BROTH FROM GIANT POT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 242, 13 October 1931, Page 5

BROTH FROM GIANT POT

FIVE HUNDRED GALLONS. TWO AND A-HALF TONS. Five hundred gallons of broth from a giant cauldron weighing over a ton was served* steaming hot at Baildon, Braddon, near Bradford on a recent Saturday. The occasion was a monster gipsy party, and thousands of visitors tasted the mysteries of the cauldron, which has a holding capacity of 2J tons of liquid. The broth contained, among other ingredients:—soolb. of meat, 9001 b. of carrots, 6001 b. of peas, 561 b. of onions, a number of chickens, and a quantity of herbs, spices and condiments. The cooking occupied 12 hours, the preparation of the ingredients was begun on Thursday night, when an army of workers started to cut up the vegetables, and the butchers of the township were busy with the meat and the dressing of the fowls.

The soup was ladled out in pint pots and sold for a small charge. The yearly gipsy party was revived in 1929, after a lapse of 34 years, and 60,000 people attended. A record sum was raised for local hospitals. Originally Romany tribes met on Baildon Moor for an annual festival. Imcal people kept up the custom, dressing in picturesque costumes. At an “ encaninment” on the edge of the Yorkshire moors on the recent occasion the gipsy king and queen were installed, and the gipsy prince and princess wore “married’’ in Romany style over the fire-tongs. Baildon has so many pretty girls that the choosing of a gipsy queen became difficult. Mrs. Fred Clegg was selected for the honour.