29 NOVEMBER 1963, Page 6

English Eateries

I must confess to a brief spasm of anti- American feeling myself this week. 1 read The Round-the-World Cookbook by Myra Waldo. After some inept and offensive remarks about British cooking—more offensive than even we are prepared to grant—she gives as our sole recipes worth eating Lancashire Hot Pot, Exeter Stew, Yorkshire Salad, Marlborough Pudding. Seed Cake and Tipsy Pudding—the last with a patronising note that 'this old English pudding is served on Pan American World Airways' flight to England.' Not a pie! Not a savoury! But why go on? As to the over-emphasis on northern food, perhaps Miss Waldo does have something

there. At least they seem to take eating more seriously in the north. In County Durham and the North Riding last week, I noticed that even small country pubs have menus of real food. And, moreover, modern and modernised inns are comfortable and well designed—as sometimes in America, but rarely in southern England.