BRITAIN'S WAR DIET'.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLII, Issue 11470, 23 February 1918, Page 2

BRITAIN'S WAR DIET'.

A LUNCHEON AT THE RITZ. A WORKING [MAN’S OPINION OF IT. I took a working man to Hindi at the Rtiz |;Hotel yesterday to hear his criticisms of fashionable jjrestaurant food consumption, inviting “Bill,” to whom I owe obligations for work done efficiently. He met me in his working clothes and we went in a taxi to the Ritz, writes a correspondent to the Daily Mail. We were early, and the big room was as yet sparsely filled. “All the better,” said Bill complacently; “first-comers get the best cuts.” My guest’s complacency diminished when I translated .the menu. “No steaks?” Bill asked : anxiously. “Yes, sir—if you like to wait,” replied the waiter, lookiing at Bill; “but they are very small. ” “Then - don’t let us talk about them,” said Bill, and he allowed mo to order the lunch. I selected the most solid food the Ritz offered. ;

Hors-d’oeuvre. Turbot. Fricpssee de Yolaille. Pommes saute. Petits Pois. Pouding de Ritz. The rice pudding was for Bill. A poor “stayer,” I ordered a meruigue Chantilly for myself. NOT MUCH “STAY”. Converstaiou flagged during [ the hors-de’ oeuvre and the fish course. Something was on Bill’s mind. He admired tiie room, liked the festooned candelabra, remarked tiiat our fellow-luuchers were “real toffs,” £not the sort he had seen going into certain other famous restaurants “covered in furs and gimcracks,” and ho said that our waiter was a “ good chap, knowing hislbusiness, and no swank.” His only other remark was that the ladies struck-‘him as being rather thin, and that lie wished lie had a portrait of his own wife to show me.

Then I noticed that my guest was not taking butter witli hisjaread. j Bill opened out. “Iso thanks,” : be said (lie was finishing bis turbot and turning over the piece of bone, as one who may have . missed something). “It goes down quickly enough without greasing the slips ” Bill was once in a shipyard. “But excellent turbot.” said I.

“Not so dusty,” said Bill, and then ho opened out more. “But not much ‘stay’ in what we’ve had so far. ” The chicken met with approval, “quite a good snack.” But the Ritz bread ration was flatly described as “a tragedy.” MEALS OF THE PAST. My meringue moved Bill to real merriment. “First time, ”he said, “that I’ve seen a man eat a bubble, ” Over the coft’oo and cigars (which he pronounced “first class, these, anyway’) Bill talked to mo about meals; past and present meals. He recalled one idyllic day’s trip “with a pal in my works” in the Royal Sovereign to Southend, and gave me the day’s menu. “Breakfast; Porrdge, fish, ham and eggs, steak, bread, butter, toast, marmalade, and coffee. Then up on the deck to take the breezes. „A snack at 11. Then lunch: Salmon and cucumber, cold beef; chicken, salad, apple tart, and cheese;, and a lobster tea in the afternoon. Then homo to supper. ” He dwelt upon a day when he and the same “pal” left work and shared three dozen “Bengal oysters” (ggs broken into cups- and served with vinegar). The Ritz’s ration 'of three microscopic fragments of sugar, served to each guest in a closed envelope tickled Bill so that lie took his envelope homo to show his wife.

‘‘But don’t, you consider tins a good lunch?’ 1 asked nervously. Bill hesitated; he was my guest.

“Well—yes,’ ho said, “as far as qualiy . goes, no one could complain!” Candour overcame him “But it wouldn’t do for me. I'd coll ipso on it. I couldn’t do my work.” Ho then looked round the room and again called my attention to the slenderness of the ladies present. “And they are rolling in money, I suppose,” he ruminated. “Well what is wealth, when you put the jjlain question to yourself? The only wealth is what a man can put inside himself. SOMETHING TO EAT.

“What is jour usual lunch?” I asked. “It’s waiting for me at the works now,” he answered. “I told them to keep it warm. A thundering big steak, pound and a-half-of potatoes, college pudding, bread, and a pint of beer. ” The Ritz bill was £1 Ids—(is each for the luncheon and the balance for the wines, cigars and coffee. My guest said that if I would ho his guest one day he would take me somewhere where for less than a quarter of the amount he could give me a meal that would deprive me of the power of movement. Bill accompanied me to my office door. “Well, good-bye,” he said; “thanks tor the pleasant meeting. This walk’s given me an appetite. Now I’ll go and get something to eat. ” Curiosity led mo round to Bill’s workshop 20 minutes later. I found him busy with the “thundering beefsteak. ’ ’