"NO SECOND HELPING."

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 11, 12 January 1918, Page 13

"NO SECOND HELPING."

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ON RATIONS. 3 ■ V HOTEL LIFE UT ENGLAND. JL It is such articles as this, written by a lady correspondent of the "New York Tribune," which make one realise how little New Zealanders know of one of the greatest and most serious effects of the war in the Old Country, and, indeed, throughout the older countries of the world —the food shortage. The amount and variety of food we eat is regulated by our inclinations and to an extent by our pockets] But no Food Controller or compulsory rationing scheme enters into our existence. The scale of rations is a very real thing in Britain, and judging from recent utterances on the subject, it is likely to become an even more vital matter to English men and women during the coming year. The American correspondent referred to says:— One morning I found myself on the second floor of Selfridge's grocery department ip London, and just as the elevator slid away after depositing mc I realised that my errand didn't lie there at all. The oranges, when they were any place, occupied a small area—a very small area indeed —of the first floor. Oranges in England are now about of the rarity and the value of the Kohinoor diamond. Once inside I caught a glimpse of the wizened, white moustached clerk behind a far counter, beckoning mc. I turned again and started toward him. "I've got one!" he called in excitement, while I was yet far out in the room. "I'll take it," I answered before I was within seven feet of him. He reached down under the counter and produced one small, yellow bag tied round with a string and stuffed. The name of the article it contained, which was the subject of our negotiations, did. not pass between us. I knew and he knew that I knew what I was buying. It was the article the pursuit of which for two weeks past had led mc to the second floor of Selfridge's, until on this morning I had mechanically sought the place from habit, as a horse Ms stall. We opened the" parcel .merely to . reassure ourselves and to admire. It contained one pound of dirty looking, sticky, brown sugar. The clerk tenderly wrapped it up again for mc, and I returned with it in exultation to our flat, j YOU BUY WHAT YOU CAN. We had taken this abode to dodge the rationing of hotels. The food controller! of England appeared to us when we first arrived to discriminate against the transient guest. He put you on a ration of sugar, bread, potatoes, and meat, and with unrelaxing vigilance he saw to it that you remained there. That is to say,! he did so if you stayed in an hotel. Housekeepers, we were told, were allowed to buy what they would. As a housekeeper of six weeks' duration in London, I would amend the statement to read, "they were allowed to buy whatj they could." " ! The Food Controller did not need to, practise his machinations against them. One day I went to buy lamb chops at a large market. They had only one chop. I took it, thinking to supplement it easily with others on the -way home. That night ■we had a lamb chop and a slice of liver for onr meat course. I think it was the only lamb- chop in London that day. As soon as possible we went hack to the hotel, and the first night there had a guest for dinner—an American, just i over with an American appetite. We had the usual English course dinner, and when .we came to the mutton the portions consisted of the narrow, new-moon-edge of meat curing 'round a wide area of fat. If conservative you could make three bites of it. I sent the •waitress—men waiters are rare hirds in England now— to ask the manager if we might have another helping. We might not, so his answer came to us, but we could have an egg. Without any vkible relevancy to the remainder of the dinner, one poached egg apiece was added to our dietary for the evening. The next morning at breakfast an officer in khaki at the table next to us asked for a piece of toast. The next minute the manager appeared and looked curiously over his table. "Your toast weren't you served with toast?" he questioned. "I got only one of my pieces," answered the officer earnestly. The manager took him at his word and sent the other half of the slice which lawfully constituted his second piece, and the matter was amicably settled. An Australian woman just in from Switzerland with her two children said, ■with the jaunty assurance of pre-war days: "Some more bread, please." It was the maitre d'hotel she was addressing. Though rotund and soft in outline, he assumed an attitude of such decision that it made him look angular. "No more bread, madam. You have had your two ounces. The country's on a ration.", The way it is done is that when you arrive at your table you find your little I oblong portion on your bread plate, and it rests with you to conserve it so that, it lasts through a five-course dinner. The residents got so they used to <- 0 ' out to a bakeshop on Piccadilly and buy rolls. They carried the bag with them into the dining room at dinner time, and they looked funny when they did so, attired, as thew usually were, in evening dress. Those bags they deposited on the table beside them, and when dinner was over, if any rolls remained unconsumed they took the bags back with them to their rooms. Two little strips of bacon is your (allowance of meat for breakfast. This includes allowance for shrinkage, and if you have them cooked crisp they are scarcely visible on the big English plates. Five ounces of meat for luncheon and five for dinner is one person's portion, including bone and fat. On the estimate of hotels, this figures out as three ounces pf clear meat, which is all you get. One day I ordered chicken wing and cold ham, but could not have the combination because the chicken could not be carved so as to keep within my allowance if I was to have ham too. The English mutton chop is as defunct as the dodo. It was overweight. One night at the Berkeley grill we ordered two mutton chops such as are substituted to-day. We were served with two lamb chops, the maitre d'hotel having mistaken our order. "Oh, that's all right," we said. "Bring ihe mutton chops anyway." Presently the waiter appeared with two lamb chops more. "I couldn't get the mutton chop with this first order against you because it would give you more than your allow- : ance." j . SUGAR IN SEALED ENVELOPES. But when I started these remarks I had meant to write only about the sugar jtfoblem. When I see stories a column,

