A JAPANESE LUNCHEON.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 35, 12 February 1915, Page 5

A JAPANESE LUNCHEON.

The Sydney "Sun" gives an account of a Japanese luncheon given by Mine. Shimizu,. wife of the Sydney Consul-General. A tray is set hefore each guest, and in the centre stands a mirror, with a glass howl of white iris. Nothing else breaks the simplicity of the white cloth. But after opening a long envelope, whigh betrays nothing hut a pair of chopsticks, the writer says:—"You wish to retract that sweeping mental comment on the extravagant appointment of a. European luncheon party." The writer continues: "You have an ambition to eat something, but what? On the tray is a collection of dishes (the largest about the size of a bread and butter plate), and painted china bowls, the lids of which, when turnojd upside down, with the knobs as feet, form fresh bowls. One plate bears a preserved apricot, two y-hostm'is, a little piece of fried fisli, and in omelette made like a Victoria roll, with whitebait where the jam would be, Glancing round, you find that under madame's guidance the guests are dipping from dish to dish, and c<casionally drinking clear soup from little bowls placed at the left side of the trays. The bowl is raised with the left hand, since the right, with its chopsticks, must keep back from the mouth small 'pieces of meat ihat float about the soup. Soon you are tasting here and there, perhaps not as daintily as Madame does, but with a fine abandon and a facile assumption of ness. There are tiny meat rissoles served with peas and preserved bamboo at this strange luncheon, crab and tomato sauce, fried fish, prawns in batter, thick soup that contains macaroni, peas, whitebait, preserved bamboo and umishfooms, and, of course, rice, which the writer says should first bo eaten with.chopsticks "privately." "When you have done all these'things, besides having, regardless of up-bring-ing, waved a single pea between your chopsticks <and squeaked with triumph at the guest opposite, you are invited to help yourself from a small dish in the middle of the table. You take only a mouthful and pour over it something that resembles Worcester sauce, and is called shoyu. It is cabbage that, after being in pickle for three or four days, has been cut into shreds, and the condiment that you poured upon it is really the foundation of Worcester sauce, and is shipped in large quantities from Japan to Britain every year. The' dish serves instead of olives, and is certainly as cleansing and piquant to the taste." The trays are removed after this and replaced by bowls of green tea, unspoiled by milk or sugar, and then come strawberries and cream and delicious prune jelly. The writer does not say if these are also eaten with chopsticks, but presumably they are, and as these are held one between the thumb and first finger, penwise, and the other along the first and second fingers, the operation must be fraught with much uncertainty for the novice at dining with shopsticks.