RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 115, 8 February 1935, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

It is reported, that there is a lot of money looking for someone to use it. Well there are a lot of people with no money looking for a lot of money, so the problem should be solved. # it sit According to a visitor, college courses in marriage are the thing in America. Lectures on divorce are no doubt included. * « » News from Palestine suggests that the Dead Sea has come to life. Perhaps when it has had a good look round it will be sorry. IS ♦ « There is to be a herring board to look .after that languishing industry in Britain. It is said that the herring fleets are on the rocks because of some unaccountable whim in food fashion, and that is believable. It would be, however, far more difficult to analyse the cause of this curious change in the public’s habits. The reactions of habits one upon the other lead us into distant problems that appear to have no connection. For example, who would have imagined that radio sets would have produced a boom in carpet slippers? The fact remains that they did. Men preferred to sit by the fire and listen in. They sat and listened in in carpet slippers. The extra wear upon the millions of carpet slippers caused a boom in them. Cigarettes incidentally save the flint industry that had been flourishing since caveman days. When the flint locks were replaced by breech loaders of modern design it looked as if the flint knapper would knapp no more. The sudden craze for cigarette lighters saved the situation. It may be that the herring problem in England will be saved in some way just as unexpected.

While on the subject of fashion whims it is perhaps little known that the advent of the motor car saved the clog industry from extinction. A huge boom in clogs resulted from the ownerdriver vogue that swept the world when motor cars became more reliable. For some reason clogs were adopted by many owner drivers as being the most suitable things to wear when cleaning the car. Clogs have always been worn by men working in breweries, tanneries and tin refineries. When" the owner-driver and then tl)e motor mechanic and the like took to them clogs received an unexpected stimulus. Beech-wood sales soared in sympathy and incidentally the leather used for the uppers in many cases added an unexpected fillip to the leather trade. In spite of their crudeness clogs still have many advantages over other types of boots for certain purposes. They are practically indestructible and very warm on damp ground, in addition to safeguarding the feet against injury.

When fast flying to Australia becomes a commercial proposition there arises a problem of clothes for the trip. It is not so easy as might be imagined. In 10 hours one may change from the dull October weather of England to the damp float of Bagdad. This involves a change of temperature of perhaps 70 degrees. Moreover, until Europe is passed the weather does not become warmer but colder. The change is therefore very abrupt. Passengers who set out in heavy overcoats and thick winter woollies would be flinging them off in a vain effort to keep cool. The problem moreover arises as to what to-, do with one’s winter woollies because for the rest of the trip to Australia they will merely be dead weight and unwanted. The humid heat of Burma calls for special treatment and a sun helmet would be essential. One must therefore dress so as to be able to endure intense cold and tropical heat ■within a couple of days. Obviously what one wants is some special type of clothing that can be removed without undressing. It would never do to have the passengers in a large mail-plane so busy trying to undress that they had not time to look round.

If it be .correct, as Lord Bledisloe stated the other day, that pickled rosebuds are coming into fashion as a food delicacy in Britain there would appear to have been a reversion to the middle ages. Among the flowers formerly used in England as food must be included not only rose-petals but violets, primroses, daffodils and daisies. Great care was always taken to pick only the petals of violets, because the seed pod c.ontains poisons. In Stuart days the petals of nasturtiums were also pickled as well as elderberry petals. The recipe consisted of vinegar into which the petals with their own weight of sugar were placed. A knowledge of plants is required before making use of them for food purposes. The daffodil, for example, is apt to act as a powerful emetic if picked at the wrong time. Indeed there is only an inch or two separating the poisonous leaf of the rhubarb plant from its edible stem. To this day flowers are still eaten in many countries.' The Indians make bread from the phogalli flower, and eat the blossoms of the butter tree. The Chinese make a candy out of jasmine. Water lilies are used as food by the Turks and Kenya natives, as well as by the Chinese and Japanese. In France dandelion salad is considered a delicacy to this day.

Even thistles have been used as food by others than donkeys. Indeed at one time the thistle was considered quite a delicacy in the North of England and in Scotland. Cardoons used to be boiled and eaten as green artichokes are eaten to-day. Moreover, the stalks stripped of their rind were boiled and eaten cold. In some countries thistles are still cultivated as a food. They are grown in trenches like celery and banked up in the autumn to blanch the stalks. For some reason we only eat watercress as a salad. In France" it is made into a delicious soup. Moreover the young shoots of the common nettle, mercifully rare in New Zealand, are also used as a soup in some of the country districts in France. The Japanese appear to be as clever with the selection of curious vegetable dishes as the French. A dish concocted of dahlia bulbs, peeled aud fried in oil, is a great delicacy. Bamboo sprouts are considered so nice that they may now be obtained tinned or preserved in some other way. Edible seaweed, candied chrysanthemums, and mimosa blossom also appear on menus. It would appear that we allow all manner of weeds to run to waste. Perhaps something might be done with ragwort. * '» ' » Be then not mute, lest, like the fabled swan, Thy first, note lie the last. If for nought else, sing for the joys to come, And sorrow past. —Phyllis Hartnails