Amid the Tree now got, where plentie hung Tempting so nigh, to pluck and
eat my fill I spar'd not, for such pleasure till that hour At Feed or Fountain never had I found.
As the older Gandhi recalled in his autobiography, "C* I would trot 10 or 12 miles each day, go into a cheap restaurant and
eat my fill of bread but would never be satisfied." During these " wanderings" he stumbled upon a vegetarian restaurant and Henry Stephens Salt's A Plea for Vegetarianism , which set at rest his doubts about staying vegetarian in London.
Perhaps what I've done is spend a lifetime trying to recreate those years when I could
eat my fill of sundaes and pizza without worrying about how I'd look in a bathing suit.
Maybe it's because I was born in the years of post-war rationing that I like to
eat my fill. Some years ago I was told by one of those naturalists, who wear green coats, wellies and deer-stalker hats and spend their weekends lying on their bellies with binoculars, that given the chance a toad will eat until he bursts - rather like the glutton in the famous Monty Python sketch, who sprays his innards around a restaurant after completing his last feast with a wafer-thin mint.
Sure I could
eat my fill of grits, fried chicken, okra and some of the best barbecue on the planet, but nothing could erase the longing for local food.
