EATING AN ANCIENT FARE

Hokitika Guardian, 22 August 1931, Page 3

EATING AN ANCIENT FARE

BREAD THREE THOUSAND YEARS OLD. APPLES FROM POMPEII’S RUINS. A wedding cake 64 years old, that has outlived by many years the bride for whom it was made, is to find a resting place in the State. Museum of Missouri. That is probably tlie best place for it, yet it might have been eaten with relish if an American precedent of* some years ago had been followed. At a golden wedding banquet- at Hollywood, a cake 50 years old was eaten and enjoyed by a company that included the couple for whose marriage it was prepared. The record in the eating of ancient fare is probably held by the Brussels antiquary who, some years before tlie war, invited several of his colleagues to a remark-able feast. The bread at this banquet was made from wheat found in one of the Pyramids and believed to be 3000 years old. It was spread with butter made in tlie reign of Queen Elizabeth—at least so it is said in the Manchester Guardian. The wine served was centuries old, and bad been recovered from a vault in Corinth. Included in the bill of fare, too, were apples that bad been found among the ruins of Pompeii. Some members of tlie Zoological Society of Ireland once bad tlie temerity to sample eggs that had been brought from China 50 years previously, and were found to be quite good and of a delicate flavour—in parts. There is the instance, too, of the mem. hers of the Leeds Municipal Museum who ate with satisfaction a quantity of tinned food that had been taken out by Sir John Franklin on bis first expedition in 1845 in search of the North-west Passage, and recovered by one of the unsuccessful rescue parties.