FRUIT SALAD IN TUBS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20650, 23 August 1930, Page 4 (Supplement)

FRUIT SALAD IN TUBS.

Every boy and girl likes fruit salad, and I think this description of how they servo it in tho Islands will maJce you ail long to pay a visit there when the hot summer weather sets in! Tho description is from a letter written by tho British Resident Officer at Aitutaki, Cook Islands, to Miss Hasten, of the Mayoress* War Memorial Library Committee, which keeps theso lonely outposts supplied with literature. After thanking the committee for fine supply of copies of the Auckland Weekly News, the writer says: "I would like to tell you about a cricket match I attended the other day, and about tho wonderful fruit salad we bad. Tho day was a real scorcher, and tho unfortunate fieldsmen and batsmen sweltered in the tropical sun. Tho ground was ideally situated. Coconut palms waved their long fronds, the orange trees wero laden with fruit, and bunches of ripe bananas hung from the banana trees —in fact, the cricket ground was a clearing in a great tropical orchard, where tho beautiful trees have to bo cut and burned. ' What a loss, in our eyes, but to them it is just ' tho bush.'

"The sun was pitiless, and all spectators moved nioro deeply into the shade of the coconut trees. Then came the fruit salad, but not yet made, so mouths can water whiio I tell of tho making! First came five boys with five tubs, and great baskets tilled with hundreds of big yellow oranges, then came tho banana carriers with huge bundles of long golden bananas, sweet as honey, and following these came a dozen men carrying coconuts and scrapers. First, the juice of tho oranges was squeezed into the tubs, while the bananas were squeezed through the fingers into a pulp, and dropped into the orange juice. " Men split the coconuts in two, the milk was spilled out, and the thick white kernel scraped. This pulp was put into a strong cloth and wrung out, as a washerwoman twists blankets. Out came a thick, rich coconut cream. Bucketfuls of this were made, and poured on to the bananas and orange juice, the wh&le of which was stirred vigorously, and looked most inviting. Polished coconut shells were used as bowls. " (Soon the umpire called 'spell-oh!" and all players made a rush for the tubs. Poor chaps f They did not eat, but just drank bowl after bowl of tho delicious fruit juice. I had a bowlful too; it was splendid stuff, the best of oranges, coconut cream and fresh ripe bananas straight off the trees. Sometimes mangoes, pineapples and guavas are also scraped in, and I can tell you, it beats all your strawberries and cream!"