WHO INVENTED LAMINGTONS?"Those bloody poofy woolly biscuits."
"The world-famous Australian Lamington turned 100 years on 19 December 2001," says a story on (of all unlikely places) the Ipswich (Queensland) City Council's website. "The national icon, consisting of sponge cake dipped in chocolate and liberally sprinkled with fine desiccated coconut, was created through an accident at work by a maid servant to Lord Lamington. "The nervous maid servant was working at Government House in Brisbane when she accidentally dropped the Governor's favourite sponge cake into some chocolate. Lord Lamington was not a person of wasteful habits and suggested that it be dipped in coconut so as to cover the chocolate to avoid messy fingers. "The maid servant's error was proclaimed a magnificent success by all! And so the humble lamington was born!" That's a good story, but sadly that's probably all it is - a story. Here's another version: John Hepworth (1921-1995) journalist, playwright and poet was for many years editor of the Nation Review, which he helped establish. In its July 1977 issue, he records this incident as having occurred at a glittering banquet in the outback town of Cloncurry (Queensland): An irascible diner seized a piece of spongecake which had dropped into a dish of brown gravy and hurled it over his shoulder in a fairly grumpy manner. The soggy piece of cake landed in a dish of shredded coconut which was standing on the sideboard waiting for the service of an Indian curry. Quoting that extract from Hepworth's article, Frederick Ludowyk, editor of the Australian National University's Ozwords, (who modestly signs his article with his initials, F.L.) added: "The village of Lamington in Scotland may be a false eponym, but [in England] there is Leamington (Spa) in Warwickshire, and Lemmington in Northumberland. It is just possible that the lamington has its origin in a British place name. Do any readers have an ancient English recipe book which includes a recipe for a lemmington (or leamington) cake?". Some Scots claim that a sheep shearer's wife in the village of Lamington made the cake for a group of itinerant shearers. We decided to Ask Jeeves about Lamington, Scotland, and found that it's a village in Lanarkshire on the left bank of the Clyde, 37 miles south of Edinburgh. Alexander Dundas Ross Cochrane Baillie was Conservative member for Bridport, Lanarkshire, Honiton, and the Isle of Wight at various periods from 1846 to 1880, when he became the first Baron Lamington. He held 10,833 acres in the shire. "His mansion, Lamington House, finely-seated on the hill-slope a little E of the village, is a modern Elizabethan edifice, with pleasant grounds." As for New Zealand, many Kiwis firmly believe they invented not only lamingtons, but also that other famous Oz delicacy, the pavlova.
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