A Bill of Fare for ‘Colored Patrons.’

An interesting article in the New York Times of March 21, 1886 made ponder on the various and devious ways in which the determinedly subversive can get around anti-discrimination legislation. It made me wonder too, how much progress we have really made in well over a century. The article outlined the not-so-subtle way in which one Chicago restaurateur managed to find a way to keep ‘colored folk’ out of his establishment in spite of the new State racial discrimination laws.

AN EXPENSIVE BILL OF FARE

PROVIDED BY A CHICAGO RESTAURANT FOR

ITS COLORED PATRONS.

CHICAGO, March 20. – “Billy” Boyle, a restaurant keeper, has found a novel method of evading the State civil rights law, which gives to colored people the same privileges in hotels, restaurants, and public places that white people enjoy. When a negro sits down at one of Boyle’s tables, he is handed politely a special bill of fare from which the following prices are culled: Porterhouse steak $3.75, the same with oysters for $3.90; a sirloin with mushrooms for $2.65; pork sausage only $3.35; fried chicken with cream sauce, whole, $4.20; picked up codfish, $4.25; and fried apples and salt pork $4.35. Fried eggs cost $2.25, tomato omelet, $4.30, brook trout $ 5.60, frogs’ legs 5.75, broiled prairie chickens $6.75; buckwheat cakes $1.10; oatmeal mush $1.25; pickled pigs’ feet $3.80; fried oysters $5.80 for half a dozen; buttered toast $1.10; corned beef hash $4.25, and liver and bacon $3.25, and the whole can be washed down with tea, coffee, or milk at 50 cents. The guest is calmly invited to call for wine, liquors, ales, and cordials.

The object of this, of course, is to drive the colored guest from the restaurant, and it seldom fails. Often pride would bid them stay, but pride must be backed by money or it will have a fall. It is a question if this discrimination against one class of people is not illegal.

In honor of my African-American friends, I have chosen today’s recipe from The House Servant's Directory, or A Monitor for Private Families: Comprising Hints on the Arrangement and Performance of Servants' Work by Robert Roberts (1827) – the first book written by an African-American to be published in the United States of America*. The book contained over one hundred ‘receipts’ – many for household cleaners and the like, but a few for foodstuffs.

*UPDATE - see the comments below.


A Most Delicious Lemonade, to be Made the Day Before Wanted.
Take and pare two dozen of good sized lemons as thin as you possibly can; put eight of the rinds
into three quarts of hot water, but not boiling, cover it close over for four hours, then rub some sugar to the rinds to attract the essence, and put it into a bowl, and into which squeeze the juice of the lemons; to which add one pound and a half of fine sugar, then put the water to the above, and three quarts of boiling milk, mix and run through a jelly bag until clear; bottle it, if you choose, and cork close; this will be most excellent, and will keep.


To Make Raspberry Vinegar Most Delicious.
Put one quart of clean picked raspberries into a large bowl, pour on them one quart of best white wine vinegar, the next day strain off the liquor on one pound of fresh raspberries, and the following day do the same, but do not squeeze the fruit, but drain the liquor as dry as possible from the fruit; the last time pass it through a cloth wet in vinegar, to prevent any waste, then put it into a stone jar, with a pound of sugar to every pint of juice, let your sugar be in large lumps, as it is much better; when dissolved stir it up well, put your jar in a pot of hot water, let it simmer, skim well, and when cold bottle and cork close.


Quotation for the Day.

When I'm at a Chinese restaurant having a hard time with chopsticks, I always hope that there's a Chinese kid at an American restaurant somewhere who's struggling mightily with a fork.
Rick Budinich