New Zealand Food Ruining Digestions

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 8, 10 January 1936, Page 12

New Zealand Food Ruining Digestions

TWO FRENCH TRAVELLERS. Neither Monsieur nor Madame de Vellefrey speaks English, so they are having rather a 1 chicly time in New Zealand, whitlier they have come in the course of a world tour, and the call of their home in Paris, 33,000 miles away, is becoming stronger. The last time they were among folic who could “parlez vous” with them was when they were in the French islands of the Pacific, and since then their verbal feelings have been getting rather bottled up. Consequently, when a Christchurch interviewer volunteered to “take them on” in their own tongue he was almost overwhelmed with a torrent of travel talk and lively comment on the manners of us foreigners. Our milk and our drinking water are “admirable,” but our cooking is “execrable/’ and if the de Vellefreys were to stay here much longer their digestions would be ruined. The way we treat our vegetables is atrocious. Nothing except boiled vegetables to be tiad. hso bad for the stomach! In France they eat them nearly all raw. The food value diminishes so much less between field and dinner that way. In Australia the cooks follow the same barbarous custom, and the de Vellefreys had hoped something better of New Zealand. Hotels Praiseworthy. Apart from that, they find ours a wonderful country. Our hotels are fitted “a merveille” —much superior to those of Europe, on the average, and even to those of England. Apparently the world’s best sleep is to be had in a New Zealand hotel bed. From New Caledonia the travellers went to Brisbane and on to Sydney. Sydney as a city they found superb, and its harbour and bays excited the. admiration, but Australia as a whole was too big, too “formidable,’’ and its scenery too monotonous. The Blue Mountains and the Jenolan Caves were “tres curieux,’’ but that was all. New Zealand appeals to them as “tres jolie, ” much more jdeasant and picturesque th. n Australia, more appealing to the eye in its greenness. Rotorua'.’ — wonderful! And as for Waitomo, they had never imagined there could be anything like it. Unfortunately the exchange rate here is against French travellers, and tht French steamship service to the Pacific was discontinued last month, putting the de Vellefreys in a quandary as to how they are to get home. Wo there are not likely to bo many more French tourists. Maoris too Civilised.

From Paris they travelled straight out to Tahiti, 3(3 days at sea, but it must have been a happy voyage, for the time passed “tres vite.” Two months they spent at Tahiti and three in New Caledonia, with a short stay in the New Hebrides in between. Around tin town of Papeete they found the na tives rather commercialised, but otherwise the Tahitians were very amusing and “amiable.’’ Why? Oh, becau: of their costumes and “local colour.” Not so the Maoris of New Zealand. They are too civilised to please the tourists.

The island of Moorca, mountainous and practically" roadless, with only one automobile —an old Ford—was more interesting still to the travellers; and i:. New Caledonia there were no roads al all. They had to take horse or boat. After the warmth of tropical islauo. and Australia, Christchurch felt coid ; French blood, but the de Vellcfre, went for a motor trip to Governor’s Bay and round tho harbour, aud enjoyed the local cherries. They will pass on to Mount Cook, and after that to the Blulf, Tasmania and Melbourne. And after that? M. de Vellefrey" flung his hands in the air and said it was no uso asking; he didn’t know. Travelling is a hobby' with him and his wife, ho explained. Ridiculous Mussolini,

What of the political situation in France? No, said monsieur, he could not say. Wo much had happened since he left Paris in April, and the dispatches in the newspapers were tod vague to be any guide. iM.ussolini? The answer came promptly and vehemently. Mussolini was “ridicule.” Franco and England would easily handle him if need be, but doubtless Europe would prefer to let him exhaust his powers m Africa.

What part did the Croix de Feu play in France? Oh, it was a very useful organisation. No, it had no relations with Italian Fascism. It was anticommunist, not anti-Socialist. The Communists made a lot of noise, but there weren’t many of them. By now lunch time had come .round and the party broke up with mutual “au revoirs. ” Aud how pleasant it had been to meet someono that you could talk to in a foreign country!