Brevities

Taste is not something static, it is dynamic. It changes with the changing time, it reflects the mood, the atmosphere of the different eras, and if one knows what people liked in a certain year, what pictures were admired, what books read, what dresses worn, what dishes ordered, what drinks served, one knows the very spirit of the period, its inmost and particular secret.

During the hectic years of the post war time it was, for example, but natural that people should acquire the cocktail habit and become jazz addicts. The intense emotional excitement prevailing, the sudden riches for those who had never known affluence before, the equally sudden poverty for many who had lost the silver spoon with which they were born, the upheaval of an old and established civilization, brought with it a spirit of uncertainty and defiance, an uncritical desire for the louder and cruder forms of enjoyment. Hence jazz as the only possible music, and the cocktail as the only acceptable drink. One began not only to step out but distinctly to step down in the search for pleasure. The sense of balance, of harmony, of artistic enjoyment of life was lost.

Now we seem to be recovering this particular sense and cocktails though delightful at their special hour, are no longer considered the one and only drink before dinner. The discriminating hostess looks for something that is stimulating as well as restful, tasteful as well as tasty, satisfying alike to body and mind. She, therefore, prefers to offer her guests for pre-prandial enjoyment a dry, fine, delicate wine, either a dry Sherry or a dry Madeira of superior quality, but in any case something that does not blunt the sensibilities but heightens them; that makes not only the food about to be eaten but life in general taste sweeter on our tongue.