Warning:
if you suffer from triskaidekaphobia
(morbid fear of the number 13) – read no further!
The
members of The Thirteen Club of New York had an especially good time at their regular
dinners - held on the thirteenth of the month - when that day fell on a Friday,
as it does today. In a post several years ago I described the club’s raison d’être and general shenanigans
(including of course a menu), and I featured one more of their dinners in Menus from History. It being the
thirteenth of the month today, I want to share with you the details of the club
dinner on July 13, 1907 (a Saturday) as reported in the New York Times the following day. As was their usual routine, the
number 13 figured prominently in all parts of the evening, including the dinner
menu, and many attempts were made to tempt fate by defying commonly-held
superstitious beliefs – one of which clearly backfired on this occasion!
THIRTEEN CLUB BRAVES
EVERYTHING.
--
LADDER HITS SECRETARY
--
Hard knocks for All
Superstitions at the Annual Dinner at Brighton Beach.
--
Efforts
to break the old-time superstitions and prove that thirteen is not a hoodoo
were not as successful as they might have been when tried by 213 members of the
Thirteen Club in banquet hall No. 13 of the Brighton Beach Hotel last night.
Most of the 213 guests assembled at
13 minutes after 6 o’clock for the purpose of attending a reception at that
hour. The reception did not start until 13 minutes after that time, and at 13
minutes 7 o’clock the hour named for taking seats at the tables set for
thirteen guests each, it was a thirteen to one shot that there would be a
delay.
There were thirteen horses scheduled
for the big Suburban at the Brighton Beach track yesterday, and many times
thirteen people assembled at the track to watch the ponies run. Many of these
took a thirteen to one shot, and won, and they had to spend their winnings in
food and wine.
The assembly filled the various
dining salons to such an extent that it was two hours and thirteen minutes
before the members of the Thirteen Club could gain access to the dining room,
and then there was another delay of thirteen minutes to patch up the bruised
and bleeding nose of Secretary J.R. Arabanell – received by being struck
squarely in the face by the falling of a ladder he was hanging over the door to
defy the old superstition of walking under a ladder.
With these few mishaps, the dinner
started off in great glee, and merriment reigned for several hours. Mirrors
were smashed, salt was spilled promiscuously, punch and wine were drunk out of
miniature skulls, and under dimmed lights old superstitions was buried with
solemn ceremony, a huge black coffin, properly inscribed, being carried through
the banquet hall on the shoulders of thirteen members of the club.
…. Other speakers were Judge William
B. Green, who told what it meant to be scared by suspicion. To prove his lack
of belief in any superstition, he smashed a large looking glass into
smithereens and defied the seven years of bad luck which are supposed by some
to follow such an act.
Each of the guests was furnished
with thirteen littleneck clams on the half shell, thirteen radishes, thirteen
olives, thirteen tablespoonfuls of clam consommé en tasse, broiled bluefish
with thirteen small potatoes, thirteen grains of sweet corn on the cob, roast
Philadelphia chicken thirteen weeks’ old, thirteen inches of watermelon in the
rind, and thirteen drops of cognac, while a 13-year old Susanne Rocomore sang a
thirteen-verse song entititled “I Just Cant Believe My Eyes,” and responded
with thirteen verses of the old-time “Goo-Goo Eyes.”
Just 13 minutes past midnight the
13th of July was voted the best 13th of the month celebration the club has had
in thirteen years, then in groups of thirteen the tired and weary Thirteeners
wended their weary way to the train, which pulled away from Brighton Beach just
thirteen minutes later.
As the recipe for the day, may I tempt you with a
little clam bouillon? Feel free to serve it in whatever quantity you wish, per
guest.
Clam Bouillon
Wash
and scrub with a brush one-half peck clams, changing the water several
times. Put in kettle with three cups cold water, cover tightly, and
steam until shells are well opened. Strain liquor, cool, and clear.
The Boston
Cooking School Cookbook (1896)
Fannie Merritt Farmer.
No comments:
Post a Comment