HOW POVERTY AFFECTS THE DIETARY TASTE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2902, 27 October 1909, Page 76

HOW POVERTY AFFECTS THE DIETARY TASTE.

_ «. By Coxstaxce Clyj>e.

It jis usual to speak of fastidiousness in diet as a necessary result of fulness of purse. If the p:K>r shun certain dishes it is either because these are new to them or else are expensive. As a matte? of fact, this fastdddousmsss cannot always be traced to either of theso two causes. Poor people, through their very poverty, seem to acquire certain dietary tastes 'which almost make then* a race apart, like the Hindoos* or the Chinese. It is as if the palate lost certain sensibilities end gained others which we cannot sha<na. Travel through any part of England, -and you will find the working classes firmly refusing certain whole?ome and quite palatable foods for no rcaton that is discoverable. Simplicity of life and the out-of-door regimen would, one would think, create and preserve natural tastes ; but this is r.ot always the case. As one well-known instance of this perversity, one notices how nuely English country folk like green vegetables or milk, This is not ascribable to the "sick-of-the-sight-Oi-it theory," for root vegetables are less under the ban. In nany ea^es. however, carrots and turnips abo are excluded, the co tt .igor cooking only the starchy and not very nourishing potato. There are rheumatic old inc." walking double in their village gardens who need not have come to this had they dieted themselves by means vi the herbs giowin»- at their feet ; but the poor, obedient at medicine-taking, allow r.o inteiforence with their meals. Food ;s; s outside a doctor's province, ti.oy consider. .Living occasionally in a poor neighbourhood I ha\ e been surpii-ed to notice how difficult it i.s to obtain ceitri'i ai ticks within the poveity tine. Oiii^ei- biscuits, the bast of the cheaper bi^irit ehui. art) never to be had. "Nobody a«-ks icr them, .'o we don't stock therm,"' s t n -. after grocer. Yet fk-tiop continually supplies the. poor man'.s >tcre with gingerbiead, even &s it fills tho sluir child's fisi.-> with apples. Apples, as a matter oi fact, lit* little eaten by the slum-dweller, big or little, oranges, even when no cheaper, bt-mg by far his favourite fruit, Luok into the fruit bag of any Suivlay <Atilng paity, and if you see anything but oranges tiiere — peihaps nutb — this is <ilmost a sngn of superior c'a-es. Fruit in gencial is little considered by the aili.-aii in daily fare. However hot the weathei the housewife never puts on the table th.it cheap and easily-cooked dish of stewed apples or pea-rs which mo»t of us enjoy. I.s it not a. curious fetra.inhrg tat probability that Charles Iteade, in "Christie Johnstone," should lepresent the simple fishcrmaid eschewing her fir»t bi*e of cake, but pressing her teeth further into the peach? In real life sex and youth would have influenced her in favour of what the author evidently confide; •• the less natural diet. Do claps distinctions manifest themseh e< even in the dietetic tastes of children, and could we "place"' a little boy' by his preference for one sweetmeat over another? Many middle-class children chose chocolate as their favourite conJAouoaKy ; but I hare never noticed this

preference among tlie pooref children, something of the bard-baked order seems, invariably to be preferred. Considering how the schoolboy's raspberry tart looms in fiction — Thackeray continually instances it, — it is interesting to note that these special delicacies are seldom purchased. "I scarcely ever saw a boy buy a tart at the tuck shop," said a Haddow lad the other day — "cakes and spongecakes often, bat scaz;cely ever tarts," Pastry seems to be an over-rated treat, whatever the class of the children. The fresh-air-fund youngsters at Epping Forest were .given meat pies for their lunch, but most of the pastry, I observed, went among the bracken. Working men's wives are often blamed because the frying pan is thedr chief cooking utensiJ. This we ascribe to laziness, but the truth is sometimes otherwise. Frequently it is the husband, not the wife, who insists o; the fry rather than the more wholesome boiler stew. The higher type of working maji as a rule is singularly fastidious regarding the appearance of a dish, and usually scorns as messy anything of the latter nature. Limited alreadj by purse, he limits himself still more by taste, so that his menu is often less wholesome and economical than it might be. "Clean and tidy's what I like," is hit> mystic formula. With his small table space and his poorer crockery ] it Is difficult to present certain dishes in the best fashion, so that his strictness is perhaps to be excused. "Oatmeal porridge with a silver spoon in a china bqw is a. dish fit for a king," says someone ; but it is the china bowl and the silver spoon thai* make it so.