Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1875 — The Game of “Cold Supper.” [ARTICLE]

The Game of “Cold Supper.”

A Geneva (Switzerland) correspondent of the Cleveland Leader says: “One of the favorite amusements is the “ s&uper froid," or cold supper, at which we assisted the other evening. We took our accustomed places at th« dining-table, and the performances commenced by the handing of something from a covered basket to the one who sat at the end of the table, What it was no one could see, but judging from the exclamations of surprise, fear and amusement which followed its passage down under the table we were able to imagine all sorts of horrible things in store for us. There were screams of laughter, exclamations of ‘ Take it quick,’ ‘Don’t drop it,’ ‘Mon Dieu! Q u ’est ce que e’est que cela?’ ‘lsn’t it horrid?’ etc., all apparently useless, since nothing w T as visible above the table. At last it came near me, and in response to a spasmodic poke from my neighbor I held out both hands. Something warm, sticky and soft was pressed into them, which I, beingj the last of the row, land upon a w’aiter, and we all saw the innocent cause of the uproar—a large mass of ‘ pate,’ or sticky dough, used in making this light French pastry. Thus the game is based upon the fear that every one has of touching anything that they cannot see, and the possibilities that imaginations suggest, unaided, by the eyes. It is expecially exciting when ingenuity is used in preparing the dishes of the ‘ cold supper.’ The most successful, because it was the most horrible, was an old kid glove filled with sand. The sensation on receiving it is something indescribable, and I have known people who could take long, snaky sausages, or even live crawfish, without a tremble, object decidedly to the kid glove.”