Th
,ought for Food
COte d'Azur
By RAYMOND POSTGATE HAVE come back from a short holiday in the South of France, in the Riviera area, and I noticed some changes there which ought to be reported.
The Riviera , season, as everybody knows, is nowa- days supposed to be the summer, and as nearly. everybody knows, the place is intolerable. From Cannes through Mee to Monte Carlo the coast is one uninterrupted suburb, and thK roads are lined unbrokenly with garage pinUps `1"ildhotels. l'he Riviera Air is a mixture of petrol 1001ex and dust; the roads are choked by the. .."trgest cars driven by the worst and rudest urivers in the world. Prices are extortionate and thLi cuisineshoddy-international. hot out of season which is winter, the time "'al Edward VII and .Queen Victoria considered .n.las the real season—it is a very different place. I he larger hotels and the worst tourist traps close, thC roads are passable, and in many places there arL actually more Frenchmen than foreigners. The changes are not so noticeable in great to \vas like Nice, but elsewhere the cooking, the in.ice and the congestion are markedly altered.
, Mallon, for example, a town I am very fond 61'. several hotels are closed, the restaurants are rint Packed, and the cooking is careful. The most elaborate restaurant is still the Rocamadour, on the eastern hay. hut the best, which is cheaper. is filC Belle Escale near by. The Bar de Genes and the Bar Lugano are the places for the really te,cmlonlical. The scale of prices can be judged rnIll the Belle Escale. which has a satisfactory 'Ilea' at 5fr.50. a really good one at 8fr.50 and asuperlative one at Ilfr. The streets are quiet at night. empty except for an occasional man in beret, a woman hurrying in flat shoes, and Innumerable rollicking cats. There is, of course, a inreign colony, but it is mainly English and out'of-date---governesses and retired colonels. I d.guess. The town council has ordered, paid °I., and erected a large stone memorial to Queen
Victoria; it must be the only council to have done so in the last fifty years. It was inaugurated by an authentic granddaughter of the Queen; I inspected it the next day. /Esthetically, it is of the kind Queen Victoria would have approved, and I am told the likeness is remarkable.
This hideous but endearing object gives the only foreign flavour there is to Menton at this time of the year, and is flanked by the muni- cipally preserved house of • Katherine Mansfield and a plaque on the front of an hotel, dedicated (believe it or not) to Mr. Spurgeon by his haber- dasher.
Columnists will tell you that it is cheaper to go inland to the little towns which are at present being discovered by the artists and travel agencies, and produce handwoven tissus and Picasso-like pottery. This is not true. These little towns are breathlessly beautiful, perched like fortresses on their rocks, but they have not brought down their prices this winter. In Vence, where 1 stayed, there was only one restaurant which offered a meal at 5fr.50, and a poor one it looked. Everywhere else, the prices ran between 7fr.50 and 12fr., except at the Château St. Martin, high • up in the hills, where Adenauer stays, and where the prices are astronomical. The best place here is the Auberge des Templiers (8fr.50); pension in the Hotels Vic- toria and °rangers is. cheap and well-spoken of. At Haat Cagnes, which is the nearest of these eyrie .towns to the coast road, I found a good little place called. I think. I.a Terrasse. which cost 7fr.50. At this time of the year you do not order off a menu; you say 'On pent dejeuner?' and take what comes.
Si. Paul, to which the cannier artists moved when Vence became too well known, has prices showing it is well aware of its vogue. The Colombe d'Or's price-list starts at 20fr., a good deal to pay for even so beautiful a situation; the Residence is a little less grasping at 14fr.50, though for anything really good (their own trout) you have to go to 19fr.50. At Tourrettes4ur- Loup, which is the most dramatic of all these dramatically placed towns, the prices are still round 7fr.50, and the cooking is good peasant cooking. But the place is being discovered and prettified up. The prices will rise.
But prices are not going to go on rising. When the foreign fools, who don't understand money, are away, it is possible to see the remarkable psychological effect of the 'new franc.' This new franc, which is now circulating alongside the old, is worth Is. 6d.; the 10-franc note (previous 1,000 francs) is 15s. But since the Thirties, when the franc began to crash, the natural instincts of the French have been frustrated, because nobody could believe the franc was worth anything. Why should you save sous, when even a 10,000 franc note, which was called a 'Farouk' because of its size, slimmed and became worth one-hundredth of what it should be? How should any man take as real budget figures which were expressed in hundred of millions for the smallest items? Our MPs are charged with slackness in approving un- questioned the fantastic expense of such things as MI; but if the figures were given in farthings would they see any meaning in them at all?
France now is divided into two sections. One still says 1,550 francs, milk cinq cents amputate Ironer, the other 15.50, quinze francs cinquante centimes; and the second each time it opens its mouth is reminded that the franc is now worth something, as it was in Papa's day, and that even a centime should be watched. The aspect of the diners shows their preoccupation, and it has even been translated into figures in the Trisunic': there was quite a series of items—mostly textiles— marked 'Less Dear than Last Year.'
But the downward trend, if it is a trend, has only just begun. France is still very expensive, much dearer than Britain. 1 was entertained to dinner at the Ritz in Paris, by an American editor. He remarked ruefully that the prices were as high as in New York that is to say, 1 suppose, as high as anywhere at all in the world. I didn't comment (for it would have been discourteous) that the food would have been better in the Ritz in 1.ondon. and, except for the wine, cheaper.
'I'm afraid we're vegetarians.'
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