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OldWaldorf Bar Days
sized, does not mean dollars-simply small fruit usu–
ally growing on vines or diminutive plants. "Mug," as
employed, does not signify a face, or "to photograph,"
as commonly applied these days; but a container made
of glass, crockery, or stone, with a handle, and used for
dispensing ale, cider, or, infrequently, beer. A "lemon"
was then not what you were handed in an approach to
a confidence transaction, but a small yellow fruit; and
"lemon peel," of course, was the rind.
The word "Egg," as frequently used, should be taken
in a literal and primitive sense.
In
the days with which
we are dealing, the term "Pittsburgh Steel Millionaire"
had not yet been synonymously superseded in Manhat–
tanese by "Big Butter and Egg Man," and at the old
Waldorf Bar "Good Egg" was synchronous and syn–
onymous with "Fresh Egg." Whatever metaphorical
or sinister sense either has come later to assume, each
then meant simply a natural output of a female of the
chicken species, and in fair condition. A "Nutmeg" was,
and still is, the aromatic kernel of the fruit of a tree of
the
Myristica
family.
"Cock's Comb" as used, meant literally what it says,
however incredible to those who think only of a cow or
a goat when they turn to the barnyard for something
to drink. As an elective concomitant, if not an ingredi–
ent, of the Cfianticleer cocktail, a Cock's Comb was a
ruddy, serrated, distinctive capital decoration peculiar
to the
mascul~ne
chicken. It was pickled or bottled as
a
sweetmeat in France, often with other elemental com–
ponents of departed roosters, particularly what are
known to high-class grocers and certain gourmets as
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