CONSUMING INTEREST
Stars, Knives and Forks
By LESLIE ADRIAN
Therefore I do not blame them if, like me, they fall for the plethora of gastronomic guides to Gargantua's country that seem to multiply each year. Michelin is an old friend, shorn, it is true, of the familiar clutter on the cover, and still good value for 25s., even if the star system can occasionally lead the faithful into financial indiscretions. Heresy it may be, but I would like to record that no three-star restaurant has yet lived up to my expectations nor made me feel that I had sacrificed money for value. I still prefer to put my trust in knives and forks and leave the rosettes to the carriers of Diners' Club cards.
I have carried and used the other tyre guide, Kleber-Colombes, which is differently arranged, being by departements and not alphabetically by towns. The Guide Relais Routier (now 19s.) is fine for budgeting (I must remember to record that the relais are not transport caffs but modest restaurants and guest-houses). And I have on hand at least half a dozen other directories to eating and sleeping between the Rhine and the Pyrenees. It is, let's face it, a much more intricate and exciting undertaking than its mundane equivalent in the British Isles. And until now no British writer has done it full justice: I rule out Jean Conil's Gastronomic Tour de France on the grounds that he is French and it is extravagant. Eric Whelpton has made a brave try with his wine and food gloss on Georges Pillement's Unknown France (Johnson, 25s.). But the star turn for this season is a labour of love from the pen of a Francophile wine writer, Pamela Vandyke Price.
Called simply France—A Wine and Food Guide (Batsford, 30s.), it stands the traditional system on its head. Instead of beginning with routes, places and sites, it begins with food and wine and drops in the odd comment on things to do when the appetite has been sated. In case this sounds shocking, I hasten to add that there is an exhaustive introduction on etiquette, aperitifs and attacks of indigestion (Mrs Vandyke Price was once a doctor's wife). There are indexes to dishes and to cheeses, a chapter on visiting the wine-growing regions and innumerable glossaries designed to assist the tourist in his gastronomic explorations.
Often in my conscientious visits to the world's most Lucullan nation I have found myself over- informed and, though not undernourished, a little unsatisfied. Armed with the Vandyke Price idiosyncratic supplement to all previous alimen- tary itineraries, I look forward to years of following in her footsteps. It would be fun to find a few dishes and dainties she left out, but it seems unlikely.
Every summer, without fail, this column re- ceives a batch of sob stories about the inefficiencies of the photographic companies who sell colour reversal film at a price that includes the processing charge. The companies can hardly be blamed for faults in exposing the film (unless they made the faulty camera, too), but it is fear- ful waste of money for the amateur photo- grapher whose camera has hidden faults. To separate the charge for the film from the charge for processing would be only just, particularly as the retailer's percentage mark-up is included in both.
The hair-raising point about the Monopoly Commission's report on sales of "colourfilm and on Kodak in particular was the revelation that retail margins are 30 per cent on the film and 33+ per cent on the processing. As the retailer has nothing to do with the latter he is on to a very good thing, which doubtless explains why the Photographic Dealers' Association has per- mitted (I could choose a harsher word) Kodak to discriminate against some of its own mem- bers by not selecting them as official outlets.
The argument that only the manufacturer can process his owr. films satisfactorily is a leaky one. Let the customer choose where he shall have his &Int processed. After all, when he's bought it, it is his, but the way Kodak behave you wouldn't think so.
\Vine waiters had better equip themselves with a gadget that is likely to start haunting them quite soon. Costing Is. from the Friends of Wine at 40 Berkeley Square, WI, it is a pink card `wine wheel' that has been designed to provide comments on the character, maturity and quality of claret, burgundy, hock, port and champagne over the past twenty years. As far as can be judged, the advice about what to keep and what to drink is as near perfect as can be expected from a pre-set chart. But there is no word of warning about keeping hocks for as long as twenty years. The code simply says, 'Drink them now.'
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