Last night, L- and I visited
McSorley's Old Ale House, a New York institution that has been brewing its own beer since 1854.
The website claims "Everyone from Abe Lincoln to John Lennon have passed thru McSorley's swinging doors. Woody Guthrie inspired the union movement from a table in the front - guitar in hand."
Entering, we were greeted by a young Irishman who said simply, "Laight o Daark."
BothWhile were drinking, L- and I began discussing the phenomena of sawdust-covered floors in bars. Why do they do it now? Why did they ever begin doing it? Turns out, according to the book
Do Elephants Jump? by David Feldman, that saloons in the old west started using sawdust on the floor because, in a time and place when water was scarce, it made cleaning up blood, beer, puke, and other "foul substances" a whole lot easier. Not to mention, spit.
People used to spit all the time. Late-nineteenth-century bar books advise people looking for for a job behind the bar not to spit during the interview, and also advise bartenders not to spit while on duty.
Eventually, regulators banned the use of sawdust as both highly flammable and unhealthy. So the next time you are at a bar/restaurant with sawdust on the floor you can think to yourself, "It's a good thing that sawdust is in here. I just might need to vomit, and I would hate to make any kind of mess that would be hard to clean up."
Labels: The Drink
