MURDER OF VEGETABLES

Evening Star, Issue 22989, 21 June 1938, Page 12

MURDER OF VEGETABLES

PRAISE FOR NEW ZEALAND LETTUCES “ More vegetables are murdered than any other food,” said the Dowager Lady Sway tilling, presiding at “an early market produce” luncheon of the Wine and Food Society, in cooperation with the British Growers’ Council, in London, says the ‘ Manchester Guardian.” What was wrong with the English table was that we were too familiar with a few vegetables and content with that, and in this relation she told the story of an old lady who was ill and had to be in a dark room, and she had asked for the vicar to visit her.. Instead the doctor was shown in, and when he had gone she asked her daughter who the visitor was. The daughter told her that it was not the vicar but the doctor. The old lady said: “ 1 thought he couldn’t be the vicar; I thought he was rather too familiar.” People here with vegetable gardens were too fond of waiting until the vegetables were big before cutting them. She had lately been a voyage to New Zealand, and had interesting things to say_ about her adventures in food. She arrived at Southampton with a big basket of mushrooms she had bought on the way, having seen them in a field, and they were highly appreciated in the ship. In New Zealand she had tasted the best lettuces she had known, but had some hard things to say about the cooking of peas there. The vegetables she had in a Dutch liner were in more variety than she had tasted anywhere, and the chef had produced three _ different salad dressings. She had high praise for the English growers of vegetables, some of whom deserved to have their names on their baskets held in as much honour as the great names on wine. The luncheon consisted entirely of home-grown vegetables, not forced for the market, fish, and an exquisite rhubarb fool. The hors d’oeuvrea had flowerlets of broccoli, the soup was cabbage (it was interesting to see the furtive way these connoisseurs put salt in it), then sole, the mushrooms and seakale with its natural bitterness toned down by grated cheese, and small vegetable marrows filled with a mixture of mushrooms and fine herbs. Rhubarb fool followed, and cheese with cos lettuce and watercress. It was an interesting and satisfying luncheon, exactly cooked, and as it was Lent only one wine was served, a light, agreeable Alsatian white wine from the Riesling grape with a bouquet which most people thought delightful.