Separate Worlds

Oh, Creme de Menthe is a flapper's fad, and Wine's incredibly dear,

And Whiskey's more to a Scotsman's taste, and Gin's a charwoman's cheer;

Let never a true-born Englishman drink anything else but Beer--

Anything else but Beer!

There's no such tipple, wherever you go, whatever the course you steer;

So drink as our seamen used to drink when Drake was a privateer,

And the maids of honour of Good Queen Bess were bred upon breakfast beer--

Bred upon break fast beer!

With this rollicking new lyric, published this week in the autumn issue of British Wine and Food, its executives prepared their readers for another tidbit gleaned from the Berliner Boersen-Zeitung and zestfully translated to give King Edward's subjects an idea of what Europeans think of British food.

"The North Sea and the English Channel form a kind of culinary abyss that separates worlds," declared the Berliner Boersen-Zeitung. "On the Continent, and therefore also in Germany, cooking begins in the kitchen; in England it begins at the table. . . . Cooked and prepared in an English kitchen, goose tastes like roast beef, chicken like pork, turkey like pheasant, and pheasant like veal. Cases occur where the cook has not succeeded in entirely removing differences in taste and smell. Here is where the English art of cooking, which begins at the table, comes in. On the table stands a whole array of condiments, pepper and spices, tomato and Worcester sauces of all kinds, mixtures containing every ingredient capable of confusing the tongue, peppery, acid, hot, sweet or sour. Then the metamorphosis begins on the tongue. Chicken tastes like flounder, goose like perch, and perch like flounder. Whoever thinks this an exaggeration, let him take a teaspoonful of Worcester sauce in his mouth and begin to eat. If on grounds of economy there is no supply of democratizing sauces, then English, mustard will suffice. . . .

"Naturally, vegetables are similarly handled. The most important thing about an English cabbage is that it is green; how it tastes is a matter of indifference. Spinach tastes like Brussels sprouts, cauliflower can only be distinguished from white cabbage by its appearance; their nutritive value is nil. Vitamins are taken by the Englishman in the form of salad. It is unnecessary to mention that by adding as much vinegar and salt as possible he endeavors to make it more like cooked vegetables.

''There are, however, some loopholes in this system of cooking which reduces everything to the same level. Cheese tastes like cheese and not like roast beef; the taste of fried bacon cannot be entirely suppressed, and English puddings deserve praise, which is probably due to the fact that they cannot be eaten with mustard. The Englishman drinks with his meals the bitterest of beers or similarly sharp things. . . .

''The only real English dish, the people's food in the real sense of the word, is sweetmeats. Everyone in England, old or young, male or female, eats sweets. There are almost as many sweet shops as tobacconists. Sweetstuffs spoil the appetite, which is their principal object; whoever believes they taste good, like German sweets, is making a mistake. English sweets taste solely like sugar or chocolate. They can drug gnawing hunger and at the same time spoil the teeth (about 50% of the people over 40 years of age in England have false teeth). . . ."

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