Bohemian San Francisco Part 1

Bohemian San Francisco.

by Clarence E. Edwords.

Foreword

No apologies are offered for this book. In fact, we rather like it. Many years have been spent in gathering this information, and naught is written in malice, nor through favoritism, our expressions of opinion being unbiased by favor or compensation. We have made our own investigation and given our own ideas.

That our opinion does not coincide with that of others does not concern us in the least, for we are pleased only with that which pleases us, and not that with which others say we ought to be pleased.

If this sound egotistical we are sorry, for it is not meant in that way.

We believe that each and every individual should judge for him or herself, considering ourselves fortunate that our ideas and tastes are held in common.

San Franciscans, both residential and transient, are a pleasure-loving people, and dining out is a distinctive feature of their pleasure. With hundreds of restaurants to select from, each specializing on some particular dish, or some peculiar mode of preparation, one often becomes bewildered and turns to familiar names on the menu card rather than venture into fields that are new, of strange and rare dishes whose unp.r.o.nounceable names of themselves frequently are sufficient to discourage those unaccustomed to the art and science of cooking practiced by those whose lives have been spent devising means of tickling fastidious palates of a city of gourmets.

In order that those who come within our gates, and many others who have resided here in blindness for years, may know where to go and what to eat, and that they may carry away with them a knowledge of how to prepare some of the dishes pleasing to the taste and nouris.h.i.+ng to the body, that have spread San Francisco's fame over the world, we have decided to set down the result of our experience and study of our Bohemian population and their ways, and also tell where to find and how to order the best special dishes.

Over North Beach way we asked the chef of a little restaurant how he cooked crab. He replied:

"The right way."

One often wonders how certain dishes are cooked and we shall tell you "the right way."

It is hoped that when you read what is herein written some of our pleasure may be imparted to you, and with this hope the story of San Francisco's Bohemianism is presented.

Clarence E. Edwords.

San Francisco, California, September 22, 1914.

Bohemian San Francisco

"The best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours From the night, my dear."

The Good Gray City San Francisco!

San Francisco! Is there a land where the magic of that name has not been felt? Bohemian San Francisco! Pleasure-loving San Francisco! Care-free San Francisco! Yet withal the city where liberty never means license and where Bohemianism is not synonymous with Boorishness.

It was in Paris that a world traveler said to us:

"San Francisco! That wonderful city where you get the best there is to eat, served in a manner that enhances its flavor and establishes it forever in your memory."

Were one to write of San Francisco and omit mention of its gustatory delights the whole world would protest, for in San Francisco eating is an art and cooking a science, and he who knows not what San Francisco provides knows neither art nor science.

Here have congregated the world's greatest chefs, and when one exclaims in ecstasy over a wonderful flavor found in some dingy restaurant, let him not be surprised if he learn that the chef who concocted the dish boasts royal decoration for tickling the palate of some epicurean ruler of foreign land.

And why should San Francisco have achieved this distinction in the minds of the gourmets?

Do not other cities have equally as good chefs, and do not the people of other cities have equally as fine gastronomic taste?

They have all this but with them is lacking "atmosphere."

Where do we find such romanticism as in San Francisco? Where do we find so many strange characters and happenings? All lending almost mystic charm to the environment surrounding queer little restaurants, where rare dishes are served, and where one feels that he is in foreign land, even though he be in the center of a high representative American city.

San Francisco's cosmopolitanism is peculiar to itself. Here are represented the nations of earth in such distinctive colonies that one might well imagine himself possessed of the magic carpet told of in Arabian Nights Tales, as he is transported in the twinkling of an eye from country to country. It is but a step across a street from America into j.a.pan, then another step into China. Cross another street and you are in Mexico, close neighbor to France. Around the corner lies Italy, and from Italy you pa.s.s to Lombardy, and on to Greece. So it goes until one feels that he has been around the world in an afternoon.

But the stepping across the street and one pa.s.ses from one land to the other, finding all the peculiar characteristics of the various countries as indelibly fixed as if they were thousands of miles away. Speech, manners, customs, costumes and religions change with startling rapidity, and as you enter into the life of the nation you find that each has brought the best of its gastronomy for your delectation.

San Francisco has called to the world for its best, and the response has been so prompt that no country has failed to send its tribute and give the best thought of those who cater to the men and women who know.

