Eating in Two or Three Languages | Page 4

since gasoline
was carefully rationed there, taxis were scarce where once they had
been numerous. Indeed, I know of no city in which, in antebellum days,
taxis were so numerously distributed through almost every quarter of
the town as in London. At any busy corner there were almost as many
taxicabs waiting and ready to serve you as there are taxicabs in New
York whose drivers are cruising about looking for a chance to run over
you. The foregoing is still true of New York, but did not apply to
London in war time.
Having chartered our cab, much to the chagrin of a group of our fellow
travellers who had wasted precious time getting their heavy luggage out
of the van, we rode through the darkened streets to a hotel formerly
renowned for the scope and excellence of its cuisine. We reached there
after the expiration of the hour set apart under the food regulations for
serving dinner to the run of folks. But, because we were both in
uniform--he as a surgeon in the British Army, and I as a
correspondent--and because we had but newly finished a journey by
rail, we were entitled, it seemed, to claim refreshment.
However, he, as an officer, was restricted to a meal costing not to
exceed six shillings--and six shillings never did go far in this hotel,
even when prices were normal. Not being an officer but merely a

civilian disguised in the habiliments of a military man, I, on the other
hand, was bound by no such limitations, but might go as far as I
pleased. So it was decided that I should order double portions of
everything and surreptitiously share with him; for by now we were
hungry to the famishing point.
We had our minds set on a steak--a large thick steak served with onions,
Desdemona style--that is to say, smothered. It was a pretty thought, a
passing fair conception--but a vain one.
"No steaks to-night, sir," said the waiter sorrowfully.
"All right, then," one of us said. "How about chops--fat juicy chops?"
"Oh, no, sir; no chops, sir," he told us.
"Well then, what have you in the line of red meats?"
He was desolated to be compelled to inform us that there were no red
meats of any sort to be had, but only sea foods. So we started in with
oysters. Personally I have never cared deeply for the European oyster.
In size he is anæmic and puny as compared with his brethren of the
eastern coast of North America; and, moreover, chronically he is
suffering from an acute attack of brass poisoning. The only way by
which a novice may distinguish a bad European oyster from a good
European oyster is by the fact that a bad one tastes slightly better than a
good one does. In my own experience I have found this to be the one
infallible test.
We had oysters until both of us were full of verdigris, and I, for one,
had a tang in my mouth like an antique bronze jug; and then we
proceeded to fish. We had fillets of sole, which tasted as they
looked--flat and a bit flabby. Subsequently I learned that this lack of
savour in what should be the most toothsome of all European fishes
might be attributed to an insufficiency of fat in the cooking; but at the
moment I could only believe the trip up from Dover had given the poor
thing a touch of car sickness from which he had not recovered before
he reached us.

After that we had lobsters, half-fare size, but charged for at the full
adult rates. And, having by now exhausted our capacity for sea foods,
we wound up with an alleged dessert in the shape of three drowned
prunes apiece, the remains being partly immersed in a palish
custardlike composition that was slightly sour.
"Never mind," I said to my indignant stomach as we left the
table--"Never mind! I shall make it all up to you for this mistreatment
at breakfast to-morrow morning. We shall rise early--you and I--and
with loud gurgling cries we shall leap headlong into one of those
regular breakfasts in which the people of this city and nation specialise
so delightfully. Food regulators may work their ruthless will upon the
dinner trimmings, but none would dare to put so much as the weight of
one impious finger upon an Englishman's breakfast table to curtail its
plenitude. Why, next to Magna Charta, an Englishman's breakfast is his
most sacred right."
This in confidence was what I whispered to my gastric juices. You see,
being still in ignorance of the full scope of the ration scheme in its
application to the metropolitan district, and my disheartening
experience at the meal just concluded to the contrary