midnight
COOKERY We in America have the raw material of provision in greater abundance than any other nation . There is no country where an ample , well-furnished table is more easily spread , and for that reason , perhaps , none where the bounties of Providence are more generally neglected . I do not mean to say that the traveler through the length and breadth of our land could not , on the whole , find an average of comfortable subsistence ; yet , considering that our resources are greater than those of any other civilized people , our results are comparatively poorer . It is said that , a list of the summer vegetables which are exhibited on New York hotel tables being shown to a French _ artiste _ , he declared that to serve such a dinner properly would take till midnight . I recollect how I was once struck with our national plenteousness on returning from a Continental tour , and going directly from the ship to a New York hotel , in the bounteous season of autumn . For months I had been habituated to my neat little bits of chop or poultry garnished with the inevitable cauliflower or potato , which seemed to be the sole possibility after the reign of green peas was over . Now I sat down all at once to a carnival of vegetables , -- ripe , juicy tomatoes , raw or cooked ; cucumbers in brittle slices ; rich , yellow sweet potatoes ; broad Lima-beans , and beans of other and various names ; tempting ears of Indian corn steaming in enormous piles , and great smoking tureens of the savory succotash , an Indian gift to the table for which civilization need not blush ; sliced egg-plant in delicate fritters ; and marrow squashes , of creamy pulp and sweetness : a rich variety , embarrassing to the appetite , and perplexing to the choice .