Ersatz Coconut Gandy

Jj/HAT to do with surplus sweet potatoes—the Australasian Con fectioner gives us this idea :— AMERICA’S wartime “ersatz” candy made from sweet potatoes is coming back into the news. For some un explained reason the US Bureau of Agri cultural Economics recently decided to have some coconut brittle made up from sweet potatoes and try it out on a cross section of the public. To the surprise of most of those involved in this seeming waste of energy, over 40 per cent, of the people on whom it was tried declared that they liked it better than regular coconut brittle. Moreover, the investi gators discovered, it “stood up” better to handling and storage.

Now they’re looking for some candy making firm to turn the stuff out on a commercial scale. One optimistic group assures the potential manufacturer that he’ll make a small fortune with it. That group, however, might be slightly pre judiced in its favour —they’re the sweet potato farmers of Alabama.

Mr. G. B. Milner, of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, was recently in Tonga to make recordings of the language for academic purposes. But he has brought back a fascinating selection of discs covering Tongan poetry, paddle songs, dance songs, and, of course, love songs. Some of these songs were heard in Australia on the ABC National Programme on December 10.