PEEPS OF FRANCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3879, 17 July 1928, Page 78

PEEPS OF FRANCE.

(Special for the Otago • Witness.) These articles, from the pen of a New Zealand girl, who has gone , ' to France to 'complete her educa- .... I tion, ' have been specially written - I for my. Little Folk: '// -W-e 7 / hope I that after reading you will / have; a new idea .jots a country which, to many of'’you, is known • only as another place to be ,l?'^’ s ;Teai i hed about in -a - geography lesson.—DOT. , . '■ :r XXIV. PARIS. Mes Petites, —It is, of course, a mere .„ platitude to point out the enormous, in- ■ fluence which France has always had on England, not only in language, but in countless details of - everyday life—ip dress, in furniture, and,’ last but not least, ip matters of. food and, drink. !- SoJong, ago as 1 ($6 France/was re-, , nownedi far and wide..for iher culinary' • skill/, and even before that date some of the English nobility employed French copiis;’s v ho were reported to be the most inventive in the whole . of", Europe. ’ ' It was not, however, until-Aftqr 1660 tlmt ...Frenpjt> cooking, began, ;> jtp'-, exert , any really influence...in, 'England; . and who r .visited-England about J 640 is reported to have said that the English were not very dainty about , their food in comparison with ; their . brothers and sisters across .-the Channel, since''soups were unknown,' pastry-very ’ coarse,’/and forks' : still ' praetibaliy, unheard - of. ’ ,I; ..After, the Restoration/ f.q . English . gentlenfan . could do witliout a French . chef, and those who could not afford to keep one used instead books, on cookery ■ translated from the French. ■ In connection with this pra’Ctic’e. of French cookery books Addison, in' the Tatler, describes a French meal a,t Mi English house in rather bitter terms. “The dishes,” he says, “are prepared not to satisfy the appetite, : but to excite it.” Apparently the meal was not solid enough to satisfy his’taste; But at the. same time French dishes' were very popular in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth ’ centuries, and French wines were also considered great luxuries, for /which " very high prices ' English trayeliers, we. are , tola, were much interested .by. the French •habit of mixing .water with their wine, a habit which they could very ■ rarely be. persuaded to imitate; but, on the whole,the influence of the drinking customs of French society exerted in England tended . rather to sobriety than, the reverse. At that time English people were content to pay almost any price for French • cooking and French wines,, and insisted that everything connected ;with food in any way should come from France. Hence we heaf of cheese being imported . /from Brie and- from Calais, hams .from /'Bayonne, not to mention the proverbial ’'frogs and.Mtftil* 1/

Up tp: this very day French cookery is much sought- after in England, as can be seen by the' fact that at most of.thq restaurants, the menus are written in French; In earlier days, of course, all those who prjided -themselves on having any claims at all to distinction made a point of imitating the French in innumerable details, not only of-food and drink, but of dress, and so “ Frenchified ” did England become in her Court and social, life that many eminent' writers of the day protested against so many innovations from, a foreign land. - On the other hand the French have borrowed enormous quantities of words -from us, many of them being used in this country in an entirely different sense from .that in Which-we use them. “Un dancing,” for instance, means in France a dance hall ; ,- un smoking,”'a dinner jacket; “ tin rocking,” a camp chair, and, so on, while in the realm of sport and-games there is no end to the list of Words incorporated into French. It is all very interesting. •’ ■' ■ ■ ■?. * ■ '• A'ours,

JEANNE.