long in tbe American papers about what is going to happen to us I feel constrained to preach a little myself on the gospel of economy. Two-sevenths of an ounce a meal was the allotment when I left England, and the statement ought I to be accompanied by an illustration to | carry any weight. If you will remember, an English coffee cup is all but as large j as an oatmeal bowl, and two-sevenths of an ounce of sugar i 6 all but so small you cannot see it. i Sugar is no longer served in bowls, but usually in little individual 6alt dishes, and what you can have—no more, or less —is handed you with your order. j In vain you can explain that you do not take tea and would like your afternoon allotment at breakfast. You take what you can get. Tlie Carlton hands your portion granulated and done up like a powder in a tiny sealed envelope with your order. A distinct sensation which people experience when they first enter the dining room on the ocean liner to leave England is that of a shock. I heard one person after another on our boat speak of it. They are shocked to see the waste of food. More meat is apportioned than can be eaten. It is cut and hacked and nibbled so that it is not lit to ask any one else to eat. Bread —lovely, white bread that we ate like cake after our diet of war bread —is broken and crumbled and played with. It hurts one to see that done after one has been on rations. Here is the order of British Ministry of Food applying to hotels, restaurants, clubs, boardinghouees and public eating places:— The total quantities of meat, flour, bread, and sugar used in or by any public eating place In any week shall not exceed the gross quantities ascertained in accordance with the following scale of average quantities per meal:— SCALE. Meat, Sugar. Bread. Breakfast 2 oz 2/7 oz 2 oz Luncheon (including middle day dinner) 5 oz 2/7 oz 2 oz Dinner (including supper and meat tea) soz 2/7 oz 2oz Tea Nil 2/7 oz 2 oz This means that 1191b 6oz meat and poultry (including bones and fat) ; 601b 14oz flour and 81b 9 l-7oz sugar must suffice for 80 breakfasts, 220 luncheons, 130 dinners, or just about what any prominent New York club might have to take care of daily. Applied to a small boardinghouse, it means that the same quantity of meat, flour, and sugar would have to suffice for one week, if only 11 of the 32 boarders ate bacon or ham with their eggs, if only 18 of them came for luncheon, and the entire 32 turned up for dinner. To detect violations the proprietor or manager must keep books showing the actual number of meals served. Invoices must be produced showing the total quantity of meat, poultry, flour, and sugar received during tho week, and the amount of ham is carefully weighed by the inspector. The ration of flour must take care of cakes or biscuits, and that of sugar includes anything used in the kitchen for puddingß, preserving, cake baking, etc.