I left it there for the fools but they will never find it.

[Graham]

By 'diner', I mean that wonderful American institution of using a former railway carriage (railroad car to Yanks) as a small cafe-restaurant, in which food is plain, simple and cooked as and when ordered. I ate in several, the best being the one outside the main gate of US Steel in Youngstown, OH. Their scrambled eggs and hash-browns were out of this world.

Why is it that in America it's impossible to obtain good bacon, proper sausages, decent cheese, and quality bread? In a similar vein, why is it that in England we can't get prime rib of beef?

Graham

[RivkahChaya]

I'm a vegetarian, so, in general, bleh, but kidneys filter waste.

[Cogidubnus]

No Liver and Bacon Cobbler?

No Stuffed Heart?

No haggis?

No sweetbreads?

No ox cheek or tongue?

Myself I generally draw the line at lights (lungs) but most offal/offcuts can make a really tasty meal when correctly prepared!

All the best

Dave

[RivkahChaya]

I lived in the USA for four years, and although good cooking could be found, by and large the general standard of chain restaurants was very poor, and when like me you travelled a lot by road there wasn't much else available. The best food I found was in the South, especially the sea-food. I did like cat-fish, big time! (Yes, I know cat-fish is freshwater...)

I also enjoyed the old-fashioned diners, but they were few and far between.

G

There's really no such thing as "American" food, but yes, our contribution to the world scene in the form of "fast food" is pretty awful. Since we're vegetarians, we don't eat it much.

I lived in Manhattan as a young child, though, and the variety of "mom and pop" ethnic restaurants is amazing, and they're all really good.

By "diner," I guess you mean short-order restaurant, something that goes by a lot of names, depending where you are. My favorite is the Spanglish "luncheria." I was kind of surprised, when I went on road trips in college, how very much alike those were, even though they weren't chain stores. Michigan, Texas, California, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, they were really similar. I guess it's because they serve a lot of truckers.

P.S. Broiled = grilled, Rifkah!

Yeah. I grew up in a city. We didn't grill, which to an American means "outdoors," over real fire, or, at least it does in the Northeast. Essentially the same cooking, done in an oven, in the kitchen, is called "broiling."

I wouldn't eat a kidney if it would bring world peace.

Even if my plane crashed in the Andes, and we had to eat the people who died in the crash, I'd eat a foot before I'd eat a kidney.

[curious4]

Broiled kidneys a la Mrs Beeton

Ascertain that the kidneys are fresh and cut them open very evenly, lengthways down to the root, for should one half be thicker than the other, one would be underdone whilst the other would be dried, but do not separate them; skin them, and pass a skewer under the white of each to keep them flat, and broil over a nice clear fire, placing the inside downwards; turn them when done enough on one side, and cook them on the other. Remove the skewers, place the kidneys on a very hot dish, season with peppar and salt, and put a tiny piece of butter in the middle of each; serve very hot and quickly, and send very hot plates to table.

Enjoy! ("very nise")?

C4

P.S. Broiled = grilled, Rifkah!

[Graham]

I lived in the USA for four years, and although good cooking could be found, by and large the general standard of chain restaurants was very poor, and when like me you travelled a lot by road there wasn't much else available. The best food I found was in the South, especially the sea-food. I did like cat-fish, big time! (Yes, I know cat-fish is freshwater...)

I also enjoyed the old-fashioned diners, but they were few and far between.

G

[ChrisGeorge]

I've been to the UK twice, and overall, I loved it. But not the food. You do some pretty good desserts, but wow, I made a lot of peanut butter sandwiches in my room, and went to a lot of Chinese restaurants.

I did find one fantastic restaurant in Cardiff, though.

Boiled kidneys. Bleh. I tried to explain to someone that you eat what are essentially French fry sandwiches, with butter, but he didn't believe me, so I gave up.

ETA: the first time I was in England, it helped that I had been in Moscow for a year right before. I'd take a boiled kidney and a French fry sandwich over the food in the Soviet Union any day. A restaurant once served me a bowl of chicken soup with a feather in it. I'm not making that up. Also, they pickle anything. I've had fried, pickled potatoes, and pickled apples.

Actually in Liverpool where I come from, French fry sandwiches, or what we call "chip butties" are a treat (eat it with the hot chips melting the butter... delicious), also sugar butties and jam butties. I kid you not as Captain Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny" would say.

Chris

[RivkahChaya]

I've been to the UK twice, and overall, I loved it. But not the food. You do some pretty good desserts, but wow, I made a lot of peanut butter sandwiches in my room, and went to a lot of Chinese restaurants.

I did find one fantastic restaurant in Cardiff, though.

Boiled kidneys. Bleh. I tried to explain to someone that you eat what are essentially French fry sandwiches, with butter, but he didn't believe me, so I gave up.

