It is interesting to see that the Cuisine Association of Chicago has been protesting against the habit of smoking at meals. Smoke is so strong that it neutralizes the dedicate flavours of cookery, say the chefs: and since their interest in the matter may be described as artistic rather than financial, inasmuch as people must. eat and there is always a demand for good cooks, it is to be hoped their advice will be heard, Years before other peoples took to doing so, we be-Tieve that Russians smoked at mea) Perhaps an explanation may be found inthe extreme richness of Russian food as it used to be, a vich ment usually making one want to smoke more than a light one. In pre-war days a custom grew up, in England of introducing. 'a water ice, called a sorber, in the middle of % long meal, cigarettes going with it, This practice has, we. think, gone out, but the eftes remain, There cannot be a doubt that the Chicago chefs wile ight, To us, if we may so, it seems to be a matter of spoiling two good things, Not so many years ago no host, who respected hhis wine and his guests, would ha dreamed of having cigarettes and ccigavs handed round with the port, but now this is almost invariable, the following letter which has appeared in various London papers. This one is from the "Times":
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.