EATING FROGS’ LEGS AND SNAILS

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 28 January 1933, Page 11

EATING FROGS’ LEGS AND SNAILS

■pAT'IXG of frogs’ legs and snails, those delectable French dainties, was once regarded with repulsion by me average Englishman. But an edict by the Mayor of St. Jean dc Liversay, near La Boehelle, prohibiting, as an anti-poaching measure, the hunting by strangers of snails in his eonnnune reminds the London “Morning Post” that they are now served as table delicacies in many Wiltshire villages, in .South Wales, on the Mendip Hills in Somersetshire, and in Bristol, where, for some curious reason, they are said to be particularly popular among the glass-workers. In Soho and other districts of .London where „restaurant delicacies that tickle the Continental palate but are not found on the bill of fare of the ordinary eating house long have been served, many a Londoner who never heard of Brillat-Savarin has learned to shed his prejudices and thus broaden j the possibilities of gustatory satisfaction.

Very much to this point is a discussion of cheap meals and others, with a contrast of the London and the Parisian cuisine, by H. Warner Aileu in the “Saturday Beview,” of London, through the following dialogue with .Gaston, a transplanted Frenchman, who complained that “One eats meat from morning to night in England, your country of a hundred religions and one church ; at the 'little lunch, the lunch, the tea, the dinner, the supper—and never a vegetable soup, never any butter with your vegetables, never . .” Whereupon his English friend offered to go and lunch at a real French restaurant, where frogs and snails arc regular dishes on the menu. “ ‘Snails,’ said Gaston, ‘arc not in season, and frogs are not much of a meal for a hungry man, but if you will find me a restaurant of a reasonable price, with a patron who will not. treat us as if we were his enemies, a patron with a smile, then I will pay the bill.’ * “So I took Gaston to a restaurant, where at the proper moment you may eat first day ‘cepes’ gathered in Bpping Forest, though Shenock Holmes himself eouid not discover the exact, spot in which this fungus despised bv

French Taste Develops in England

English, ignorance as toadstool can be found.

"The meal began, not with one of those vegetable soups without whicn Gaston had said that liis heart would break, but with a most excellent hors •I'oeuvre in the. shape of pate of calves’ liver, it was a light and appetitetempting 1 : dish, even if, as I suspect, the pig had assisted the calf in its composition. After all the ‘rillette’ is only despised by fools. ‘‘ A ftlet de sole Duglere followed. The fish was fresh and well-cooked, and the sauce of white wine and mushrooms acknowledged the touch of a 1 master’s hand.

“As a rule, I am not very fond of rabbit. In matter of this beast, the Englishman is more particular than the Frenchman; for if wo arc ready to accept as a possible dish, the lapin de garenno, the wild rabbit, it is hardly too much to say that the hutch Tabbit ttinketh in our nostrils. “I was a little horrified when our host announced that he was giving us ‘lapereau saute chasseur,’ the plat du jour, but any protest would have been spoilt, because I ate every morsel that, uvas allotted ine. The brown sause and mushrooms were so excellent that the despised animal certainly earned well the best of his kind. * .

“’The simplest of materials tests the artist’s skill most severely and the good cook may be known by his power of dealing with potatoes. Ours were none of your greasy, half-sodden, halfraw discs which so often masquerade under the name. They melted in the mouth with discretion and tempted the keenest exponent of the art of slimming to heresy and excess.

“Gaston’s smile almost equalled that of the patron, as we turned to a Camcmbert nicely ripe, and an excellent coffee.

.The bill could not be described as excessive; 11s Gd for the food and 3s 6(1 for the -vvmc.

If you come here poor and very hungry, said the patron, “you can have much more to cat at a lower price. Only please remember we are Irem-li, not Swiss or Italian or any other nationality. We cook with butter and are proud of it."