Europe What the People Eat

A CHINESE, having travelled from Kirkenes to Cadiz and having dined not in cosmopolitan restaurants but in ordinary homes, reported back to his people: 'Always the same food and how dreadfully monotonous; no variety, no contrasts. Seldom more than three dishes to a meal and frequently only two. First a plain vegetable soup. Second, a meat in slices accompanied by two vegetables, always one white and one green. Third, a dish of bread and cheese or fruit or, on better occasions, both. These Europeans have a singularly uniform approach to gastronomy.'

Looked at from the viewpoint of another civilisation the diets of the European peoples appear all very similar, like the faces in a flock of sheep. Yet seen from within the sub-continent tremendous is the range and variety of the culinary arts. Not merely does each nation possess its distinctive eating habits, but within most of these nations will be found marked differences between provinces and even between localities -- les spécialite's du pays. It would be delightful and easy to forget the purpose of this book and depart at this very instant upon a grand gastronomic tour, lingering in each country to sample its greater contributions to the art of food. One could devote a chapter to the different types of bread in Scandinavia, another to the ways of preparing pasta in Italy, another to the concoction of sauces in France. Such a digression would reach to the back cover before we even began an account of the wines and liqueurs. Perhaps the only practicable method of resisting this temptation will be to talk about food wholly in abstract terms: not about quenelles or sauce chateaubriands but about 'livestock products', 'oils and fats', calories and kilograms and national food balance-sheets. These monstrous terms are devoid of sensuous succulence; moreover, they provide useful language for an orderly classification and discussion of a bewildering variety of diets.