Good Living as an Art

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 38, 15 February 1938, Page 6

Good Living as an Art

“The Art of Good Living” was the subject of a paper read before the Royal Society of Arts by M. Andre L. Simon. It was, he said, the only art which in the 200 years of its illustrious and useful existence, the society had not previously recognised and encouraged.

The art of good living was entitled to a place of honour among the arts of peace, the liberal arts, and the moral arts It was a living art; its body, that which all might see and many acquire, was called gastronomy; its soul, a gift from heaven which no money could buy, was a form of the living spirit of charity and was called hospitality. Gastronomy was more genteel than hunger, and more efficient, because more understanding than the new science of nutrition.

Nutrition won prizes at cattle shows and baby shows. Gastronomy won smiles and double chins, and also a measure of relaxation and contentment beyond the grasp of those who failed to take an intprest in what they cat and drink. Gastronomy must not be confused with high living to which it was entirely opposed. High living was inseparable from extravagance, fatty hearts and enlarged livers. Gastronomy taught avoidance not merely of excess, quantitatively speaking, but of hurried meals and unwise combinations.

After giving other broad recommendations, M. Simon said that a last rule which no disciple of true gastronomy should ever overlook or ignore was simplicity.