Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1885 — In a Mexican Restaurant. [ARTICLE]

In a Mexican Restaurant.

From the Military Plaza in San Antonio a half-dozen narrow streets branch off. Down the narrowest of these, which seems but a passage-way between the rows of somber houses thai line either side—for this is “greasei town”—is a restaurant. The presiding genius of the place is a fat and handsome Mexican, whose unctuous complexion glistens in the glow of the charcoal fire that blazes softly in a cavernous, horizontal slit in the gigantic chimney. It is like no other cooking arrangement that ever was seen, and the method of the chef “is beyond compare.” Dozens of shiny saucepans and skillets, set upon the coals, crowd the opening very much like invalided teeth in some great ogre’s mouth, and in each of the little skillets and saucepans is the portion for one person. ■ The of earth could not induce that oily -cook to consolidate his dishes, and more especially to fry more than one, egg at a time in "his egg-pan; his laws are fixed and unalterable, and he regards* the protests of his guests against coid eggs served in congealed oil withrMexican indifference. Thirteen plates for the thirteen waiting customers stand ready to his hand, and the long-handled frying-pan makes thirteen separate journeys ..with thirteen separate eggs, the while* that two assistants, a degree dirtier, oilier, and less fat, cl\op onions and grate cheese, which are spread finally over the chilled eggs and cold oil and placed before the hungry people, whom a day's anticipatory’fast has prepared to accept anything with gratitude. In lieu of a fork a very flat pancake, called a “tortilla,” is doled out tq,each one. Years of practice are required for the sucsessful manipulation of this most useful article, which, when yOu have done with as a scoop and have diligently and successfully chased the particles of food in the sea of oil that fills your plate, you are expected to eat as a final course—a most cleanly and labor-sav-ing arrangement. —John Mclntyre, in Home Jouv-nal.