"Everything home-grown!" we were smilingly told by Mrs. Price, the farmer's wife, who took one end of the table, while her husband carved at the other. Their own dining-room in the front of the house was exquisite with old oak and the silver pots of two generations of agricultural prize-winners; but they elected to share their Land Girls' kitchen dinner because it seemed more hospitable and homely.
"There's nothing here that hasn't come off the farm," Mrs. Price added. "Those black currants in the tart are my last year's bottling, of course. But they were straight out of the garden here. I expect you find it dreadfully countrified fare after London—those of you that come from there."
* * * * * * *
Elizabeth and I here spared a moment from revelling in our second helpings of those home-grown vegetables, so efficiently cooked, to look up and laugh. What we were both thinking of was our last, farewell, midday meal in town.
It had consisted of:
(1) Hors d'œuvre, highly vinegary and suspect—tasting of nothing on earth.
(2) A morsel of sole that had distinctly not come "straight" out of the sea, and tasting of the fact.
(3) Escaloppes de veau with tomato sauce. I don't know what they tasted of, though they cost us a meat-ticket; they smelt, too, forbiddingly of the substitute fat in which they'd been fried.
(4) A small greyish roll, tasting of sawdust.
(5) One half peach, tasting of tin.