GREAT GERMAN'S APPRECIATION 183 



days later I went over to the same hospitable grill-room 

 for a chop, and told the gifted grill-cook (the French, in 

 former centuries, had a proverb, " Anyone may learn to 

 be a cook, but one must be born a * r6tisseur ' ") of the 

 admiration he had excited in the Emperor William's friend. 

 " Yes, sir," he said, " I fancy he did like it, for he came 

 here by himself yesterday and the day before, and 

 took the same grills and stout." Von Wissman was 

 staying at the German Embassy, but was drawn all the 

 way to South Kensington by the sweet savour of the grill- 

 room an instance of what the physiologists call "positive 

 chemotaxis." 



What I have here written on food and cookery is no 

 " gourmet's " praise of indulgence in the pleasures of the 

 table, nor is it an expression of a mere personal preference. 

 It is a protest, based on scientific grounds, against the 

 neglect of one of the bulwarks of health the honest 

 traditional cookery which flourished in London forty years 

 ago. 



