Eating in Two or Three Languages | Page 4

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 an?mic 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 notwithstanding, I had my thoughts set upon rashers of crisp Wiltshire bacon, and broad segments of grilled York ham, and fried soles, and lovely plump sausages bursting from their jackets, and devilled kidneys paired off on a slice of toast, like Noah and his wife crossing the gangplank into the Ark.
Need I prolong the pain of my disclosures by