EXPERT ON FOOD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 137, 7 December 1938, Page 19

EXPERT ON FOOD

GIRL TO ADDRESS

HOTELIERS

Miss Barbara Coutts, a brunette in her early twenties, has left the hotel in which she works at Broadway, Worcestershire — "England's prettiest village"—to tell the cream of Britain's hotelkeepers how to do their, job— from a woman's point of view. At this two-day conference here of wine and food experts, she will be the only woman speaker—and because of this, or because of the interest in her subject, efforts are being made to prolong for her the normal time limit of ten minutes.

She is a disciple of cheerfulness in the entertainment of guests, and she has one special plea to make—"give up the snack habit." The only meal, I she says, to which Englishmen now give really serious attention is dinner. WHAT ATTRACTS WOMEN. "Food does not matter so much to women," she told me. "We are not so elaborate in our meals, but we do appreciate daintiness and absolute spotlessness. "Women may be more worried about I a piece of fluff in the bedroom than a ! burglar. That is the secret of catering for women —be clean, particular, and, if possible, have a few flowers about. A woman will not forget such a hotel." I

Miss Coutts told me that she began hotel work as an office girl, and since then has learned how to supervise whole departments. "There should be a future in hotel work for girls who are bright and willing—and the public schoolgirl should be encouraged to adopt it as a career," she added.