[Vocabulary] One meal in three was a loss

[sherishine]

Tonight dinner was being prepared by the sapper. Caravaggio was not looking forward to it. One meal in three was a loss as far as he was concerned. Kip found vegetables and presented them barely cooked, just briefly boiled into a soup. It was to be another purist meal, not what Caravaggio wshed for after a day such as this when he had been listening to the man upstairs. He opened the cupboard beneath the sink. There, wrapped in damp cloth, was some dried meat, which Caravaggio cut and put into his pocket.

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The above is from the English patient.

Does the blue words mean that these meals were not delicious, and one in three was a total failure?

 

[emsr2d2]

Tonight dinner was being prepared by the sapper. Caravaggio was not looking forward to it. One meal in three was a loss as far as he was concerned. Kip found vegetables and presented them barely cooked, just briefly boiled into a soup. It was to be another purist meal, not what Caravaggio wshed for after a day such as this when he had been listening to the man upstairs. He opened the cupboard beneath the sink. There, wrapped in damp cloth, was some dried meat, which Caravaggio cut and put into his pocket.

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The above is from the English patient.

Does the blue words mean that these meals were not delicious, and one in three was a total failure?

It doesn't necessarily mean that all the meals were not delicious, but you are certainly right that one in three was a total failure.

It sounds like the meals were all fairly basic and certainly not exciting, though it's possible to make delicious, basic food, so the other two meals may have been perfectly acceptable.

 

[BobK]

PS It's more common in current Br English to say that a total failure is 'a dead loss'.

b