It was Alexis Soyer, the master cook of the nineteenth
cent) who was the first to realise that it was not sufficient to improve a perfect the food of the rich, but that it was also necessary to ere a higher standard of cooking among the lower classes. This famo man, the tyrant of the Reform Club, the " Mirobolant " of Thacke used to charge his rich customers extremely high prices. For grand dinners he would produce peacocks dressed with tulips a roses, or a Chinese pagoda made entirely from meringues. He his truffes de Perigord at four guineas a bottle, but he also patent a cheap cooking-stove and a labour-saving device for quick and e eggs. He even travelled out to the Crimea in the vain hope improving the quality of our Army canteens. Lord Woolton, I f sure, would have made Alexis Soyer an Under-Secretary at the M istry of Food. He would have sent him round our military and na kitchens to improve the standard of production. Soyer Would h realised that the main objective was to secure, not that the rich worse, but that the poor cooked better. How warmly would S°. have welcomed the Gas Light and Coke Company and the ubiquit Mr. Therm! What talks he would have given over the Wire upon the use in cooking of the medicinal, the redolent or even wayside herb! Unfortunately Soyer is dead and Lord Woolton a his excellent Ministry are deprived of his ingenious services. have to face the horrid problem of the luxury restaurants, unaided any Mirobolant, and alone.
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