A. NEW ORLEANS EECIPE. 45 



principal hotels ; but they are expensive and rather exclusive es- 

 tablishments and cannot be said to realize the cheerful ideas and 

 associations called up by the word coffee-house. We are perhaps 

 too busy a people to support cafes like those of Europe, which 

 one sees crowded from morning to night with customers disposing 

 apparently of endless leisure. 



A NEW OELEANS EECIPE. 



Some of my Southern readers, no doubt, remember the cup 

 of coffee they have drunk at the coffee-stands of the French Mar- 

 ket in New Orleans, on the broad " levee." Famous resorts they 

 were formerly ! There the early riser sought for the cheer of the 

 aromatic cup ; there the keeper of late hours called for the grate- 

 ful stimulant after the theatre or the ball. The coffee to be had 

 at the French Market was proverbial for its excellence ; and the 

 old " auntie " who presided over one of those stands loomed up for- 

 ever after as a prophet and lawgiver in aU that pertained to coffee ! 

 From one of these venerable authorities I hold the following recipe, 

 warranted to give the best " Creole coffee," as she termed it : 



" Roast the coffee carefully until it assumes a uniform brown 

 color. Then cover it up and allow it to cool. Then grind and 

 cover it up again carefully, until placed in the coffee-pot (generally 

 of the French pattern), where it must be pressed as compactly as 

 possible. Pour a little boiling water over it and let it filter into 

 the coffee, then pour again a tablespoonful of boiling water, re- 

 peating this every five minutes." 



The result is a very strong extract, not more than a table- 

 spoonful or two of water being measured in for each ordinary- 

 sized cup of cafe au lait desired. 



If the fact of the above being im toto a Southern recipe could 

 induce the average eating-house keeper at the stations along many 

 of the Southern railways to adopt it in exchange for the one, what- 

 ever it be, which they now follow, I think I should be laying 

 claim by this publicity to the deepest gratitude of my Southern 

 friends and of travellers generally. My past personal experience 

 warrants me in crediting the following entry in the diary of a 

 traveller, a Southerner, who had been around the world with me, 



