Titanic menu tasting underway ahead of centenary event in Stoke-on-Trent
The committee tucking into the Titanic menu
By Abbie Whitehouse & Victoria Wilkins: Tasting sessions are underway for an event commemorating the sinking of the HMS Titanic and its Stoke-on-Trent born captain Edward Smith.
The three day festival, which is being planned by The Lord Mayor’s Office in Stoke-on-Trent and Titanic Brewery, will include a dinner showcasing Edwardian food from the ship’s original first class menu.
Catering company Jenkinsons are creating the meal and director Jon Collier admitted originality was key.
“Hotels and others have done the Titanic menu before but not like this – they always change it to suit them,” he said. “Ours is as close to the original menu as you can get.”
Five tasters, which included Titanic Brewery’s Malcolm Hawksworth, Stoke-on-Trent Council representative David Powell and filmmaker Ray Johnson MBE, were treated to the five-course menu on Wednesday (November 2) – a smaller take on the original ten courses.
The food on offer went under strict scrutiny to ensure perfection, keeping the offerings as true to the Titanic menu as possible.
Chocolate and vanilla eclairs, chocolate cup with french ice cream and peach and charteause jelly
The menu includes items such as fish mouselline, cream of barley soup, filet mignons lili and chocolate and vanilla eclairs.
Mr Hawksworth said he believed it was important to commemorate Captain Smith.
“Edward Smith was born in Stoke-on-Trent, came from very humble beginnings and is one of the most respected sea captains of his time.
“The meal we have tasted is inspired by what those who perished and survived the disaster would’ve eaten – we want people to walk away from the meal and be completely gobsmacked.”
Captain Smith was one of the 1,514 lives lost in the disaster and is said to have uttered the words “be British” before he sank with the ship.
Captain Smith’s Titanic Festival will run from April 13 to 15, 2012, starting with an informal Steerage Festival before culminating with the gala dinner and a final day of music and film screenings.
The festival will also play out the events of the Titanic as they happened on the same nights 100 years before.
At the moment the iceberg would have been spotted during the finely prepared meal, a bell will sound just as it did on the ship back on April 10, 1912.
Funds raised at the dinner will be shared between the Lord Mayor’s Charity Appeal and Titanic Brewery’s selected charity, the RNLI.
A short film to commemorate Captain Smith was also commissioned by Titanic Brewery which will also play a part in the centenary event.
Click below to see Matthew Payne’s interviews with some of those at the menu tasting event:
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