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.
A traveler can not but be 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
habituated to 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; to sit down all
at once to such a carnival! to such 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; 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.
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