No apologies are offered for this book. In fact, we rather like it. Many
years have been spent in gathering this information, and naught is
written in malice, nor through favoritism, our expressions of opinion
being unbiased by favor or compensation. We have made our own
investigation and given our own ideas.
That our opinion does not coincide with that of others does not concern
us in the least, for we are pleased only with that which pleases us, and
not that with which others say we ought to be pleased.
If this sound egotistical we are sorry, for it is not meant in that way.
We believe that each and every individual should judge for him or
herself, considering ourselves fortunate that our ideas and tastes are
held in common.
San Franciscans, both residential and transient, are a pleasure-loving
people, and dining out is a distinctive feature of their pleasure. With
hundreds of restaurants to select from, each specializing on some
particular dish, or some peculiar mode of preparation, one often becomes
bewildered and turns to familiar names on the menu card rather than
venture into fields that are new, of strange and rare dishes whose
unpronounceable names of themselves frequently are sufficient to
discourage those unaccustomed to the art and science of cooking
practiced by those whose lives have been spent devising means of
tickling fastidious palates of a city of gourmets.
In order that those who come within our gates, and many others who have
resided here in blindness for years, may know where to go and what to
eat, and that they may carry away with them a knowledge of how to
prepare some of the dishes pleasing to the taste and nourishing to the
body, that have spread San Francisco's fame over the world, we have
decided to set down the result of our experience and study of our
Bohemian population and their ways, and also tell where to find and how
to order the best special dishes.
Over North Beach way we asked the chef of a little restaurant how he
cooked crab. He replied:
"The right way."
One often wonders how certain dishes are cooked and we shall tell you
"the right way."
It is hoped that when you read what is herein written some of our
pleasure may be imparted to you, and with this hope the story of San
Francisco's Bohemianism is presented.
Clarence E. Edwords.
San Francisco, California,
September 22, 1914.