THE FESTIVE BOARD
[To the Editor of the SPEc-r.troa.]
Sta,While I appreciate the honour of my miscellany of the Table, The Festive Board, being included with such worthies as Mr. H.. Warner Allen and Sir Francis Colchester-Wernyss, may I be permitted to register an objection to Mr. P. Morton Shand's comment in the Spectator of December 5th, that I did not make "a very representative selection from modern literature," ?
If Mr. Shand read my preface he must have overlooked
My mention of dining in modern literature: ." Among our moderns, the list begins to dwindle sadly. To some contem- porary authors the bare mention of foods would seem to be taboo . . ." thereafter noting some of the exceptions, Ches- terton, Belloc, E. V. Lucas, Galsworthy, et al. It is a fact
which Mr. Shand seems to have lost sight of, in his own praise- worthy enthusiasms of bonne chere, that writers of our age, apart from a handful or two, have none of that gusto for the pleasures of the table which is one of the many delights to the reader of Thackeray, Peacock, Surteeg, and others of the past Perhaps food and Freud do not go down well together.
And while in this argumentative mood, I might also protest against Mr. Shand's dismissing Mr. Guy Innes' verses on Falstaff and sherris-sack as "would-be-comic doggerel." Mr. Innes, an Australian newspaper correspondent of repute in London, whose ability as versifier and ban vivant has been recognized in many Spectator competitions, surely merits better treatment at the hands of Mr. Shand or any other reviewer. Nor is Joseph Ilergesheimer's passage on the Daiquiri cocktail (from his lovely San Cristobal de la Habana) in any sense a " gratuitous puff of Ron Bacardi," but graceful prose eulogiz- ing a fine concoction. -
I am, -indeed, sorry that ray dinner, the menu of which I tried to prepare with all catholicity of taste, seems to have disagreed with your reviewer. Still, you know, what is one man's meat—I inn, Sir, &e., Tnuagrox .MAcAuLnY. 80 Church Street; Chelsea, S.W. 3. -
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