OUR COOKING

Evening Star, Issue 21945, 4 February 1935, Page 6

OUR COOKING

FRENCH CRITICISM HOTEL DIRECTOR’S REPLY Tlie published criticism of New Zealand food ? its lack of variety, charges, and cooking, by two French visitors, Count Micard and Dr Jacques Demarquette, is taken exception to by the Hon. Eliot Davis, M.L.C., who is a director of several tourist hotels in the Auckland province. Mr Davis states that he has travelled extensively in France. He challenges these visitors to compare the North African iambs used in the best hotels in the South of France with our New Zealand Jamb, He ivould ask them ivhere it is possible to get, in' their country, a good joint of roast beef in any way comparable with New Zealand beef. So far as meat is concerned, practically the only fare available in even the best class hotels in France is veal, whilst the delicacy common to thousands of restaurants, catering for the poorer classes—namely, “ horse meat ” —was very fortunately unknown in this country! THE BEST COOKS. Mr Davis will not deny that cooking goes by nations, and the French are undoubtedly the best cooks in the world. Then follow the Italians and Russians, but the French are easily on top, for good cooking is nearly universal in the best hotels and restaurants. The supremacy of French cooking; is so widely recognised that the universal word for a first-rate cook is the French word “ chef,” which means the head of the kitchen. Cooking is important to the French because it is a pleasure and an art. The art of cooking vegetables is one of the French cook’s chief accomplishments, and Mr Davis states he frequently made an entire meal on vegetables. He found, however, that the cooking in the private homes, which he visited, was superior to that obtaining in the hotels. ■ The secret lies in the fact that boys are trained from childhood in cooking through schools and the universities, and become devoted to their profession and pass their knowledge down from one generation to another. Such conditions, however, are entirely unknown mC here, but that does not take away the fact that the cooks in New Zealand are quite capable of providing meals to satisfy the taste and palate of the most fastidious tourists from England and America, and the opinion of experienced travellers from these countries

is quite contrary to the statements published. £1 FOR DINNER IN PARIS. As regards the statement that a considerable price is charged in New Zealand hotels, Mr Davis says that he found Paris to be unquestionably the dearest city in the world for food, and food prices there have risen to scandalous heights in the last few years. A meal in a first-class hotel would cost 40 francs, or 13s 6d in New Zealand money, on to-day’s exchange. There is no possibility of getting out without at least 20 francs in tips, so that .one got off cheaply for £1 for a dinner at the present rate of exchange (which is admittedly well over 30s between New Zealand and France, through England). On top of this there is always an additional Government tax of 10 per cent, added to the total bill. One is always charged 5 francs, or Is Bd, for “ convert,” which practically means the right to sit at the table, whilst a most excellent meal, well cooked, but perhaps not so well served, is to be obtained in New Zealand for the price of “ convert ” alone! Conversely, it only costs a Frenchman to-day 60 of his francs to buy a New Zealand pound, so that a first-class 2s 6d dinner would cost him 7i francs, or, roughly, the amount of his “convert,” and if they wanted'anything better for their money than this, then they would have to find it elsewhere. EACH TO HIS TASTE. Mr Davis asserts that the meals in New Zealand are the cheapest ajid the best value for the money in the world. He adds that Dr Demarquette’s exception lo New Zealand meals may be similar to his own and other tourists who visit France, which has been that after a- few days participating of French meals a longing for a good old plain English meal romes over one. “ Chacun a son gout.” he concludes.