Cooking

Hints On Islands

all know what good cooking is—or ** ought to. Having been on the bachelor list of a matrimonial bureau for 20 years past, this writer knows what good cooking isn’t. Some of the things we haven’t learnt would fill lots of cook ery books. 4 If you have done a day’s march into the jungle, and suddenly remember that you left the tin-opener hanging on the top shelf, near the sink, you immediately become distressed. However, it can be done without.

Take the bottle firmly in one hand, hold it hard against the tucker box and hit down. But, of course, we were speaking of cooking.

Place the tin on a stone. Grasp another stone firmly in both hands. Lift it above the head and throw down. If, after an hour or so of this, the tin doesn’t burst, you, will, but it is good exercise, and will probably bring on a bout of fever.

Lift the tin up and throw it at the nearest tree. If a tree isn’t handy, the cook-boy is just as good, providing it strikes him on the head. Then jump on it, and finally get a tomahawk and chop it open.

Bread is another problem. Get a tin hops and make the yeast. Ask your neighbour how to do that—it’s too ad vanced for us. When the yeast is made, mix it with flour and stand over-night— I mean the flour to stand.

In the morning knead it. Let it rise and knead it again. Put in tins and bake. Throw this lot away and say nothing.

Then start again and knead it more this time. Within about a week you will need it so much that you will get the baking powder and make a damper. How many of us have baked a damper in the ashes of our own bread!

I don’t think we bachelors are a suc cess as cooks. I’ve never met any flour millers they may have a different version.—L.H.W.

Madamoiselle Elizabeth Allequier, of Noumea, arrived in Sydney from Nevr Caledonia on her way to France by the Maetsuycker on May 18. She is the daughter of the late Professor Allequier, who was headmaster at the High School at Noumea.