¶ "The average diner-out will pick the dish with the fancy colors every time."
¶ "The younger generation is not trained in the art of eating. Nor drinking either."
¶ "Americans are now a predominantly meat and potato eating people."
Such resigned generalities as these filled the air in Philadelphia's elegant Bellevue-Stratford Hotel last week as 1,000 restaurateurs gathered for the annual convention of the International Stewards & Caterers Association. The delegates listened appreciatively when a representative of Tested Selling, Inc. hissed: ''Don't sell the steak; sell the sizzle."* For president they re-elected genial William A. Heaman, who is steward of the Harvard Union (freshman dining hall) and is regarded by Harvardmen as no heir to Brillat-Savarin.
Including both steward dietitians like Mr. Heaman, feeders of groups (undergraduates, the employes of big corporations, etc.), and the traditionalists of the industry, old-line French, German and Alsatian "kitchen men," Association members buy upwards of $500,000,000 worth of food every year. Since Repeal they have handled nearly that much liquor business. Typical was the Roosevelt-Du Pont wedding last July when caterers offered what was, for them, a skimpy repast of hors d'oeuvres, ice cream and cakes, but made up for it with champagne. Even thicker than sample-passers from food companies at the convention last week were wine and liquor salesmen, whose stocks of courtesy cocktails ran out fast. Budweiser was served free on the hotel roof. A waiters' champagne race down Broad Street made staid Philadelphians stare.
No. 1 spectacle of the meeting was the annual culinary and confectionery art show. Among its exhibits: Independence Hall in spun sugar; hams made up as mandolins; a prize wicker work cake by the chef of Philadelphia's Ritz-Carlton; a prize 18-lb. mousse de foie gras which cost Chef Fernand Gspann four days' labor and $20 to build of sliced truffles, tongue and egg white. Spectacle No. 2 was a beauty contest for local waitresses on "National Distillers Night," which turned rowdy when merrymaking stewards acclaimed their favorites by direct action. In the afternoon that day a special party of gourmets entered another world by visiting the Philadelphia Zoo at feeding time.
More serious matters were broached on the convention floor. Menus, it was declared, are becoming larger, less cluttered with items, often illustrated, because "what the eye sees the mind may want." Deploring "leakage at the bar," Restaurant Accountant James E. McNamara observed that '"in the first place it is easier to waste a liquid than a solid; in the second place there is much more temptation to employes in a bottle than in a box. . . ." Sales Manager A. A. Schipke of International Silver Co. besought the stewards to screen their garbage cans and buy genuine silver. "In Massachusetts," said he, "we recovered two tons of silver from restaurant garbage in one month, proving that losses which you blame on the poor public are usually due to careless help."