306 Singing Valleys 



in the equipment of the American epicure as an acquaintance 

 with foreign cheeses and a temperature table for wines. 



"That man a gentleman?" Colonel Tad Boylston exploded 

 indignantly. "Why, dammit, he actually asked for a spoon 

 and sugar and milk for his grits at breakfast! I don't believe 

 the fellow ever sat down to a cold, baked ham and hot grits 

 at eight in the morning in his entire life." 



A large, ranch-grown, ranch-smoked ham boiled, baked, 

 sugared and delicately cloved cold enough to fall away from 

 the carving knife in slices as thin and pink as a rose petal, 

 graced the breakfast table at the Porchers' ranch near El Paso 

 when I stayed with them there many years ago. Since that 

 October I have breakfasted on churros and cafe con Jeche, 

 (usually goats' milk) in the lichened hill-towns of Estre- 

 madura. I have started a day on sour black bread, beer and the 

 small savory sausages of Debrecin in Ruthenian inns. I have 

 rejoiced in the desert sunrise and the sour-dough biscuits and 

 salt pork at a Nevada prospector's camp. And on a few occa- 

 sions I have languidly accepted iced grape fruit, Melba toast 

 and coffee from a subservient waiter in some high-towered and 

 proportionately high-priced Ritz-Biltmore. But no breakfast 

 eaten anywhere rivals those at that ranch beside the lazy Rio 

 Grande. 



The core of the breakfast was the ham and the big Sheffield- 

 plate dish of hot hominy grits. The last were not the thin 

 watery pap which passes for hominy on so many menus. Before 

 being served, the hominy, which had cooked slowly all night 

 on the back of the range, had been salted, sugared slightly, 

 enriched with butter and a generous cupful of cream. At the 

 table you were encouraged to add to it still more of the home- 

 churned butter. Sweet and smoking hot, it was the perfect 

 accompaniment to the cool and tangy flavor of the baked 

 ham. 



Fruit, on that great ranch with its orchards and serried vine- 

 yards, was a matter of course. And of course there was coffee. 

 But also, there were two tall, chased silver flagons filled with 



