WITH THE UNATTACHED.

Otago Witness, Issue 2008, 18 August 1892, Page 38

WITH THE UNATTACHED.

BZ AKTEE MAHT.

1.-CULIXARI, FAILURES.

o,ne time when I was away in tha back country, I and another unfortunate were left to our own resources in the way of housekeeping. He didn't know much about cooking, so wisely kept to tea and bread and butter. My ambition looked higher, and when Sunday came round and he was starting ont for a stroll, I told bim I would stay and cook dinner. I said I would give him a treat. So I did. I had been under the impression I could make curry, and also that its preparation was easily effected. Rice, in my mind, is always associated with curry as its most natural accompaniment, so in it went into the pot along with mtat and potatoes and various other things. By and bye he returned, and we dished up my promised treat. It had a peculiar smc-11, which he drew my attention to. I said it was nothing ; all savoury dishes smelt queerly when being cooked. It would be all right on the table. The tea was then made, tho curry divided, and we started. Being more eag«r

than I, he started first. He didn't get beyond the first mouthful, but that seemed to give him a decisiveness of opinion that didn't appear to me to be necessary. Then, to show him everything was all right, I took my preliminary mouthful, and it gave me a bit of a surprise, I confess. It certainly had the taste of curry. Is could have stood at that, however. That wasn't what was wrong, it was a variety of other tastes that had got in with it. Then, when it was too late, it occurred to me that the utensil I had cooked it in had previously had bacon and eggs fried in it, and that it would have been better if I bad cleaned the pan out before starting the curry. It also occurred to me tbatthatgreenish-lookingcom-pound wasn't properly curried anything. My victim didn't make matters happier for me. His firßt question waa : " Is curry always that colour 1 "

11 No." •' Not green, then ? " " No, more like brown or yellow." " Then you've made a mess of it."

11 Yea," sadly. " Going to give me any more treats 1 " " Look here 1 " I exclaimed. " I did my best, and — "

" And a bad best at that," he interrupted. " Don't you think we'd better stick to boiling Ihe ' billy,' and bread and butter 7 You know you might kill both of us. I don't mind your experimenting on yourself, but for the sake of my wife don't put me out of the way just yet awhile."

I didn't do any more cooking that fortnight. I had lost faith in myself, and no one welcomed our cook back again more heartily than I did. It was my first experience of " batchiDg," and I never wanted any more. The fortnight it lasted seemed an age. But we learn by suffering, and I have learnt that cooking isn't my forte.

This experience reminds me of one happening to some five or six fellows away up north. It occurred on a Sunday, too. One of them had shot a swan during the week, and on this particular morning they had gone for a long walk, leaving the Jonah of the party to cook it. He didn't know much about the preparation for cooking a swan, though he knew that fowls were plucked, and it appeared to him he couldn't do better than do likewise in this case. Sd he started. He found after a while that he had taken out a pretty big contract, and although he worked hard he didn't seem to make much headway. At dinner time the others returned, and as they approached their shanty — which I may parenthetically remark was known among their friends and acquaintances as "the piggery" — they expressed surprise that no appetising odour of cooking game should tickle their palates. When they arrived and entered the house this is what they saw. Seated upon a cand'e box in the middle of the kitchen, with the partially plucked swan across his knees, and with feathers and (luff surrounding him everywhere, sat the Jonah, looking the picture of helplessness and misery.

"My gum 1 " he moaned on seeing them, " I've been at this bloomin' bird ever since you left, and blow me il ever I struck anything like this before."

Then this chorus began:— "You confounded idiot 1 Why didn't you skin it ? "

" • Oh, my prophetic soul, my uncle 1 ' You're a gem, you are."

"So you haven't got any dinner for us 7 That's sweet. You'd better hire yourself out as a 6how. You've only got to let people look at yon to make your fortune."

" Whoever beard of plucking a swan 1— You should have skinned it, you chump." " Well," he said, he had " never thought of that."

Then they gave him something else to think about, and they didn't trust him at home alone again, unless the cooking to be done was simplicity itself. Ho lost caste, and for a long time his culinary duties were confined to lighting the fire and washing potatoes.