ETA: the first time I was in England, it helped that I had been in Moscow for a year right before. I'd take a boiled kidney and a French fry sandwich over the food in the Soviet Union any day. A restaurant once served me a bowl of chicken soup with a feather in it. I'm not making that up. Also, they pickle anything. I've had fried, pickled potatoes, and pickled apples.

[curious4]

Kidneys

Hello again,

I take it back. Just checked with Mrs Beeton - "broiled kidneys - a breakfast or supper dish".

C4

[curious4]

Kidneys

Hello,

Haven't actually read this book, but didn't the Victorians eat kidneys for breakfast, not supper?

Best wishes,
C4

[RivkahChaya]

I do, Rivkah, but I still think the point is being missed here. How do we know the diary author set out to make the ripper's voice 'fascinating' or even 'interesting'? Why would we expect 'clever'?

How about boring as hell, droning on and on about himself and his obsessions, repetitive, self-pitying and self-congratulatory by turn, blaming everyone else but himself, and doing it in very unclever, almost puerile ways, using poor grammar and downright eccentric spelling, while fancying himself as the clever fellow who never had the chance to really shine, like his famous brother? It's a real put-down of the real James - and the opposite of good literature, which was surely the purpose.

Nobody does that better than our dear diarist.

I'm saying why I think someone like Oscar Wilde didn't write it. If James Maybrick had an enemy who was planning to use it to discredit him, and then stuck it in a bottom drawer when Maybrick died suddenly, that's entirely something else. Although, accusing your business rival of being Jack the Ripper is a little silly-- much better to accuse him of shady business practices.

But, as I've said before, I think the diary is a modern forgery.

[caz]

Caz,

I don't know about that. A man was king of his castle and wouldn't expect anyone to read his diary. But if he were paranoid, why not a locked box to put a real diary in. Or...if he were a businessman used to such things, a ledger. Surely a scrapbook wouldn't be something a man would have bought. If it were his wife's, then maybe.

Mike

Well yes, Mike. If a hoaxer can use something not normally considered fit for purpose, or something that was bought by someone else and adapted for his/her own use, I suppose a serial killer could too.

I always say, what was sauce for a ripper letter hoaxer was sauce for a killer.

The source in both cases being only human.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

But the diary is bad in such unclever ways. Someone like Oscar Wilde would write, at the very least, quotable bad writing. I mean, the American writer Alice Walker has written in the voice of people who are barely literate, and made them fascinating. If someone like Wilde had written the diary, surely it would be more interesting.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

I do, Rivkah, but I still think the point is being missed here. How do we know the diary author set out to make the ripper's voice 'fascinating' or even 'interesting'? Why would we expect 'clever'?

How about boring as hell, droning on and on about himself and his obsessions, repetitive, self-pitying and self-congratulatory by turn, blaming everyone else but himself, and doing it in very unclever, almost puerile ways, using poor grammar and downright eccentric spelling, while fancying himself as the clever fellow who never had the chance to really shine, like his famous brother? It's a real put-down of the real James - and the opposite of good literature, which was surely the purpose.

Nobody does that better than our dear diarist.

Love,

Caz
X

[The Good Michael]

I think I would have had James/Jack pick a used Victorian guard book, not expected to be written in, rather than an actual diary for 1888 which a family or staff member could easily have been tempted to peek inside, considering the real man's genuine double life.

Caz,

I don't know about that. A man was king of his castle and wouldn't expect anyone to read his diary. But if he were paranoid, why not a locked box to put a real diary in. Or...if he were a businessman used to such things, a ledger. Surely a scrapbook wouldn't be something a man would have bought. If it were his wife's, then maybe.

Mike

[caz]

You have to wonder why he wasn't a little more specific about what the 'it' was, to which he was alluding. It's not as though anyone was likely to be able to return to the crime scene after reading the diary and locate the item. I think 'Jack', had it been he, would have delighted in detailing the exact nature of the item in order to emphasise the extent of his own cleverness. Then again, how clever was he if, in 1888, he couldn't get hold of an 1888 diary?

Hi Bridewell,

I agree with the first part, but not the last. This was never a formal 'diary' as such; more a collection of thoughts, during which 'Sir Jim' the Scouser confesses to 'orrible murder, so how would it have been 'clever', on anyone's part, to use a nice new diary with 1888 on the front for this purpose, even though Maybrick the businessman could no doubt have stretched to it? He wasn't a secret lemonade drinker; he was a secretive arsenic eater who was meant to be secretly gutting whores in "that London" and returning to put his thoughts and fantasies to paper, either in his study, which was kept locked when he wasn't around, or at his office, where prying eyes might have been more of a problem.

I think I would have had James/Jack pick a used Victorian guard book, not expected to be written in, rather than an actual diary for 1888 which a family or staff member could easily have been tempted to peek inside, considering the real man's genuine double life.

Love,

Caz
X