IS A S
PLAQUES FOR BRITAIN Raymond Postgate SOO& WINE FOR CHRISTMAS Ian Peebles THE PLEASURES OF SMOKING Alfred Dunhill NAUSEA Aloysius Pepper
Pleasures of the Table
BY ANDRE SIMON
IN the leisurely days of long ago, which I remember so well and regret so little, meals lasted much too long: today they are more likely to be rushed. Wine used also to be kept much too long; wine which had once been priceless was often hoarded until it had become worthless. 'The older the wine the better' was a fallacy with very deep roots at the time. Today, of course, old vintages are only a memory and sometimes a myth. Last month, October, 1955, at a public dinner at one of London's great luxury hotels, we were given a Brauneberger 1954, barely twelve months old, and not likely to be any better if kept any longer : it was sweet and cold, which is probably all that one can expect of a white wine at a banquet these days.
We are all entitled to a taste of our own, of course : it may be good or bad taste in the opinion of others, but it is nobody's business if we happen to prefer jazz to classical music, and Picasso to Constable or Turner. It does not even matter very much if we choose to be rather ridiculous, and if we hang our pictures upside down, or if we attend a funeral in grey flannels. But it does matter a great deal if we have no taste, or no care, or no time for our daily food and drink. It matters enormously because it does make such a difference to the happiness or misery of those hardworking little friends of ours, tucked away below the belt, and responsible for our good health and good temper. Which is why sensible people take an intelligent in- terest in the problems and pleasures of the table, in the choice and partnership of their food and wine. It is not a matter of self-gratification, but of common sense. Since eat and drink we must, as, indeed, we must every day, why not make our meals occasions for pleasurable relaxation, instead of letting them become monotonous refuelling occasions? There are in Nature two main laws which may appear to be contradictory, but they are really complementary : one is dis- ciplined stability and the other infinite Variety. We can be sure of the hours of sunrise and sunset, of high and low tides for days, months and years ahead, but we never can tell when wind, rain, frost or snow may come nor for how long. Why not follow Nature's example and order our meals with disciplined stability as regards their time and duration.
Many are the wine lovers in the British Isles who grumble at the high price of wine compared with its low cost in France or Italy or Spain, or any of the wine-growing lands which they have occasion to visit. They do not realise how much better off they are as regards the greater number of wines which they are able to choose from. You do not get any Burgundy in Bordeaux nor any claret in Dijon, and if you were to ask for a hock or a Moselle in Italy, Spain or Portugal you could not get it and you might even be told that there never was any wine made in Germany. The wine that vignerons drink is cheap, of course, and they like it because it is their own child, but they have to drink the same viii du pays all the year round : we like it well enough as a change during our holidays, but we would soon tire of it at home. Happily, in the British Isles, from Land's End to South Uist, in inns and hotels, large and small, and from the cellars of wine-Merchants throughout the country, one may choose a number of different wines from over a thousand different vineyards of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Yugoslavia, Switzerland and Luxembourg, as well as wines from far-away Australia and South Africa. So let us grumble no longer, but enjoy our meals gratefully and sensibly.
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