Pamela Vandyke Price
The group of transatlantic tourists in the famous French country restaurant were deferential about the food, knowledgeable name-droppers re wines, gentle in their be- haviour, piano, in their speech. And all of them lit cigarettes the instant they sat down at the table, inhaling with animal enjoy- ment and allowing the tobacco to burn, unquenched, in the ashtrays while they act- ually had to take time off to put something from their plates into their mouths ...
The Englishwoman at my table at a ban- quet for three hundred guests from all over the world inveighed against the 'archaic custom' of waiting for the loyal toast before she could light her cigarette. 'Surely, she asserted, in those slippery slate-pencil tones that penetrate other noises like a burglar alarm and cause the Englishwoman abroad to be recognisable by sound, 'Surely it's my enjoyment that matters, not a lot of silly old customs?' . , , The politician of all-but-cabinet-rank, en- tertaining an obviously equally important party in a London restaurant of a size to warrant its being described as 'intimate', and a culinary reputation which makes it one of my personal four 'tops' in our capital, lit his pipe at the start of the meal, where he sat exactly underneath a notice requesting that pipes should not be smoked in the room. (I have heard since that his working lunches in Whitehall were of so abysmal a railway station sandwich nature that, after one experience, a colleague brought his own picnic basket from Fortnum and Mason— and I hope he asked them to make his salad with plenty of garlic.) . . .
Now I don't smoke cigarettes, having, at the age of four, eaten half of a cigarette belonging to my mama, who smoked up to a hundred daily, and was the only woman I have ever known who could smoke in the street without looking vulgar. My own family and my in-laws all smoked heavily. (My husband used to say, 'Doctors begin when they start doing post-mortems.') So 1 don't mind smoke. Occasionally 1 smoke a cigar—a large one—after a very good meal. But I enjoy this as a pleasure on its own, not as something superimposed on anything else. Trying to cram several of the good things of life into the single unforgiving minute reminds me of the advice in an American book on how to conduct an affair in the lunch-hour, and give the man a tasty three course meal as well (I suppose you turn off the stove with your toes). And I simply cannot understand why it should be considered other than revolting for people to smoke while they are eating—per- sonally revelatory of total subjection to a habit, and socially lacking in all consider- ation for those within the vicinity of their whiffing and sniffing. What, after all, would be said, if I sprayed my armpits or scaled my feet while in a restaurant? Yet I prefer the smell of both at their worst to other people's smoky exhalations while I am eating.
There is, I suppose, some excuse for those who want a puff between courses. 'Such a good dinner—I should like a cigarette,' says one of my wine trade friends. But we have compromised: he doesn't smoke between courses at my table, he asks my permission to do so (and I grant it) when at his. And I do stop people lighting up until all my guests have finished—or else I mention that we have another wine to come. When I'm a really terrible old lady I shall order the table cleared—even at the first course—if some- body brings out his case. (Someone once did and asked the staff to serve the coffee, as clearly his guest had finished.) Or else I shall put the decanters on the sideboard as a member of the wine trade did when his most important uncle by marriage lit a small cigar after the first course.
A pleasant—and inexpensive—dish which is a speciality at the Hotel de France, Lille- bonne, in the Seine Valley : Boudin flambe au calva. Grill the boudin (black pudding, on sale as boudin noir in a surprising num- ber of southern delicatessen) and then slash it across several times. Meanwhile lightly fry several slices of not too sweet peeled apple in the fat and take these out of the pan. Pour a generous measure of Calvados over the boudin (you could use brandy, but the flavour will not be as good), set light to this and shake the pan until the flames die down. Serve with a light puree of potatoes. sprinkled with chopped parsley, and the apples.
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