The usual alternative for the foregoing bill of fare is a cheap and nasty imitation of a French menu, where nothing is true to name, and only the frills on the cutlets are what they pretend to be. It really should not be difficult to give a well-cooked fillet of sole, a tender chicken, an omelet aux fines herbes, and a dish of vegetables in season, sautés au beurre; but if you asked for a lunch of this sort at a wayside British inn you would be put down at once as a lunatic. Why?
The question of packing a motor lunch is one of some difficulty and niceness. Personally, I do not for one moment believe in those elaborate ready-fitted baskets, of which the makers are so inordinately proud. Such a basket seldom fits the lunch, and I find by experience that a good-sized empty basket of convenient shape is far more practical.
The cutlery, glass, and china may be fixed, as a matter of convenience, although I do not consider even that to be necessary, for in packing up one is always trying to fit a table-knife into the place made for a teaspoon.
My ideal basket or hamper is quite bare inside (to begin with), and the cates, bottles, knives, forks, and spoons are packed therein, tightly and carefully, so as to prevent shaking and rattling.
A good method of keeping a salad fresh and crisp, by the way, is to hollow out a loaf of bread, cut off a slice at the top in the form of a lid, and pack the salad inside. Japanese paper serviettes are useful; little and big cardboard plates and dishes are to be bought for a trifle; fruit travels best if surrounded with green leaves; Devonshire cream in pots is an appreciable luxury; coffee can be made in the cafetière gourmet, if boiling water be handy. And, lastly, don’t forget the corkscrew!
According to the calendar, spring begins officially on 21 March. But the restaurateurs can beat Dame Nature, who, presumably, edits the calendar (another lady’s paper!), by at least six weeks. For the season of primeurs commences six weeks earlier, and coming before their time, they are appreciated all the more for their vernal suggestion of the flavour of the real thing, arriving in due season when all the world and his wife may eat thereof.
Early green peas, for instance, which have hitherto been imported from Algiers, come from Nice, also the famous Lauris giant asparagus, white and succulent. This earliest open-air asparagus, of indubitable excellence, is to be had at about thirty-eight to forty-five shillings per bundle of fifty heads. It is worth the price.
Now too is the time to eat the real Pauillac lamb, reared on the salt marshes of Pauillac, young, fat, white, and so luscious that it melts in the mouth. The whole young lamb barely weighs fourteen pounds, and a cut of this veritable pré salé, so often badly imitated and misnamed, is worth a king’s ransom.
But perpend when you order the dish at a restaurant. The maître d’hôtel will recommend a leg, because it has the better appearance; the knowledgeable diner, however, will inevitably prefer the shoulder, which is the quintessence of delicacy.
According to M. Roche, of Duke Street, Adelphi, the greatest authority on primeurs in London, early spring is the time beyond all others to indulge in the toothsome crêtes de coq, or cockscombs, without which no self-respecting dish à la financière is complete. The haricots verts gris, from Spain, are also in excellent condition. They are not much to look at, but the flavour is just exquisite. They cost about three shillings a pound.