The English Menu

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 18, 14 November 1930, Page 34

The English Menu

HERE has been a heated controversy recently in the Hnglish papers on the subject of the wisdom or otherwise of French menus for English people. There is no doubt that for the average Britisher French menus are inconvenient; but apart from roast, boiled and stewed, what alternatives are there in English? When a new dish is invented and wins the approval of some noted epicure, the French chef duly christens it, makes exact notes of its constituents and the precise order of its manufacture, and that dish becomes history. To the French, cooking has been almost a religion for 500 years, ever since Catherine de Medicis brought Italian cooks to Paris, and if we are to challenge their supremacy we must organise our cooking and make of it an exact science.