The Good Life
Good guide
PamelaVandykePrice
Even before Lent has begun, this is a season when gastronomy is either under attack or preposterously aggressive. One colleague flits from high table to high table in Oxford with fare that suggests the university is peopled by toothless colourblind high thinkers. Another, interviewing the chefs of London clubs, startingly — and significantly — reveals that many of these persons don't drink, like only sweet wines, or take beer or gin.
An advertisement •in a catering journal for that otherwise harmless product, Coffee-mate, makes the astounding statement, " Once they've tasted coffee made with Coffee-mate, most coffee drinkers prefer it to coffee made with milk." Says who and how many of them?
Now along comes the 1973 Good Food Guide (£1.80) about which I was very nasty last year — and which has slightly balked me by this edition. The problem, with any guide to anything, is that it should, ideally, have personality — but should this necessarily be the editor's personality? Because the Good Food Guide now attracts a fair amount of publicity and is increasingly relied on by travellers in this gastronomically higgledy-piggledy kingdom, I think that it should speak for itself.
There are, for me, far too many quotations from readers' reports; true, these are the inspiration of the Guide but how many of •those who wield their pens also wield experienced palates and tastebuds? I have many dear friends who will praise restaurants where the lights are low, the decor ' atmospheric ', the staff jokily familiar, the menu on a reject papyrus from a Dead Sea Scroll, where the claret comes steaming in a cradle, the piping bag and tinned fruit salad are at work whenever the flambe pan leaves off and the background music drowns the cries of those who burn their hands on the heated goldfish bowls in which the brandy is served. I, however, would dine happily in a railway waiting room or on a traffic island — provided that the fare and the service are as good as some experience of first-rate eating places at all price levels have educated me to recognise.
With the exception of trattorie, kebab houses and restau rants featuring dancing, I would not consider any establishment as seriously gastronomic if it fouls the air with background music; I would ban all smoking in all dining places; I must be able to see to read the menu — and I want it and the wine list as soon as I sit down. I do not require the presence of animals or kiddiwinks who can't behave. But the Good Food Guide is more pernicketty. It still seems obsessed about places where men should wear jackets and ties, as if its readers were not really familiar with the garb worn in conventional catering establishments. it sacrifices much space to introductory matter prefatory to what a restaurant is like, what it serves and what this costs — four or five lines at the beginning of many entries and seventeen before that referring to Carrier's.
It fidgets about the temperature of wines — something that incurs invariable comment from the inexperienced but is seldom serious enough to upset the knowledgeable. It is nervous about prices. I do not consider the 1961 Leoville Barton is dear at just under £5 in a restaurant — when did the inspector try to buy some retail? And I have not the slightest idea what is meant by phrases such as " tastefully furnished," "The usual Grierson-Blumental wines," "the half bottles of Avery's Champagne are useful " and, of Poulet Marengo in some noshery, that it "seems to omit the grace notes of this dish." Are the comments meant to imply that the commodities concerned are good or bad? I just don't know.
Second to none I am in my fondness for the convoluted phrase, but over-indulgence in same is, I suggest, for reviewers, not guides. The admirable preface to this year's Guide, which should be read out to catering trainees prior to any session among the garnitures, states the Guide's aims and makes constructive suggestions about catering in Britain. There is a chapter on the law and the diner, a touring section and there are little line drawings throughout Compared with similar continental guides resulting from readers and editors collaborating, this is a competent and serious work which will be an appreciated present to any visitor to Britain this year.
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