This aggregation of cuisinaire, gathered where is to be found a most wonderful variety of food products in highest state of excellence, has made San Francisco the Mecca for lovers of gustatory delights, and this is why the name of San Francisco is known wherever men and women sit at table.

It has taken us years of patient research to learn how these chefs prepare their combinations of fish, flesh, fowl, and herbs, in order that we might put them down, giving recipes of dishes whose memories linger in the minds of world wanderers, and to which their thoughts revert with a sigh as they partake of unsatisfactory viands in other countries and other cosmopolitan cities.

Those to whom only the surface of things is visible are p.r.o.ne to express wonder at the love and enthusiasm of the San Franciscan for his home city. The casual visitor cannot understand the enchantment, the mystery, the witchery that holds one; they do not know that we steal the hours from the night to lengthen our days because the gray, whispering wraiths of fog hold for us the very breath of life; they do not know that the call of the wind, and of the sea, and of the air, is the inspiration that makes San Francisco the pleasure-ground of the world.

It is this that makes San Francisco the home of Bohemia, and whether it be in the early morning hours as one rises to greet the first gray streaks of dawn, or as the sun drops through the Golden Gate to its ocean bed, so slowly that it seems loth to leave; whether it be in the broad glare of noon-day sun, or under the dazzling blaze of midnight lights, San Francisco ever holds out her arms, wide in welcome, to those who see more in life than the dull routine of working each day in order that they may gain sufficient to enable them to work again on the morrow.

The Land of Bohemia

Bohemia! What vulgarities are perpetrated in thy name! How abused is the word! Because of a misconception of an idea it has suffered more than any other in the English language. It has done duty in describing almost every form of license and licentiousness. It has been the cloak of debauchery and the excuse for s.e.x degradation. It has been so misused as to bring the very word into disrepute.

To us Bohemianism means the naturalism of refined people.

That it may be protected from vulgarians Society prescribes conventional rules and regulations, which, like morals, change with environment.

Bohemianism is the protest of naturalism against the too rigid, and, oft-times, absurd restrictions established by Society.

The Bohemian requires no prescribed rules, for his or her innate gentility prevents those things Society guards against. In Bohemia men and women mingle in good fellows.h.i.+p and camaraderie without finding the s.e.x question a necessary topic of conversation. They do not find it necessary to push exhilaration to intoxication; to increase their animation to boisterousness. Their lack of conventionality does not tend to boorishness.

Some of the most enjoyable Bohemian affairs we know of have been full dress gatherings, carefully planned and delightfully carried out; others have been impromptu, neither the hour, the place, nor the dress being taken into consideration.

The unrefined get everywhere, even into the drawing rooms of royalty, consequently we must expect to meet them in Bohemia. But the true Bohemian has a way of forgetting to meet obnoxious personages and, as a rule, is more choice in the selection of a.s.sociates than the vaunted "400." With the Bohemian but one thing counts: Fitness. Money, position, personal appearance and even brains are of no avail if there be the bar sinister--unfit.

In a restaurant, one evening, a number of men and women were seated conspicuously at a table in the center of the room. Flowing neckties such as are affected by Parisian art students were worn by the men; all were coa.r.s.e, loud and much in evidence. They not only attracted attention by their loudness and outre actions, but they called notice by pelting other diners with missiles of bread. To us they were the last word in vulgarity, but to a young woman who had come to the place because she had heard it was "so Bohemian" they were ideal, and she remarked to her companion:

"I do so love to a.s.sociate with real Bohemians like these. Can't we get acquainted with them?"

"Sure," was the response. "All we have to do is to buy them a drink."

In San Francisco there are Bohemians and Near-Bohemians, and if you are like the young woman mentioned you are apt to miss the real and take the imitation for the genuine article.

We mean no derogation of San Francisco's restaurants when we say that San Francisco's highest form of Bohemianism is rarely in evidence in restaurants. We have enjoyed wonderful Bohemian dinners in restaurants, but the other diners were not aware of it. Some far more interesting gatherings have been in the rooms of Bohemian friends. Not always is it the artistic combination of famous chef that brings greatest delight, for we have as frequently had pleasure over a supper of some simple dish in the attic room of a good friend.