The times., 1899-08-20
AS J. BULL SEES HIMSELF.
His Cooking and His Amu>epeDts'
The Dinners of Two Nations
Nr0m the Satlrday Review.)

The Dinners OF Two NutftnSs
From the Saturday Review
Every nation has the goyernment and
the cooking which it deserves. Thus, the
French are the worst governed and the
best fed people in Europe for the reason
that the majority CT Freedmen are per
fectly Indifferent TO politics and keenly
interested in food. The English are the
worst ted and the best governed people
in the world because, with few eXcep-
tions, they care great deal more about
the programme of the Government than
the menu of the cook. In the ''Vieux Mar
cheur' there is a scene in the cabinet of
Partisan restaurant which illustrates the
anxious dehberation with which a French
party debate their bin Of fare. What are
you going TO give us. Adrien?" asks the
host. u al pense a differences chooses. re-
plies the waiter. Fancy asking an English
waiter what he was going TO give you for
luncheon and his answering, Il have been
thinking of several thingsi" Adrien then
proposes pOtage Jeanne dare, whereupon
young gentleman asks Indignantly, de
Ia soupe dsjeuner?" Adrien's rebuke is
magnificent: Men. monsieur pas de la
sonpe. du potage. C'est Ia yielle eeole, ct
Jy suis fdele. L'homme ne Sc maintient
que par les potages. lie grand Careme, qui
ecrit IN tres beau livre sur les potages,
les appelle les Portiques du Temple.
This is no very exaggerated caricature of
what a French head waiter might say.
But just imagine such a discourse being
addressed to one by the apathetic person
in greasy black who jerks ont cold beef
or chicken and ann" It is not only that
English people are Indifferent to what
they eat; they regard an interest in food
as positively immoral. Whether this be
a remnant of Puritanism or not. it is GER
tain that a man who discourses learnedly
or lovingly about cooking is despised by
half his audience as a glutton, and dis
trusted by the other half as man of
loose principles. True, DIR. Johnson de-
elared that a man who couldn't get his
dinner well cooked was not to be trusted
in the more important affairs of life. But
the doctors standard was not very high;
besides, he was an original. The common
view-not of course among upper-class
eplcureans, but the national VIEWS that
so long as man gets enough il is ingrati-
tude or something worse TO criticise the
quality OF his victuals
There is a story of an Edinburgh advo-
cate of the new school who was always
blowing up the club servants about his
dinner At last an old member of the
committee was deputed to bring the young
man TO reason by pointing out to him the
wiokedness of his appetite. The complain
ami defended himself by explaining that he
was a refined sensualist. ''Ye may ca
yerseT a refined sensualist; l ca ye just
q gusty beggar," was the conclusion. And
that is the popular view of the Iman who
makes fuss about his food.
French women do QUITE as much as
French men to keep up the standard of
cookery; and English women are quite
as much to blame as English men for the
absence of any standard in this country.
81 Ia -, inf haf
she thinks OF a certain restaurant, and she
viii say. such a lovely room, l like
those dark red hangings by Waring so
much. But the dinner, my dear lady,
what about the dinner? "Oh, the dinner,
/ don't think I remember much about
that" This fatal indifference filters down
from the table through the service to the
kitchen. The experiment is constantly
tried of getting over celebrated chefs from
Paris, and those who know these artists
on their native heath are at a
and careless performances in Lon
don The reasons are not far to
seek The foreign chef is badly served in
the kitchen and in the dining room This
distresses him at first, until he learns that
his patrons are too busy admiring the
furniture and one another to know whether
his dinner is hot or cold. For the truth
is that so long as the upholstery is mag
nificent, and the company numerous and
smart, English people are quite happy.
In private houses there is the same in
difference above stairs, the same carless-
ness below. Even among the upper class,
where money is no object, the contrast is
too painful between the splendor of the
table and the commonplace. addressed
fare. With the exception of one or two of
our great mobiles who entertain royalty, the
best cooking is 10 be found, as might be
expected in the houses of the cosmopoli-
tan financiers. In the upper middle class
the difficulty of obtaining a decent cook is
notorious, because the working English
woman regards a serious interest in the
preparation of food as dercgatory- To
produce good dinner at O'Clock the
cook should begin thinking OF different
things" like Adrien, al an early period of
the afternoon; whereas she never dreams
of beginning her duty until about an hour
and a half before the time. After all, why
should she bother, If master and mistress
dent mind? Below the upper middle class
cooking and dining disappear, and you get
boiling. baking. and feeding. Things will
never mend until the majority recognize
that good cooking is an important factor
in happiness, and insist upon getting it.
Nothing is so difficult as TO force a taste
upon a people; but we really think that a
resolute effort might be made by English
travellers TO raise the culinary standard in
their own hotels, which in this respect are
simply scandalous. Verify, We are great
and good nation; but at the bare imagina-
ton of our national cookery the stomach
weeds