BENNY GREEN
It has all been most delightful watching Soho's restaurateurs pleading not guilty to harbouring rats on the premises, rats in this context presumably being a reference to the quadrupeds behind the skirting rather than the bipeds in front of it. The whole business was rendered doubly fascinating in the way the most passionate protestations of innocence came from those whom nobody had dreamed of calling guilty. When the Chinese are accused of ratophilia and the Trats come out with a blanket denial, the already tenuous structure of my geo- graphical knowledge trembles violently and then goes down altogether in a nightmare vision of Lasagna Foo Yong. And you can hardly blame me if for some time to come I walk hurriedly past all Trats with a thoughtful look on my face.
In any case, to accuse Soho of having rat connections is about as reasonable as accus- ing a fish of being wet. The whole district is so old and so decrepit, so patched up and built over and built over again, that it would be impossible not to have rats in the offing, no matter where you opened up. When I was a musician, and in the habit of walking home from jazz clubs in the small hours, a rat would often scuttle across the pavement and vault over my shoes. No doubt it was en route to a supper party appointment in one of those restaurants whose owners, if you are to believe a word they say, wouldn't know a rat if one fell on them.
In those days, when I was a desperado willing to commit any foul deed for money,
I accepted work once or twice in the orchestras of West End night clubs, thereby becoming acquainted for the first time with the faintly whimsical attitude of some pro- prietors towards decadent conceptions like cleanliness, hygiene, ventilation, and brush- ing the insects off the food before you cook it. Unfortunately the laws of libel prevent me from naming names, but I do recall that one brief engagement in a very famous night club-restaurant resolved itself into a kind of stomachic obstacle race. The route from tradesmen's entrance to bandroom passed directly through the kitchens, and the idea was to navigate this poisonous journey with- out once taking in breath. This was not too difficult. What really worried me was that halfway through each night's work the gentlemen of the orchestra would return to their bandroom to eat the meal provided free of charge by the management.
Of course one could always abstain, but then why turn down the chance of getting something for nothing from a night club management, an event of a rarity so freakish as to approach a mystical experience? And so a few of us conducted careful research into the exotic flora and fauna of the kitchens, and came up with a weekly menu sheet which might give us a reasonable chance of survival. In eliminating all food which could be contaminated, to say nothing of all chefs who might be contaminated, it is true we limited our choice, but it is proof of our wisdom that most of us lived to tell the tale. Here is our diet list: Monday: Spaghetti and baked potatoes. Cold water.
Tuesday: Spaghetti and baked potatoes. Cold water.
Wednesday: Spaghetti and baked potatoes. Cold water.
Thursday: Spaghetti and baked potatoes. Cold water.
Friday: Spaghetti and baked potatoes. Cold water.
Saturday: Spaghetti and baked potatoes. Cold water.
Of course if I dared name the establish- ment concerned. its owners would be swear- ing on all the bibles in temperance hotels that there was not a word of truth in my story, and asking with touching innocence what spaghetti was. The only man I know who ever had the courage to be entirely frank about the state of his kitchens is the jazz club owner Ronnie Scott. Working from the Shavian text that if you have a skeleton in the closet, you might as well make it dance, Scott in his early Gerrard Street days boasted in the trade press that his was 'the best food in town; fifty million flies can't be wrong', and then followed up with the quiet dignity of 'Food untouched by human hand; our chef is a gorilla'. To this day you can, for the modest sum of five shillings, order a portion of 'Filth' in Scott's club. But then Scott has always been phlegmatic about this whole question of where catering ends and bubonic plague begins. I was with him in a Soho restaurant on the night when a cockroach turned up in his rice. He peered at the visitor for a moment and remarked, I think it's frightened', and then added thoughtfully, 'and the way they cook rice in this place it's understandable'. He then rescued the cockroach and handed it to a waiter with the information that it was underdone, picked up the salt cellar, handed that to the waiter, said courteously, 'My condiments to the chef' and was gone.
It was Scott too who first brought home
to me the truth that in Soho rats were one of the facts of life. He was living in azi attic over a rather expensive Indian restaurant at the time, and as usual, was keeping open house for any musician who cared to drop in. Whenever I called on him, I noticed peculiar noises coming from behind the walls, and one night I asked Scott what they were. 'Rats', he said matter-of-factly, 'they're having their annual rice war.' He admitted that when he first moved in the noise dis- turbed him, but explained that after a while he had learned that the most effective method of retaliation was to wait until the racket reached a climax and then bang very loudly on the skirting with an old shoe. He swears that one night the head rat banged back.
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