Dining Room Slang (1887)

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   Greetings from New York, after about 24 hours of flights from Colombo to
Singapore to Tokyo to Los Angeles to New York City.  It's cold here!
   This is the best early list of this type of restaurant language that I've
come across.  Some of my ADS-L posts about "hash house lingo" were compiled
by Gerald Cohen last year in COMMENTS ON ETYMOLOGY.  I'll have more to say on
"86" when I check the full-text LOS ANGELES TIMES.  I expect to see that in
the 1920s-1930s.
   Notice that "Adam and Eve on a raft" is _not_ here (we've seen it in the
1890s).  The author of the article states that the language is "going out of
fashion," but it certainly took a while.



   3 July 1887, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 13:

_RESTAURANT CALLS._

_Waiters' Economy of Time in Giving Orders._

_Curious Phrases and Their Meaning--Dictionary of Diningroom  Slang--A Quaint
Custom Going Out of Fashion._
(...)
   "One," is an oyster stew.
   "Three on," three butter cakes.
   "Pair o' sleeve buttons," is two fish balls.
   "White wings, ends up," are poached eggs.
   "One slaughter on the pan," is a porter house steak.
   "Coffee in the dark" and "slope in a cup with the light out" signify
coffee without milk.
   "Brown a plate o' wheat" and "stack o' whites" indicates that a customer
wants wheat cakes.
   "Tea separate," means that the milk for the tea is not to be poured into
the cup, but served in a pitcher.
   "Cannon balls," are crullers.
   "Beef and" means beef and beans.
   "Stars and stripes," are pork and beans.  This term also applies to bacon.
   "Brass band, without a leader," is a plate of beans without pork.
   "Summer time," is bread and milk.
   "Murphy with his coat on," is a boiled potato, unpeeled.
   "White wings, sunny side up,"are fried eggs.
   "Rice both," "bread both," etc., means that rice, bread and other puddings
are to be served with both wine sauce and butter sauce.
   "Rice, hard only," means that rice pudding is to be served with butter
sauce.
   "Bale o' hay," is corned beef and cabbage.
   "Let the blood follow the knife," is rare roast beef.
   "Roly poly" is strawberry pudding.
   "Solid shot" is apple dumpling.
   "Mealy bustle" is mealy potato.
   "Ham and" signifies ham and eggs.
   "Shipwreck" is scrambled eggs.
   "Hen fruit" is boiled eggs.
   "Tea no" is tea without milk.
   "Dyspepsia in a snow storm" is mince pie sprinkled with sugar.
   "Hash no" is hash without onions.
   "Mystery" is hash.
   "Brown stone front" is another name for porter house steak.
   "Chicken from on high" is the best cut of chicken.
   "Cosmopolitan" is Neapolitan ice cream.
   "Let the chicken wade through it" is chicken soup.
   Some keepers of restaurants where these amusing orders have been in daily
transmission for years have compelled their waiters to forego this style and
to communicate orders to the cook in every day English.  It is only the
"What'll ye have, damyer," kind of servitor who perists in it.
   _S._