THE FIRST MERINGUES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 898, 15 February 1930, Page 31

THE FIRST MERINGUES

In the outskirts of a village in Central Africa there once lived a little black boy named Mungo. One day his mammy sent him to buy some eggs and sugar from Chunda, an old black woman who kept a little shop. And off she packed him with a big straw basket. Well, Mungo bought the eggs and sugar and was walking home when he saw a little monkey swinging on a tree near by, and making laces at him. That was too much! Quite forgetting that his basket contained eggs, Mungo started running after him, but the monkey swung himself from bianch to branch, and tree to tree, easily keeping out of Mungo’s reach. Finally he climbed to the top of a tall palm and threw down coconuts on Mungo’s, head! Bump! Bang! Then Mungo suddenly remembered his basket and turned to run out of the way, but alas! when he looked at the eggs he found that his running had already broken every one. The yolks had flopped out of the basket somehow or other, and only the whites remained. and they were all mixed up with the sugar! “Oh*, dear.” sobbed Mungo, and. paying no more heed to the mocking monkey, he went home to tell his mammy. “Great snakes, Mungo!” said his mammy, when she saw the basket. “What’s dis?” And there in the bottom lay a lot of little white heaps. At last he and his mammy plucked up courage and tasted them. Oh, they were good—those whites of eggs and sugar cooked by old man Sun —and that is how the first meringues were made!