Take a fresh cocoanut and cut off the top, removing nearly all of the
meat. Put together three tablespoonfuls of chopped cocoanut meat and two
ears of fresh, green corn, taken from the cob. Slice two onions into
four tablespoonfuls of olive oil, together with a tablespoonful of diced
bacon fried in olive oil, add one chopped green pepper, half a dozen
tomatoes stewed with salt and pepper, one clove of garlic, and cook all
together until it thickens. Strain this into the corn and cocoanut and
add one spring chicken cut in four pieces. Put the mixture into the
shell of the cocoanut, using the cut-off top as a cover, and close
tightly with a covering of paste around the jointure to keep in the
flavors. Put the cocoanut into a pan with water in it and set in the
oven, well heated, for one hour, basting frequently to prevent the
cocoanut's burning.
A bare recital of the terms of the recipe cannot bring to the
uninitiated even a suspicion of the delightful aroma that comes from the
cocoanut when its top is lifted, nor can it give the slightest idea of
the delicacy of the savor arising from the combination of the cocoanut
with young chicken. It is not a difficult dish to prepare, and if you
cannot get it at any of the restaurants, and we are sure you cannot, try
it at home some time and surprise your friends with a dish to be found
in only one restaurant in the world. If you desire it at Coppa's on your
visit to San Francisco you will have to telephone out to him in advance
(unless he has succeeded in getting back to the city, which he
contemplates) so that he can prepare it for you, and, take our word for
it, you will never regret doing so.
Coppa has many wonderful dishes to serve, and he delights so much in
your appreciation that he is always fearful something is wrong if you
fail to do full justice to his meal. He showed this one evening when he
had filled a little party of us to repletion by his lavish provision for
our entertainment, and nature rebelled against anything more. To us came
Coppa in tears.
"What is the matter with the chicken, Doctor? Is it not cooked just
right?"
It was with difficulty that we made him understand that there was a
limit to capacity, and that he had fed us with such bountiful hand we
could eat no more. Even now when we go to Coppa's we have a little
feeling of fear lest we offend him by not eating enough to convince him
that we are pleased.
Coppa's walls were always adorned with strange conceits of the artists
and writers who frequented his place, and after a picture, or a bit of
verse had remained until it was too familiar some one erased it and
replaced it with something he thought was better. We preserved one
written by an unknown Bohemian. We give it just as it was:
Through the fog of centuries, dim and dense,
I sometimes seem to see
The shadowy line of a backyard fence
And a feline shape of me.
I hear the growl, and yowl and howl
Of each nocturnal fight,
And the throaty stir, half cry, half purr
Of passionate delight,
As seeking an amorous rendezvous
My ancient brothers go stealing
Through the purple gloom of night.
I've seen your eyes, with a greenish glint;
You move with a feline grace;
And when you are pleased I catch the hint
Of a purr in your throat and face.
Then I wonder if you are dreaming, too,
Of temples along the Nile,
Where you yowled and howled, and loved and prowled,
With many a sensuous wile,
And borrowed the grace you own today
From that other life in the far-away;
And if such dreams beguile.
I know that you sit by your cozy fire,
When shadows crowd the room,
And my soul responds to an old desire
To roam through the velvety gloom,
So stealthily stealing, softly shod,
My spirit is hurrying thence
To the lure of an ancient mystic god,
Whose magnet is intense,
Where I know your soul, too, roams in fur,
For I hear it call with a throaty purr,
From the shadowy backyard fence.