Tahiti Restored

The Lost Art of Cooking

By A. C. Rowland

WITH the exception of that residence section lately transformed by Sino- Teutonic-Celtic industry into a shrieking slum, Papeete has recovered some of its quiet and picturesque aspect of former days.

The waterfront no longer resembles the stockyard district of Kansas City—as it did when pigs were hurled from inter island schooners and from around-the island lorries, in masses of squealing confusion upon the quay. To-day, when pork is doled out with the same scrupu lous economy as is caviar at a cover charge Hollywood honky-tonk, pigs are cherished like peacocks.

Reduced supplies of petrol have eli minated the endless procession of empty lorries bound on no other errand than to permit the driver and attendants to “take the air.” People who have not walked for years are re-leaming the use of their legs and are discovering anew that the countryside is composed of objects of sur passing beauty, instead of being a smudgy blur—as they hitherto have viewed it through the port-holes of a speeding hearse-like box.

Aching and congested livers are becom ing less troublesome; with a consequent improvement in the social qualities of their owners.

An eminent French doctor-of-medicine once told us. quite seriously, that were he autocrat of the Islands he would—in the interest of public health—follow the precedent of the Bermuda Islands, by excluding motor cars. In addition, he said, he would confiscate every frying pan in the colony, pack them 50 miles out to sea, and jettison the lot into 3,000 fathoms of water. Then, and only then, could he hope to restore the people of the Islands to some measure of good health.

The Centenary of the Introduction of the Frying-pan into the Islands should be observed as a day of mourning, with the tolling of bells. The ancient ahimaa (the native oven), whence came well cooked food that was tasty and whole some, has been cast into oblivion by the rrying-pan.

An heraldic coat-of-arms for the Islands would, very properly, exhibit: The crest, a frying-pan. Rampant; the shield, bearing these several devices: a 5 lb. tin of beef, Gules; a fried fish, Azure; a pork chop, Or; an onion, Vert; adorning the four quarters around a central device of a tin of beef dripping, Argent. A translation of the motto, “Tei roto te mate i te pani,” may be found in Second

Kings IV.. 40, just before the final sen tence. (“There is death in the pot.”) We do not know the heraldic symbol for Blatta-flavoured rum, which is, therefore, omitted from its proper place in this grisly confection.

There are, nevertheless, manv things good to eat and a few people who know how to cook them. So there is some health in us.