MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Thumbs Up for Falklands Food.

Falklands food, the Islands' healthy agriculture and the Shackleton Scholarship Fund have enjoyed positive publicity in Britain from a visit by the journalist and culinary expert, Frances Bissell.

In a two- page article in the Independent on Sunday (circulation: about 250,000), she says the two-thousand Islanders have the "the healthiest beef cattle on British Soil" and "the cleanest, greenest, home-produced food in the world. No salmonella in the domestic or wild fowl population. No BSE. No foot- and- mouth disease. Cattle range freely across the open countryside ... until they are five or six years old, at which point they produce beautifully flavoured mature beef".

She laments that until the EU-approved abattoir opens in July, the 2,000 service personnel based at Mount Pleasant , are not allowed local meat but must have it supplied by the Ministry of Defence, much of it originally from Brazil and Uruguay , which goes to Britain and back down the South Atlantic again. "This is well travelled beef!", in what she calls "bureaucracy gone mad".

Frances Bissell, who travelled to the Falklands on a Shackleton Scholarship Fund (SSF) award and was sponsored by the Governor's wife, Lynda Lamont, a member of the SSF Stanley Committee, says she went "to investigate the food available locally, wild and domestic, horticultural and piscatorial; and, by workshops and cookery demonstrations, to bring new ideas and recipes to the culinary repertoire".

The article is well illustrated with several photographs of Falklands life,In West Falkland, the journalist was impressed at Port Howard Settlement by the well-stocked larder of "Carrot and Jackie", who make meringues from penguins' eggs and fry gulls' eggs. Their chickens, she says, produce "the best eggs I have ever tasted".

But high Falklands internal freight costs and cheap Chilean imports have thwarted young farming couples such as Robin and Heather Harp who are selling up and settling in Stanley.

Enhancing Quality of Life

There is high praise for Hattie Lee, described as "station manager, baggage handler, post mistress and fire chief", as well as manager of Port Howard Tourist Lodge. The article says her husband, Robin Lee, who died last year, "would be proud of her. She runs a wonderful place. A glorious kitchen turns out delicious soups from home-grown vegetables, Upland goose liver pate, smoked mullet pate, goose pie, fried smelts, stuffe