“Fifty Not Out” Dinner
Date: Wednesday 6th March 2024
Venue: Edgbaston Golf Club
Menu designed & printed by Roger Hale
As well as honouring fifty years of membership, the evening paid homage to many of the most memorable dinners enjoyed by Roger during his time with the Club
Main course: Roast Saddle of Venison with Mushroom Cream Sauce, Dauphinoise Potatoes & Seasonal Vegetables (Image AM)
The evening’s running order… largely a work of fiction
Chairman’s Opening Speech
In the beginning was Buckland… William Buckland… famed theologian, dinosaur hunter and foodie but most important for us father of fellow Victorian eccentric, Frank, after whom our glorious Club was named. Both men actively set out to consume the weird and wonderful. Indeed, a recent BBC piece on Radio 4 about William was called The Man Who Tried to Eat Every Animal on Earth, while Richard Girling’s excellent book about naturalist Frank was titled The Man Who Ate the Zoo.
Move forward to 1952, with a country still enwrapped by the gastronomic stranglehold of rationing, and the Club was formed. The algorism attracted ‘fishermen, doctors and clubbable MEN of a literary bent’, however they also needed to be living or working in close proximity to Birmingham. Fast forward to the early Seventies and despite going from strength-to-strength natural deselection made the ever-pragmatic Harlan Walker voice the need for new blood amongst the membership.
A young whippersnapper, named Roger Hale, was identified and came to be one of the most inspired nominations for membership in the Club’s history. Roger has sponsored numerous tremendous dinners himself, while attracting a wealth of fascinating speakers to entertain and educate us. He has acted as Secretary, written minutes for dinners and contributed heavily to the website… his Marmite bread recipe still regularly attracts far more hits than any nonsense I’ve added. For many years he was our Chairman, a position that he refused to accept unless women members were accepted as the norm, rather than an occasional novelty, at dinners. In the Club’s 70+ year history I consider this to be, possibly, the most important achievement by any single member. He has contributed heavily to every dinner since becoming a committee member, and it is only his natural modesty that regularly plays down his own involvement. Once again, Roger’s impressive artistic talents have been put to good use in creating our menu card and there are plenty of examples around the room of his previous efforts.
I love spending time with Roger. He is always great company with a dry sense of humour that is never unkind. His knowledge of food and wine is phenomenal, and I always leave feeling that I know more than when I arrived. Although that is possibly a reflection on my own ignorance rather than his understanding. Roger is a true friend, so much so that I even forgave him when he decided to open a bottle of Dow’s Jubilee Port that I had entrusted in his care. For the record the Jubilee was Queen Victoria’s in 1887 and Roger informed me that the port tasted magnificent. I had to take his word on that.
I will briefly say a few words about Nina. On behalf of the Club thank you for allowing Roger to indulge himself so thoroughly in one of his many passions. Without your unwavering support of Roger, we would all be much poorer. I am really glad that so many of your family could join you both here.
Roger & Nina Hale (Image DT)
I am sure that tonight will live up to expectations, and for many surpass them. To those that are here as guests I would urge you to consider becoming a member – the Club will probably always need new faces. Hopefully you will leave this evening having enjoyed a splendidly different occasion, one that you will be keen to repeat. I suspect that for many of us the opportunity to dress up, mix with a range of fellow guests and sample unusual fare while being entertained and informed on a range of subjects is not a regular event. It is a tradition that is definitely worth continuing, and it happens because of the efforts of people like Roger. “Fifty Not Out” is an unbelievable achievement; Roger we can’t thank you enough for everything that you have done, and continue to do, for the Club.
AM
6th March 2024
“Fifty Not Out” – Roger Hale’s Speech
Good evening everyone and welcome to 50 not out. Not a TV game show nor anything to do with cricket. Just the number of years I have been a member of this extraordinary gastronomic society, as i call the Buckland Club.
It is also 10 years since Andrew Morris generously allowed me to retire as Chairman and become President, a title invented for the incomparable Harlan Walker, the remarkable gentleman who introduced me to the Buckland Club in the first place, 50 years ago. For President, read: ” Person without power or responsibilities”.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am to Andrew for enabling me to occupy that position for the past 10 years. As Chairman, he has brought to the Club, many new and promising ideas, has inspired and sponsored most imaginative and sometimes challenging dinners and has built a splendid website. This is already a first-class resource for anyone interested in the history and current state of the Club as well asthe channel of communication for the future.
The Pepys Dinner, Oct 1974 was my first introduction to what was at that time essentially an old gentlemen’s eccentric dining club. My perception changed when the sponsor, Prof. Robert Latham, told us: “To be authentic, we would probably have had cow’s udder, eaten at noon, wearing our hats, using no forks, putting sugar in our wine and having had no breakfast”
I felt I was entering a new world where eating was nourishment for the mind as well as the body. I was amongst people who lived to eat, not ate to live, even if their average age appeared to be around 80.
We have had triumphs and disasters and at least one event which combined both. I refer to the Desert Feast at Mass House, then the property of our member, Philip Hamilton.
The culinary triumph of barbequed goat, anointed with a small fortune in saffron, was paired with a meteorological disaster as the heavens opened, turning the event into a desert flood, some thought, in sympathy with Princess Diana who had perished in Paris earlier that day in August 1997. Prof Bryer, the Minutes Secretary, wrote: “It was a quintessentially absurd and truly authentic Buckland Summer Party. It was a great occasion. I think our best.”
Top of my list of triumphs is probably the Trans Siberian Railway Dinner of March 2013, sponsored by the food and travel writer Sharon Hudgins from Texas. A whole evening could be devoted to that single event but instead, you will find a replica of the menu on your table, just to give a flavour of the occasion.
We have dined on locusts, horsemeat, sea slug, bison, fiddle-head fern, barbequed goat, elvers from the river Wye, Ras-el-Hanout from Marrakesh and stuffed milkfish from Indonesia. We have drunk fermented asses milk, falooda, Singapore Gin Sling, and a vast range of wines and other beverages too numerous to mention -justifying the club’s motto “Semper in Ventrem Aliquid Novi” – Always something new in the stomach.
Speaking of flavours, I will say something about this evening’s menu after you have had a chance to taste more of it and David London, himself a long-standing member, will give you his side of the story.
Since the English language still has no equivalent phrase, I wish you all “Bon appetit!”
RH 1.3.24
Long time committee member, David London, reflected upon RH’s many decades of Buckland Club membership (Image DT)
John Smith says a few words about RH & the Club (Image DT)
Photographs from the Dinner
A Hale family affair (Image DT)
The dinner attracted a large number of guests of all ages (Image AM)
(Image DT)
(Image DT)
Vice Chair, Hazel Riggall (LHS), made the Ginger Parkin that was served with coffee (Image DT)
Committee member Catherine Borghoff appreciates the port (Image DT)