SC - Period Restaurant?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Chris Stanifer wrote:
> 
> --- Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> wrote:
> > Seton1355 at aol.com wrote:
> > >
> > > Really?  I thought there were all these posh
> > dishes using these 2 food items
> > > that the rich had their cooks prepare all the
> > time.  Where did you get this
> > > information?
> > > Phillipa
> > > <<
> > >  Actually lobster was f ood for the poor or used
> > as fertilizer, as were
> > >  oysters during the Colonial period right into the
> > late Victorian period. >>
> >
> > Which is one big reason why they're so scarce now
> > that they're
> > considered luxuries.
> 
> Indeed, the Lobster was considered nothing more than a
> "common crustacean" until (relatively) fairly
> recently.  Delmonico's in New York city is
> (disputedly) credited with raising this food item to a
> gourmet level with the dish Lobster Newburg (which,
> depending upon which source you believe, was either
> originall called Lobster Wenburg, or not)

The Wenburg story is a fabrication courtesy of a Delmonico's publicist
writing a history of the restaurant. There is a town on the Hudson River
called Newburg, New York, a popular resort in the 19th century. When the
Vanderbilt railroad empire began using Pullman dining cars, their cooks
popularized a white ragout of lobster meat cooked in a sherry-flavored
egg-thickened cream sauce, called Lobster a la Newburg, named for a
popular destination on the line, and based on the fact that a massively
popular commodity being shipped by train was refrigerated fresh seafood
from New York City. Shortly thereafter Delmonico's began selling Lobster
a la Delmonico, parenthetically known as Lobster Newberg (note the
spelling shift). This move, and later, the Captain Wenburg story, was a
ploy to make it seem Delmonico's had created the dish. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com