EMPIRE FOOD

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 111, 11 May 1923, Page 8

EMPIRE FOOD

A DISCOURSE ON DINNERS

SETTING THE FASHION.

(fROU OCX OITK COMItpOmiHT.)

LONDON, 20th February.

There was more than a personal and social interest attaching to a dinner given last" week in honour of Mr: Edward Salmon, editor of "United Empire." It was merely a party of what might be termed Empire journalists, entertaining one who had been engaged in such journalism for a third of a century.- Members of the Eoyal Colonial Institute are acquainted with Mr. Salmon through his writings in the institute's official organ, and they will be interested to hear that his London colleagues have seen fit to recognise his services to the Empire. Mr. Ben H. Morgan, chairman of the Council .of the British Empire Producers' Organsiation^ presided, and some forty representatives of-the Dominion Prees and •others were present.

It is not usual to mention the excellence of the food and the wine that is consumed at a public function, but a report of this special occasion demands an analysis of the menu, for it is the menu that is of greater public interest than the toasts and the speeches. The suggestion has come from more than one quarter lately, in view of the exhibition next year, that people should make an effort to have a meal at least once a week composed entirely of comestibles obtained strictly within the confines of the Empire. It was fitting, therefore, that at this gathering of Empire journalists at the British Empire Club the menu should be composed of Empire food. Australian green turtle soup was the opening course, which wag followed by a very delicate salmon from the waters of Newfoundland. Devonshire cream sauce and Kentish cucumber made it still more appetising. Saddle of New Zealand lamb wa3 the roast, and this was accompanied by mint sauce, Scotch kale and kuaierao. The sweet potatoen came from the "Wast Indies, and are not of very common use in England. Aa a sweet there was Australian passion frnit ice, and an essentially English savoury followed—English herring soft roes on toast. As dessert there were British Columbiar. apple 3. The wino wa3 from South Africa, and the cigarettes from Nyasaland.

In private conversation discussion took place concerning the possibility of each Dominion being able to provide a dinner. The owner of a weis-known monthly journal has the mater in hand, and it is posßible that a series of banquets will in due course be provided to sample the foods oJ the respective Dominions. Representative public men who control the space :r the great daily newspapers of London would, doubtless, be asked to attend, and this vyould be not the least of many good methods of proving that the Empire is self-supporting. No doubt each and e^ery Dominion could provide the food for a banquet, but some reciprocity ■would be needed in the matter of wines sad tobacco.