House ?
pp. 42-43 · Read in the full issue
Did We Use the Wrong Fork at Government House ?
MY vivacious neighbour, at a Govern ment House dinner, in Suva, was keeping my wits busy, and I auto matically helped myself from the dish presented by the deft Indian steward.
I turned a preoccupied eye upon the food. It was the second course. “Steak, doodled up in some way—obviously an entree”, I thought; picked up a plain knife and fork; and hurried back to meet the lady’s latest sally.
Apparently, she had been watching me.
She also took a heavy knife and fork and carried on.
Then, in mid-air, she stopped, in frozen horror “°h, God!” she whispered.
It’s fish! Look at H.E.!”
Sir Harry Luke, most charming but most punctilious of hosts—his dinners are renowned for the manner in which traditional British ceremony and decorum are observed—was blandly eating the strange dish with a fish-fork and knife, and those near him were doing the same.
I glared around. Thank heaven, we were not alone! Others, further down the gracious board, were confusedly dropping heavy cutlery, and reaching for the im plements with which etiquette demands that fish be eaten.
“But what is it, anyway?” I said. A menu lay near us—and this is what we read;—
Whale steak! ‘‘Well, how would anyone guess that this is fish?” asked the lady, defensively.
I looked suspiciously at the Governor.
He was talking seriously; but I am con vinced that he missed nothing of his guests’ amusing reactions to what was— as he told me afterwards—“the first whale steak ever to appear on a Govern ment House menu”. rE story of how he had acquired the whale steak also was amusing. He recently had been in Tonga. There was excitement in Nukualofa when it became known that a whale had been killed —the Tongans are exceedingly fond of whale meat.
Sir Harry was interested, and went out, some distance along the beach, to see the ceremony of cutting up and dis tributing the whale.
Someone suggested that he “might like to try whale-steak”, and His Excellency thought so, too. He was returning to Suva immediately by plane, so a package of whale-meat was added to his luggage.
Back in Fiji, His Excellency learned, to his chagrin, that the whale-steak was missing. He added the dismal information to a radio message he was sending to Nukualofa.
Nukualofa was angry. High officials and police went out on the war-path.
It was discovered that the package had been entrusted to a Tongan lorry-driver who loved whale-steak more than he loved liberty. So he had “pinched” the Governor’s package.
Nukualofa put the lorry-driver in gaol, and radio’d apologies to H.E.
There was a sequel. As a fast ship was about to depart for Suva, Nukualofa caught another whale; and so one of the choicest cuts was sent, in the freezer, to the Governor, to replace that which had betrayed the lorry-driver.
It arrived in time to become the fish course at the Governor’s dinner-party.
Whale-steak, as prepared by Sir Harry Luke’s chef, is most toothsome—nicely flavoured, and a good food.
But defying English punctiliousness and with great respect to H.E.—I still maintain that whale-meat is not fish.
In fact, I think His Excellency pulled
our legs.