EVE AND PALATE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXII, 11 May 1912, Page 9

EVE AND PALATE.

EYE AND THE PALATE.

"We have to please the eye as well as the palate," said a cordial-maker while giving evidence before the Food Standards Commission in Sydney last week (says the Daily Telegraph). This was in allusion to the use of colouring matter, which he defended. One field of raspberries, for instance, might give a fine, bright color; while another, even in the same district, might be very much paler. But if cordials were made from the pale fruit, buyers accustomed to a deeper tint would at once reject it, believing it to be inferior, though the flavor might be quite as good as that of the first sample. Hence it was necessary to bestow color upon it. "Now, peppermint is white; but if you gave them cloves white, you wouldn't get a sale. I have, seen cloves pink in the Old Country; here they are brown." -■ Another witness gave the Commission an object lesson On this subject. He produced a number of samples of confectionery in solution, to show the quantity of coloring matter used in these preparations. One of the bottles was filled with an orange-tinted fluid, which the witness stated had been obtained from soaking a penny bun in water. In- another Tjottle about half a pint of ..red.fluid was. exhibited, which had resulted from two ounces of a certain sweetmeat, which might have been purchased by any child on the way to school. There was sufficient in this, he said, to color a quart or more of cordials. Naturally, n»<: thought it unfair that, whilst this was permitted in other tradesj cordial-makers should be 'subjected to the restrictions proposed;"1