NICETIES OF FOOD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27541, 8 November 1950, Page 6

NICETIES OF FOOD

Dunedin Man’s Appreciation STUDY ON CONTINENT Resident Correspondent LONDON, Nov. 1. Returning home early next year with a sharpened appreciation for good food and with a trunk full of recipes and cookery books explaining how to prepare it will be a young man from Dunedin, Mr Donald Reid. When I met him yesterday he was full of triumph at his latest purchase—a fat book full of recipes of the world s best dishes. “And there,” he said, pointing to the wrapping covered with writing, “are half a dozen more I copied out from another book before I left the shop.” This interest in cooking is a new thing to Mr Reid. Before leaving New Zealand two years ago his interest in food was that of ’the normal young man—whether it was good or bad, hot or cold, enough or too little. It was not until he had travelled through Europe from Italy in the south to Finland in the north and learned to appreciate the niceties of really good food, lovingly prepared and served with pride, that he caught the spirit of the gourmet to whom such things are among the aesthetic pleasures of life. He is not alone in this heightened appreciation of food. Hundreds of other New Zealanders who have tasted the delights of foreign restaurants think the same way, but, whereas they have merely been content to sigh wistfully and recall that omelette in Paris, those hors d’oeuvres in Copenhagen, that spaghetti. Bolognaise in Rome, he has acted and discovered what was in them and how they were made. Back in his flat in London he has practised what he has gleaned, but it will not be until he returns to his own home in New Zealand that he will be able to spread himself. He told me that one of his ambitions is to start a really first-class restaurant in New Zealand serving first-class food in the Continental manner with an appropriate cellar to go with it. But that, he realises, is improbable. His succulent ideas will have to be confined to his own kitchen. While food has become his hobby, the primary reason for his trip to Britain and the Continent was to study the manufacturing side of the wool trade, for he is a member of a Dunedin firm of stock and station agents and woolbrokers. Most of his time has been spent- at Bradford, but he has also investigated many foreign mills. If one has plenty of time and really wants to meet people and see how they live, Mr Reid advocates hitch-hiking. He has travelled many thousands of miles this way, although he never hesitates to catch a train if in a hurry. Hitch-hiking in Europe is much easier, he says, if one travels alone. He particularly enjoyed his stay in Scandinavia, which was made much more pleasant through knowing Swedish and through having the addresses of several acquaintarices he had made on ships calling at New Zealand. Further hospitality was extended by students who were on the same ,wool course with him in England. His favourite city in Europe is Copenhagen, and his favourite people are the Danes—" very gay and friendly,” he describes them. Mr Reid intends to return to New Zealand the way he came—as a steward on a cargo ship.