Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1878 — An American Dish. [ARTICLE]

An American Dish.

An amusingstory is told, of which it is averred that no less a personage than the late George Peabody, the celebrated American banker, was the hero. It appears that Mr. Peabody had invited three Englishmen to meet two Americans at dinner, and on this occasion, having received as a gift ten ears of green corn, determined to renew the recollections of his youth, astonish his English and please his American guests by having it served up in the wellknown American style. Accordingly, at a proper time, plates of butter and salt were placed before each guest, and the banker, with something of an air of mystery, announced that he was now about to treat his guests to a well-known and delicious American dish of food, cooked in the American manner. It would be no novelty to his American guests, but the Englishmen must watch now it was disposed of by them, and follow their example and manner in disposing of it. Then, at a signal, entered a stately butler bearing a large covered dish, which he deposited solemnly before Mr. Peabody. In a moment more, in obedience to the banker’s nod, he whisked off the cover, and there before the astonished guests, was displayed a pile of ten noiled corncobs’ The banker gazed for an in mute, horror and dismay, and then foundvoice to demand an’ explanation, which was finally reached when the cook was summoned—a fellow who had never before seen an car of Indian corn in his life. He replied that he had followed his master’s directions to “strip off all the outside before boiling, which he had done most faithfully, not only the husks, as was intended, but kernels also, so that the banker had only what is, in America, the plate evidence of the feast to indicate what were his good intentions to his guests.— Philadelphia Herald.