“But indeed there would be little harm done if a column or two columns or three columns were reserved for the “Hookah Tea” stuff and the “Caravan Girl” stuff and all similar stuff. You could skip these columns if you didn’t like them, just as I skip the racing columns, in which I am not interested. But “the women” rule the whole paper. Not only must the editor put in matter which he knows they will like, he must keep out matter which he knows they won’t like. And the result is ... the result as we know it. As the “literary editor” of a big London paper acutely observed to me not long ago, the case of the newspaper article is exactly as the case of chops and steaks, beefsteak puddings and saddles of mutton that were of old. “The women” have spoilt all. What do they know or care about man’s food? To them there is nothing to choose between a chop fried white and hard and greasy in the frying-pan and a chop which has been purged of all excess by the ardent heat, beneath the gridiron, which beneath a coat half black, half golden-brown, preserves its delicious juices, which sizzles on the plate as William or Charles serves it, which, opened by the eager knife, shews within a hue like that of a blush-rose in June. These are not matters to enchant the wayward heart of a young girl, and when once she sets foot inside the tavern coffee-room, farewell to all such solid merits. There was once a noble tavern called Herbert’s, famous for two generations. Men who had spent half a lifetime in Africa or India or in the islands of the South Seas were sustained by the thought of the beefsteak pudding at Herbert’s. The times changed and the old tavern with them. Going there in these later days, I used to wonder why all the meats seemed to taste alike, why there was no distinctive and peculiar relish about any of the dishes. I found out the reason why one day. I had business, oddly enough, in Herbert’s kitchen. One of the cooks shewed me the joints roasting on the jack; and I perceived that three different meats were cooking at the one fire, while beneath, in a common pan, their juices mingled, ready for the basting ladle. It is not much wonder, I think, that veal and lamb and beef taste all much alike in this unhappy place, once so high, now fallen so low. One night I was dining there, and a member of the party asked the waiter to bring him some Stilton. “I beg your pardon, sir,” said the man, “we only have _English_ cheeses.” It sounds impossible; but I heard this with my ears. In the old days Herbert’s was exclusively masculine in its custom; I do not know what would have happened to that waiter then. I hardly think that his death would have been an easy one.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Lower Part Hamburg steaks, curry of beef, and cecils Vein Steaks Rump Back Choicest large roasts and cross-cut steaks Middle Roasts Face Inferior roasts and stews Loin Tip Extra fine roasts Middle Sirloin and porterhouse steaks First Cut Steaks and roast The Tenderloin Sold as a Fillet or Larded and roasted, or broiled cut in Steaks Hind-shin Cheap stew or soup stock
Sources: The passage is from Arthur Machen, Things near & far, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — forest cloth, pudding stamp.