[Bob Reynolds]

For those of you who have not seen this week's WATERWAY'S JOURNAL, there is an excellent "old Boat Column" by Alan Bates (they're ALL excellent, Alan). It details the kitchen or cookhouse of old steamboats (not galley!) and has an excellent picture of the cookhouse on the HOMER SMITH. Being someone who likes to fool around in the kitchen, cooking in that place looks like it would be completely foreign to me. Were people's expectations different then? Obviously the food was pretty good, judging from most rivermen's girth, but would most of it be considered "good" by today's standards? Also, on passenger boats, was there any consistency to the food? That is, could a passenger expect one boat's roast beef or cobbler to be the same time after time, or did those cooks just "wing" it every time they fixed something? I know recipes as we know them were non-existent in those days.