“You let your servants cook native in the house?” Mrs. Billings asked.

“Well, I mean, they can cook what they want to feed themselves,” Mrs. Lederer said, “as long as they serve proper meals to us.”

Mrs. Billings said there was no place for garlic and boiled yucca in her house. She’d trained her staff to cook reasonable American dishes, and now all she had to do was train them to eat reasonable-sized portions. She said her servants ate enormous piles of food.

The others listening concurred, and Mrs. Lederer asked how it could be that none of the servants were a bit fat, while she and Mr. Lederer were constantly on reduction diets.