Ice right
CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN
Ice-cream manufacture has been a branch of the chemical industry for so long ;hat I always want to howl with laughter when I read of seaside Mr Mayors say int.: solemnly to the annual conference of the Ice Cream Alliance, 'The products of your great industry are widely sought and enjoyed. . . .' Widely sought? You can't get away from them. Enjoyed? 1 suppose so. But try this and see if it docsn-t spoil your palate. Buy some Laurier eater ices ;for Its 6d
you will get enough for eight nice people or four greedy ones) and compare them with the output of the usual companies (you know who Unless you're a heavy smoker or lack a sense of taste you won't want to go back to the dried milk, glyceryl monostearate and fillers, and that could cost you dear.
These fresh fruit ices come from the Rhone and are sold at present only at places like Searcys, Harrods and Fortnums, because they have to be packed in 'dry ice.' Not being stabilised by chemistry, they melt easily and Laurier don't want to damage their embryo repu- tation. If you're throwing a party for up to sixty- five the importer, Gillian Ross (336 King's Road, London SW3; FLAxman'8085) will sell you five litres (about eight and three quarter pints) for £3 10s. They are served at the Carlton Tower, the Royal Garden Hotel, the Hilton, Keats and the Cellier du Midi in Hampstead and Nick's Diner. They also figure on City banquet menus. Yes, they're strictly for the rich.
So why not try Bertorelli's? Perhaps you didn't know that they make real ice-cream and water ices with real ingredients in place of chemicals that conform to the food-labelling regulations. Unfortunately they are distributed at present only in London and the south-east (that overfavoured area). But they are cheap for the high quality, with flavours from vanilla to champagne. The latter is a party gimmick, and because they use real champagne (the man said vintage but did not know the year or the brand), sells at eight guineas for a gallon. I let some melt and it actually fizzed. The ordinary ices cost from 6s 6d to 8s 6d accord- ing to taste and are enough for four, but they also sell orange, lemon and grapefruit sorbets ensconced in the original skin. Pretty and pretty good, too, for the end of a summer supper. This is the old Italian skill with ice, fruit juice and cream that I thought had long vanished from these shores in spite of the Italian- and Spanish-style names that are used to convey the impression that it hasn't.
Travel literature descends on my desk in colourful heaps. Some of it is sales lit., which you can take or leave alone (I'm a sucker for good colour photography, but some of the trickery upsets me). Some of it is solid work- manlike travel guidance, like the Observer `Time Off' books, which now cost 3s 6d. There are three new ones: Paris by John Ardagh, who lived there for four years; the Lake Dis- trict by George Seddon, who includes the Yorkshire Dales; and Scandinavia by Roland Huntford, who includes Finland. These are mainly hotel and restaurant guides.
It is more difficult to say what Elkan Allan's 0,0' You Go! is. Published by Mayflower for Horizon Holidays at 5s, it looks like a general guide, but is actually limited to Horizon Holi- day centres. There are so many dangers dropped that Mr Raitz may feel like sticking to the conventional brochure next time. I'm not thinking of spelling mistakes like Roptomato River for Ropitomo or calling rose-petal jam rose-leaf, but writing about Corsica without Ajaccio, putting the unfortunate Durrell brothers under the heading 'People' in the Corfu entry (they are, but they are not on view even to Horizon customers), calling a kibbutz a cooperative, making Cape St Vincent 'de Vincent' and famous for 'navy sea battles,' having Hannibal born both on Malta and Ibiza, and recommending boukha, Tunisian fig spirit, on pages 186, 188, 191 and 193. There are dozens of similar repetitions, so if Horizon are going to give one of these to every cus- tomer, as they say, there looks like being an outburst of predictable conversation on the charter planes.
What chamber music has to do with furniture I do not know (I had a vague thought about bedrooms but dismissed it). Heal's, those can't- wait-to-get-at-you people, have decided to go chamber musical again this summer, and con- gratulations on their achievements since 1965 are freely offered. I do wish, however, that they resisted the Glyndebourne touch—that you cannot hear music properly without a bow tie or some form of fancy dress. To spend a satis- factory evening at a Heal's concert, which means to dine and hear music, formal dress is compulsory. If you are content to eat only cheese you can wear anything. So a man must be formal or a mouse.
What are the victories you would like to win as a consumer in the next ten years? Registra- tion of travel and estate agencies? Clear and unequivocal legislation on labelling and weights and measures? Tighter control of advertising claims? An Ombudsman for consumer com- plaints? Let your imagination run wild, then squeeze it all into 3,000-4,000 words and send it to Which? The editor wants essays to mark the tenth anniversary of the Consumers' Asso- ciation in October. The first prize is £150. The judges are to be Alan Day (for sense?), Lady Elliot (for content?), Lord Francis-Williams (for slant?) and Clement Freud (for fun?).
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