At a recent luncheon, given by the wine trade at San Francisco's incomparable Palace for André Simon, and at which this department had the honor of sharing the speaker's table, the world's No. 1 gourmet made some observations on the subject of drinking in general and the selection of wine in particular which seemed so admirably just and so excellent in content as to warrant printing for an even wider circulation.
“When I was a young man,” said Mr. Simon, “and being schooled in matters of the world, my father took me, in the normal course of events, to a tailor, a hat maker, a maker of boots, and a wine merchant, so that my tastes might be properly guided and that I might be suitably fitted by the merchant of each of these articles of trade. In those days a man of a certain position in the world did not wear suits or hats or shoes taken from a rack and of universal pattern, nor did he drink machine-made Martinis or a château-bottled claret simply because it was widely advertised and exploited. He drank a wine, the way he commanded the style of his hat, because it suited his taste and was part of his person.
“May I commend to you such a way of choosing your wine? That it be adapted to your own individual and particular person and taste and be as much of an expression of yourself as your necktie or the pictures on the walls of your home? To tell a man what is good for him to drink is a great folly, and he should not be guided by the decisions and arbitraments of self-styled experts. The wine a man drinks is almost the ultimate expression of his individuality, and a wine should be fitted to his temperament the way a shirt is to his bodily measurements. May I suggest to you that, without unseemly arrogance, you insist that, so far as you yourself are concerned, your choice and taste in wine are irreproachable and not subject to the decisions of other men? If you abide by your own decisions in the matter, even if it leads to drinking whisky with your dessert or Burgundy for breakfast, you will live more happily and know more good things than through any other course of worldly conduct.”
Possibly as some sort of sign of the times, this department recently received in its morning mail the suggestion from an affable but demented colleague in the business of reporting the New York restaurant scene that there should be organized a food and wine writers' guild, a sort of parallel to the Drama Critics' Circle, only embracing in its membership the several score writers engaged in chronicling professionally the saloon, restaurant, and night club scenes of Manhattan.
Because it is quite possible that such a tong or blackmail league in the interest of free loading may actually come into existence, although it will most certainly do so without the participation of this department, let us briefly consider the demerits of the notion. What purpose, indeed, what valid purpose, could such a confraternity of professional eat-alls and tosspots possibly serve? Careful scrutiny can reveal no least vestigial trace of legitimacy in the project. Leaving quite aside for the moment the disinclination of any first-rate practitioner of any calling to associate himself actively with less recognized practitioners, and thereby reducing his product to the level of the lowest common denominator of the group, what end could such an organization pursue? It could gather its members together for an occasional free feed and drunk at the expense of some restaurant selected for this dubious honor. Its members could add to their professional by-line the initials “Member of the N.Y.S.F.G. & G.” (Society for Gulping and Guzzling). It could, through whatever system of selection and awards it might care to evolve, designate various restaurants as the recipients of its official approval.
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