NOT ENOUGH COOKS

Stratford Evening Post, Volume IV, Issue 224, 2 September 1936, Page 3

NOT ENOUGH COOKS

NEW ZEALAND’S TROUBLE GOOD FOOD SPOILT. | “ 1 Mayor 01 Wellington Is .:: zz ~, PLUNKET MEETING. 1 Wellington, To-clay. Can New Zealand women cook? The Mayor of Wellington, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, rather thinks they can't. And what is more, he said so at an assembly mainly of women—the annual meeting,of the Wellington branch of the Plunket Society—the other day. “How many of you ladies sitting her© can put your hand on a woman who can cook?” he challenged, and hastily added, “Other than yourselves.'’ The audience exchanged glances when the Mayor pressed on with the remark, “The amount of good food ruined by bad cooking is shocking.” Mr. Hislop said his observations might not be popular, but they were true. He supposed he would get into trouble for such an opinion. If the society desired to enlarge its activities, why not teach the women of New Zealand how to cook properly? In defence of his own household, the Mayor said he was not speaking as one who had suffered through bad cooking. The cooking in most New Zealand hotels was also appalling, he added. Another, of Mr. Hislop’s dicta was that cooking was a lost art in this country. It was a deplorable thing | that so much of the vast abundance of | natural foods available to New Zea- i landers was misused by our cooks. | We ate far too much “tinned stuff.” New Zealand, by - comparison with some European countries, was a para- i dise of food resources, but our women | did not know how to cook. i

Mr. Hislop, to give further point to the culinary shortcomings of New Zealand housewives, mentioned that he had partaken of delightful dishes prepared from the simplest raw foods at a German farmhouse.

The Mayor was moved to make his utterances from a previous address by Dr. Martin Tweed, medical adviser to the Plunket Society of New Zealand.

Too Many Lollies,

The doctor deplored that last year, the per capita consumption of sugar in ..Now Zealand amounted to 90 ' pounds as against 15 pounds in Sweden. Was there any wonder, he asked, that once the Plunket Society had' reared bonnie babies they became decayed in the teeth and deformed in’ the jaws through eating too many lollies bought at sweet shops that had sprung up at the school gates? White dour and an insufficiency of fruit and vegetables were other causes of defects in growing children. The price of white flour and sugar foods was so slow in New Zealand that 'bey' were within the reach ( of all, and yet the price of fish, milk, fruit, and vegetables, essential for perfect health, was appallingly high. New Zealand should eat more of the life'givjng food 3 and less of the purely | energy-giving’ foods. j , “Can the members of the Plunket J Society look each other in the face j With satisfaction and self-congratu- j latibn while ’ children with deformed jaws and decayed teeth walk about our streets with bags of lollies in their hands?” asked Dr. Tweed.

“Why,” he continued, “even some of our beautiful All Blacks—the pride of New Zealand —have been known to remove their artificial teeth before going'on to the football field!”