The food of the peasant is grain, rice, goat-flesh when he can get it, a skinny fowl on the great festivals, milk, and strong-tasting cheese. A bunch of grapes and a hunch of sour bread is his usual hot weather meal. The Grecian wines, though some of them taste shockingly of resin, are not unpalatable. Solon, Soutzos, Kephista, Kephallenia, are all quite drink- able ; and the better-class wines of Kephallenia, and those of Patras, made by a German firm, are enjoy- able. Much of the Greek wine goes to Vienna and other centres of the wine trade, and reappears with labels on the bottles having no connection with Greece. Athenian Restaurants The restaurants of Athens are not happy hunting- grounds for the Anglo-Saxon gourmet. The Restau- rant Splendid, in the Hotel des Etrangers, Place de la Constitucion, the Minerva, and the D’Athenes, both in the Rue de Stade, are the pick of a not too promising bunch ; and Murray recommends one in Amalias Street, near the Palace, which I do not remember to have seen. A most grave litterateur to whom, as he had been lately travelling in Greece, I applied for supplemen- tary information, applied the adjective “ beastly ” to all Greek restaurants, and added that the one great crying need of Greece and Athens is an American bar for the sale of cooling drinks in the Parthenon. XIX DENMARK The Hours of Meals — Copenhagen Restaurants — The Badehotels on the Sound. Of the food of the country there is little to say. The restaurants of the hotels aspire to French cookery ; the simpler eating-places where the Danes enjoy them- selves have the plainer cookery of Scandinavia — scraps of beef in the form of Tournedos , cutlets, baked fowl, and the smorgasbord — the hors d! oeuvre of the north, which, however, are to be found in greater variety in Sweden. The hours of the meals throughout Scandinavia should be noted by the Englishman, who because he likes to lunch at 1.30 and dine at 8.15 thinks that the whole world must do likewise. The Dane or Swede or Norwegian rises very early, has his coffee and roll, and then works till 11, when he leaves his office or his place of employment and eats his breakfast. At noon he goes back to work and at 4 p.m. he eats his dinner. He generally sups lightly before he goes to bed. The Briton who goes into a restaurant at what he considers the sane hours at which to feed and finds no table d'hote meal ready and the cook out for his daily walk, learns that every country does not of necessity follow the British time- table. 367 368 The Gourmef s Guide to Europe Copenhagen Tivoli Gardens At the Hotel d’Angleterre, opposite the Royal Opera House, I found the cooking quite good, Hotel d’Angle- both in the restaurant and grill-room, terre though not in any way distinctively

AI-modernized reading of the original text

The food of the peasant is grain, rice, goat-flesh when he can get it, a skinny fowl on the great festivals, milk, and strong-tasting cheese. A bunch of grapes and a hunch of sour bread is his usual hot weather meal. The Grecian wines, though some of them taste shockingly of resin, are not unpalatable. Solon, Soutzos, Kephista, Kephallenia, are all quite drinkable ; and the better-class wines of Kephallenia, and those of Patras, made by a German firm, are enjoyable. Much of the Greek wine goes to Vienna and other centres of the wine trade, and reappears with labels on the bottles having no connection with Greece. Athenian Restaurants The restaurants of Athens are not happy huntinggrounds for the Anglo-Saxon gourmet. The Restaurant Splendid, in the Hotel des Etrangers, Place de la Constitucion, the Minerva, and the D’Athenes, both in the Rue de Stade, are the pick of a not too promising bunch ; and Murray recommends one in Amalias Street, near the Palace, which I do not remember to have seen. A most grave litterateur to whom, as he had been lately travelling in Greece, I applied for supplementary information, applied the adjective “ beastly ” to all Greek restaurants, and added that the one great crying need of Greece and Athens is an American bar for the sale of cooling drinks in the Parthenon. DENMARK The Hours of Meals — Copenhagen Restaurants — The Badehotels on the Sound. Of the food of the country there is little to say. The restaurants of the hotels aspire to French cookery ; the simpler eating-places where the Danes enjoy themselves have the plainer cookery of Scandinavia — scraps of beef in the form of Tournedos , cutlets, baked fowl, and the smorgasbord — the hors d! oeuvre of the north, which, however, are to be found in greater variety in Sweden. The hours of the meals throughout Scandinavia should be noted by the Englishman, who because he likes to lunch at 1.30 and dine at 8.15 thinks that the whole world must do likewise. The Dane or Swede or Norwegian rises very early, has his coffee and roll, and then works till 11, when he leaves his office or his place of employment and eats his breakfast. At noon he goes back to work and at 4 p.m. he eats his dinner. He generally sups lightly before he goes to bed. The Briton who goes into a restaurant at what he considers the sane hours at which to feed and finds no table d'hote meal ready and the cook out for his daily walk, learns that every country does not of necessity follow the British timetable. 368 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe Copenhagen Tivoli Gardens At the Hotel d’Angleterre, opposite the Royal Opera House, I found the cooking quite good, Hotel d’Angle- both in the restaurant and grill-room, terre though not in any way distinctively

The gourmet's guide to Europe