I have been enjoying Growing Up in Restaurants by James Pembroke (Quartet), which is largely autobiographical, but also covers the history of eating out in this country, including the darkest days of the last century. But even in the 1950s and 1960s there were people trying to produce edible food, some successfully, and looking at past menus has made me nostalgic. I’d love to have eaten at 235 Kings Road in 1968 — avocado vinaigrette 4/6, prawn cocktail 4/6, followed by coq au vin or sole meunière, 12/6 each, rounded off with a syllabub also at 4/6. Yum!
And what would we have drunk? Possibly some of the nostalgic wines provided for us this month by the wondrous Tanners of Shrewsbury. But then we’d have drunk them because we supposed they were good. Now we drink them because they actually are good. Take the 2011 Muscadet Sur Lie from the Domaine Fief de la Brie (1).
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