Good Eating and Drinking
Table for Two. By T. A. Layton. (Duckworth. los. 6d.)
I ANTICIPATE great popularity for this pleasant little book: It con- tains interesting episodic descriptions of bull-fighting, whaling and the process of extracting sugar from beet, but essentially it describes the important trade of catering both for food and wine (more especially the latter) and of the way in which Mr. Layton opened an original restaurant near the British Museum with cheap food and wine sold by the glass. In addition he used to buy more expen- sive wines and sell them to selected clients by the dozen or half- dozen". s obviously a man of original ideas and embarked on a new enterprise in which he greatly succeeded. He is now on service in the Army Catering Department and it is to be hoped that at the conclusion of hostilities he will return to his original business, to the great advantage of those who wish to feed and drink both cheaply and well. I cannot imagine any book which would be more useful to those who think of undertaking similar enterprises in other parts of London or even in other towns. It seems to me that there are vast tracts in the suburbs almost totally bereft of any good eating places and that there is every chance later on for people who will open restaurants of this kind.
I have perhaps but one quarrel with him. He says that when he takes a holiday (and his time is short) it must fulfil the following conditions : "firstly I must spend five consecutive days on the sea ; secondly, I must go to a country where I have never been before ; thirdly, it must be somewhere where wine is grown." He would also like to squeeze in one more, namely to live in an hotel where he could walk straight into the sea with his bathing dress. He then rehearses various places which fulfil these conditions but adds "I can go to Portugal to the Escorial [he means the Estoril], but here, although the bathing would be good, there would not be much to learn about wine, and the journey by sea would be very short." I cannot agree with the remark about the wine, considering that after the end of the war we shall get no wine from France for years and probably very little from Germany. I do think that an investigation of the Portuguese table-wines may be of great importance. There are great quantities of them, Bucelas, Colares and Consumo, and we may depend very largely on them until the distant date when claret, burgundy and hock come back to their own. Perhaps he will accompany me there when Lisbon is again available!
STEPHEN GASELEE.
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