A PICTURESQUE DINNER.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

A PICTURESQUE DINNER.

CHRISTMAS IN HIMALAYAS. Perhaps the most remarkable and picturesque Christmas dinner in the world is a native dinner of which 'the writer partook last year at a hill-station in the Himalayas. The dinner-table, decorated with mistletoe, evergreens and Cape gooseberries, laden with fruit; Christmas crackers and a huge white cake, and lighted by eight small lamps with crimson shades, was pushed into one half of the room.

On the floor of the other half was spread a large white cloth, also decorated with mistletoe; but in the centre the servants had placed a huge pot, in which a broad-leafed palm was growing. Inside the rim of the pot they had arranged fairy lamps, and round the cloth were placed eight large brass plates which the native guests had brought with them. The four servants standing inside received us with preternaturally grave faces, which expanded into broad smiles of welcome to the Indian guests. Down we all sat, and solemnly a servant walked round, presenting to each of us in turn a silver basin, over which we held our hands, while a second servant poured over them scented water from a silver jug. We wiped our hands, but the native guests used their wet hands as spoons, for they ate without either spoons or forks. Directly after the soup was served came a gigantic platter of rice, the principal dish of bhe evening, and with this were handed round no fewer than seventeen different curries, of every one of which we had to partake, about a teaspoonful being a helping. This disposed of, a dish of rice cooked with .almonds and coloured yellow with saffron followed. ...