FOREIGN FOOD

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 52, 29 August 1925, Page 15

FOREIGN FOOD

EFFECT OF CONTINENTAL MEALS.

On« of the chief hindrances to getting and keeping reasonably thin in England is tho number of meals that seem to be necessary in order to keep up one's strength, and the strong amount of self-denial required not to eat when others are eating, writes Audrey 'Wrangham, in the "Manchester Guardian." So, from personal experience, it really is easier to get thinner -abroad, and, having got oneself down, to keep down, and thus to feel better and to look bettor. There seem to bo fe\yer meals. In France and Italy it is quite possible to go without afternoon tea altogether, or else to take, as they sometimes do, a cup *of coffee and a brioche or a rusk. The elaborate patisseries on the Riviera have sprung up solely to meet the needs of English people who could-not forego their meal of afternoon tea and had no intention of getting thinner on holiday. In Italy it is often quite difficult to find a tea place at all in the smaller towns, though in Florence, with its large stranger and tourist population, there are many of the same lcind as on the Rivieral

The Continental breakfast has , taken root in so many English families that it is ,not necessary to enlarge upon its virtues as compared with bacon and c.^gs. And in Italy oranges are even better than rolls and butter or the great flat dried figs that always appears in pairs and are so magnificent enien with bread. . '

■ It is anotlier good idea that the Italians liad - when they first 'added a slice_ of lemon to roast'or grilled meat, as it takes off the over-richness and consoles the "bauter" for the potatoes that must bo foregone. However, potatoes so seldom made an appearance in the real Italian or French cuisine that one soon leanis to do without them. In many French fanjilies one has meat only once a day, and does not regret it, since the evening meal consists of vegetables, soup, ar.d fruit. In Italy lunch generally consists in small hotels of entree, meat, and fruit, with cheese optional. As tha entres is nearly always some form of risotto, gnoochi, or macaroni, with grated Parmesan to eat with it, anything further would be overdoiiw it. But it is undeniably a lighter lunch than. an hotel would supply in England. Everyone eats fruit, and plenty of it, whereas it used to bo said in England by a hostess that if her guests ate fruit at the end of a lunch or dinner it meant that they had not had sufficient to eat otherwise!