast, a squeeze of lemon and a dash of red pepper giving the dish its final touches. The curiosity of the Hungarian method of cooking and serving the snails is that no man, unless he was told, would know what he was eating.

Francatelli, in his “Modern Cook,” strongly recommends snails, and gives a method of cooking them, nearly akin to the usual French way. In fact, nearly all foreign cookery books give one or more recipes, either as broth, stew, or à la Bourgignon.

The “London Gazette” of 23 March, 1739, tells us that “Mrs. Joanna Stephens received from the Government five thousand pounds for revealing the secret of her famous cure for stone in the bladder. This consisted chiefly of egg shells and Snails, mixed with Soap, Honey, and Herbs.” Rather earlier than this date “Lady Honeywood’s Snail Water” was much used for complaints of the chest.

Defoe, writing in 1722, described a cookshop “where you may bespeak a dinner for four or five shillings a head up to a guinea or what sum you will”; one of the items being “a ragout of fatted snails.”

Has any literary critic ever noticed the curious similarity between a verse of Sir John Suckling and Robert Herrick, who were, of course, contemporaries? I am reminded of it because Snails are used by the latter where Mice are referred to by the former.

In Sir John Suckling’s “Ballad upon a Wedding,” everybody knows the lines:—

In Robert Herrick’s poem, “On Her Feet,” occurs this verse:—

The comparison is interesting.

Quite recently a case brought under the Workmen’s Compensation Act in Paris revealed the existence of a hitherto unknown industry. This was none other than the manufacture of artificial snails.

The evidence showed that a workman had had a finger broken by a machine whose object was to cut boiled calves’ lights into portions shaped like a small corkscrew for insertion into the empty shells of snails which had been thrown into dustbins after their contents had been consumed, and thence gathered by the chiffonniers, or ragpickers, and sold to the proprietor of the factory. The revelation caused a sensation of horror among the Parisian population, for whom the succulent snail is a delicious delicacy partaken of on all occasions of festivity, and purchased at prices ranging from 6d. to 8d. per dozen. It was stated by the injured workman that by the substitution of calves’ lights the fabricated “snails” could be sold at the factory at 2d. a dozen.

The small horticultural speculator in Germany has of late years been taking a leaf from the book of his neighbours, and become an ardent cultivator of the luscious edible snail, a delicacy Hans is now as assiduous in tending for ultimate sale in the market as ever was Jacques Bonhomme. July is considered the best month for collecting this gasteropodous mollusc prior to fattening him for his final appearance in the shape of a dainty parsley-and-butter-bespattered bonne bouche for some “good liver” in Berlin or elsewhere.

These large white snails come from the vineyards principally about the Rhine and the Moselle; the breeder for gastronomic purposes, however, confines his little flock, when once secured from amid the umbrageous vines, to a special little “run” of their own, where henceforth their whole duty consists in “doing themselves well.” The “run” is fixed up on a sunny stretch of lawn, hemmed in with boards upon which is smeared clay mixed with vinegar and salt and water—so as to prevent any crawling out of bounds.

In the United States edible snails are frequently to be seen exposed for sale; but they are not raised in that country, and those on sale have been shipped to America alive from Europe.

In Vienna, again, during Lent there is a snail market, the snails coming in barrels from Swabia. The great centre for the consumption of snails, however, is Paris and some of the French provinces. There is, indeed, a very large trade in this commodity in France, the large white snail being in special demand in Paris, while the garden and wood snails are in common use among poorer consumers in all parts of France.

The collecting of snails is carried on in the French provinces all day long by men, women, and children, who with iron hooks search for them at the foot of thorn hedges and under ivy, and in winter in old walls. If lucky, a good searcher will collect from one thousand to fifteen hundred snails. These are paid for according to their weight, about a thousand snails averaging ten kilogrammes, and the payment varies with the prices current in the Paris market, but it usually ranges from twenty to forty centimes per kilo. The work, therefore, cannot be said to be well paid.

A curious superstition existed for many years with regard to the Snail in Southern Germany. Practically all snail shells have their volutes or spirals (Helix—a snail—a screw—a spiral) twisting from right to left. Once in about twenty thousand snails the twist is found to be from left to right. This snail was then dubbed “The Snail King,” and was sold at a fancy price as an amulet or luck-bringer. It would be curious to know whether this custom has been noticed elsewhere.

In a biography of Adam Smith, by Francis W. Hirst, a nice snail story is told of Professors Black and Hutton, the fathers of the modern sciences of modern chemistry and modern geology.

It so chanced that Black and Hutton had held some discourse together upon the folly of abstaining from feeding on the crustaceous creatures of the land, when those of the sea were considered as delicacies. Snails were known to be nutritious and wholesome, even “sanative” in some cases. The epicures of ancient Rome enumerated the snails of Lucca among the richest and rarest delicacies, and the modern Italians still held them in esteem. So a gastronomic experiment was resolved on. The snails were procured, dieted for a time, then stewed.

“A huge dish of snails was placed before them; but philosophers are but men after all; and the stomachs of both doctors began to revolt against the proposed experiment. Nevertheless, if they looked with disgust on the snails, they retained their awe for each other; so that each, conceiving the symptoms of internal revolt peculiar to himself, began with infinite exertion to swallow in very small quantities the mess which he loathed. Dr. Black at length ‘showed the white feather,’ but in a very delicate manner, as if to sound the opinion of his messmate. ‘Doctor,’ he said, in his precise and quiet style, ‘Doctor, do you not think that they taste a little—a very little green?’ ‘D——d green, d——d green indeed! Tak’ them awa’—tak’ them awa!’ vociferated Dr. Hutton, starting up from the table and giving full vent to his feelings.”

As a final tribute to the usefulness of the Snail, it may not be generally known that they are matchless as window cleaners.

An old coloured woman selling snails occasionally makes her appearance in certain streets in Philadelphia. She carries an old basket in which the snails repose on freshly sprinkled leaves. These are not sold as food, but for cleaning the outside of windowpanes. The snail is damped and placed upon the glass, where it at once moves around and devours all insects and foreign matter, leaving the pane as bright and clear as crystal. There are old-established business places in Philadelphia where the upper windows, when cleaned at all, are always cleaned by snails. There is also a fine market for snails among the owners of aquariums, as they keep the glass clean and bright.