3 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Langham has been eclipsed by some Regent Street club-rooms, 

 if not by Delmonico's, but Paris is still the Mecca of epicures, and even 

 during the Prussian siege Baron Brisse would have undertaken to im- 

 prove on the above menu. Next, perhaps, comes St. Petersburg with its 

 mislanitza and caviare-suppers, then London, New York, and the city 

 that derives its name from ham-sandwiches, as Heine suggests. 



The champion belt of Apicius belongs probably to Count Luckner, 

 a Russian dignitary of vast estates in the government of Smolensk, 

 and for a time ambassador at the court of Vienna, where he left be- 

 cause Herr Saphire called him an emotional swill-barrel ! At his 

 country seat of Ranzow he is said to receive a daily programme de 

 cuisine from his major-domo, which he scrutinizes like the plan of a 

 campaign. He is known to have knouted the landlord of a country 

 tavern for using lard instead of butter in a dish of cauliBowers, and 

 once he nearly broke the heart of his favorite cook by degrading him 

 to the rank of dish-washer for a similar offense. " Crying and whining 

 will not mend the matter, sir," he told the tearful penitent ; " if you 

 had assassinated your gray-haired father, I might call it a perfectly nat- 

 ural act : but that you combine raisins and pork in the same ragout, 

 you must ask your God to pardon you I can not ! " At a banquet in 

 Vienna he was able to indicate the native country of six different kiuds 

 of pheasants, but once created a sensation at his hotel by upsetting his 

 chair and leaving the table-cVJwte in a towering passion they had em- 

 ployed hartshorn instead of yeast in the preparation of a certain vari- 

 ety of sponge-cake ! 



Berlin has its Jockey Club and a " Hof-Restauration," and in elabo- 

 rate soupers can dispute the prestige of St. Petersburg, but Vienna is 

 too gross in its tastes to deserve a place in this list, though to a Hun- 

 garian palate its gulasJi (a ragout of broiled mutton) and Kaiser-suppen 

 take rank with nectar and ambrosia. Quantity is prized more than 

 quality here, as well as in other parts of southern Germany or in Bohe- 

 mia, where forty men of a Prussian regiment could successively im- 

 personate a Bohemian burgher before anything wrong was suspected. 

 During the last occupation of Prague by the North-German troops, the 

 legend runs, there was a grand masked ball at the opera-house, in the 

 lower story of which a regiment of Prussian dragoons had been quar- 

 tered. Somehow or other the soldiers got possession of a domino or 

 complete masquerade suit, representing a fat burgomaster in his official 

 toggery. An adventurous private donned the suit and gained admit- 

 tance to the superas auras of the ballroom, and so on to the refresh- 

 ment-hall, where his enterprise was rewarded by all the luxuries of the 

 Bohemian season. His return to the guard-room with the tale of tri- 

 umph caused a bonanza sensation, but discipline prevailed, and the 

 regiment was organized into ten-minute reliefs, who in quick succession 

 stormed the works and performed feats of gastronomic daring which 

 soon drew a circle of admirers around the refreshment-table. In and 



