The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-07-10 00:00:00

CHEAP MEAT.

Mr. B. Carton Booth, of West-hill, Wandsworth, has sent
the following letter to The Innes for publication :
During the last twelve mouths a series of experi.
ments have been made for the purpose of inducing a
demand for salted Australian meat, and with what I
conceive to be a perfectly successful result.
Will you kindly allow me space in The Times for the
purpose of telling the particulars of some of these ex-
periments!
I shall take the last first. A few days ago I was
invited to meet about sixty gentlemen at a lunch to be
given on board the Royal Dane, a ship that has since
sailed for Queensland, having on board four hundred
emigrants. The lunch was prepared by the ship's
cook, an African, of the true cooking quality, and the
dishes were composed entirely of Australian salt mut-
ton, rice, potatoes, and bread. The bill of fare com-
prised four courses—there was not one word of French
in it; the cook's name was Joe, and the chances are
he had never heard of either Ude or Francatelli. The
company lunched most heartily, and enjoyed them-
selves nevertheless. The bill of fare was a novelty,
and I should like to see it in print. It consisted of--
1, soups, gravy, doughnut, and pea' 2, meat and po-
tato pie, meat and rice pudding, and haricot mutton;
3, rolled mutton pudding, meat collope, and minced
collops ; 4, sausages, sausage rolls, and curry and
rice.
All of these dishes were palatable and pleasant, and
were as nutritive and wholesome as good mutton, po-
tatoes and rice could make them. The cost (wine not
included) was 41 per bead.
6ince the lunch on board the Royal Dane, I have
made it my business to visit the Australian Meat
Agency in Norton-folgate— the manager of which, Mr.
I). Tallman, was the caterer on the occasion—and
have found meat cheapening experiments carried on
there every day. The agency is divided into two de.
partmente, the one dealing in the raw, and the other in
the cooked material. In the former, mutton without
bone is dit.potted of in quantities of from one pound to
several tons to customers, including several classes,
the authozities administering the affairs of the Royal
Navy being the highest, at an average price of Id. per
lb.
It was a long time before the people living about
Norton-folgate could be taught how to make the best
of Australian meat, and in order to keep the know-
ledge always before them, cooked dinners at the rate
of about 1,000 a day are sold at ld. each The dinners
consist of Irish stew or soup, with bread. The hot
weather of the last few days has brought sausage rolls
slightly into favour, and the demand for them, always
at 1,1 each, i increasing.
Another of these experiments have been made in
connection with the ragged schools in the neighbour-
hood; to the children attending which these dinners
have been provided at a cost of 7e. 6d, per hundred.
That experiment may be voted perfectly successful, as
may a dinner given to several hundred workmen,
whose wives, having undertaken the cooking, prepared
a capital dinner of Australian meats, at a cost of 31
per head.
All these efforts have been made, and experiments
tried, with the view of proving the whalesomenese and
economy of Australian meats, and inducing a liking
for them. The success of the experiments was testified
very significantly at a meeting held at Stepney a few
evenings ago, when several hundred wuklueople re.
corded their resolution to eat no other Oka o Australian
meat until the prices of the ordinary ”utchers were
very much reduced.
With the sunshine of these bright .1 lays around
us, it may appear like croaking to ru ccl people of the
want and suffering that will just as surely return next
winter as they have for so many winters past. Penny
dinners are vulgar things, but they would assuage a
good deal of suffering. However this may be, it has
been decided to extend the operations of an Australian
meat agency, so as to secure a supply somewhat ade-
quate to the growing demand; and it is for the pur-
pose of drawing attention to so effective a means of
cheapening meat, and of feeding people who would
otherwise go aided, that I venture to trouble you.