Sept 9 Fri St George's Society tours Caribbean Food Delights
The estimable St George's Society of New York gathered its staff. committee members and grantees into three charabancs at 9.15 am this sunny Friday morning and sped out to the remarkable premises of Caribbean Food Delights, a factory with a remarkable array of huge, beautifully designed and brand spanking clean machinery to make Jamaican meat patties and similar delicacies owned by the remarkable Vincent Hosang, a Chinese Jamaican businessman whose curried chicken, spicy beef. spinach and cheese, and vegetable patties so enrich his coffers as well as the palates of his many satisfied customers that he has also become renowned for his financial benevolence in education, which earned him the First Commonwealth Award from St George's Society last December, handed to him by none other than the witty patron of St Georges, his Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, KG, GCVO, in a ceremony at the Metropolitan Club.
Among the thirty or so visitors were notables including the very tall and elegant John Shannon, 56, who after a worldwide schooling and the Lycee Francaise in Manhattan, and studying history at Trinity College in Hartford, left a banking career for non profit and became the Executive Director and Almoner of St Georges, one of the oldest charitable organizations in New York (it was founded in 1770 to rescue British citizens who had fallen on hard times in America); the almost as tall Mary Lamasney, Manton social worker at St Georges and a Columbia and Wurzweiler graduate who joined two years ago after nearly two decades in the field; and Moya Keys, retired crack corporate environmental lawyer and St George's committee member renowned for her realism.
In the same bus was Sir Ellsworth George Stanton III, MBE, Knight of St John, a graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the Philippines (where he played bass in the Manila Symphony after World War II), and the Executive Director Emeritus of the James N. Jarvie Commonweal Service, a charitable trust of the Presbyterian Church which rescues the elderly in the Greater New York area. Sir Ellsworth is an elder of the Presbyterian Church and a member of the Brick Church where he is Clerk of Session and sings in the Chancel Choir, after studying voice with the late Herbert Janssen of the Metropolitan Opera, and his support and participation in music and the arts is so wide (patron of the Metropolitan Opera Association, the New York Philharmonic Society, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and board of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, as well as many other positions including heading the Beneficiary Committee of St Georges) that he was recently knighted by the Queen.
Also present and correct were the elegant Missie Gibbs, chairman of the St Georges board, cheerful Robert Titley, Vice-President of St Georges and the Communications Director for VisitBritain/British Tourist Authority who has now formed his own travel marketing consultancy, whose very good idea the trip was, with his wife Patricia, past President of St Georges the very tall Victor Stewart, with his wife Carol, and the current President of St Georges, John Harvey; Steve DePass resplendent in a white suit, with Jacqueline, Steve and Shirley Hewitt, and many others benefiting from the company of so many others of British heritage and tradition, and all demonstrating the engaging individuality and strong character which seems to be a common thread of that national culture.
Certainly a prime example of that robust charm was Vincent HoSang, the host who seems to view escorting groups around his pristine factory as one of the high points of his own day. Wrapping all present in blue paper overcoats and shower caps, he gleefully led the pioneering group of a total of three into what must be the most spanking clean array of huge rooms filled with gleaming patty production machines on the planet - shiny metal monsters producing great belts of yellow pastry four feet wide flowing into the gullets of other clean machines whose internal knives and presses wrapped meat or chicken or vegetables and cut them into neat. crinkle edged pastries big and small, then blasted them in huge ovens and flash froze them until they emerged to be spilled into colorfully imprinted packages which found their way into colorful boxes and were then packaged in brown cartons to be sent to restaurants local and national - "I leave pizza parlors to my rivals" said Mr HoSang.
All of these wonders were automatic except for this industrial kitchen's white coated workers standing by key junctions to make sure defects are ejected tidily - defects meaning as little as one ounce short or long in weight as detected by the lightning quick reading of yet another machine. Actually in line with his entire philosophy Mr HoSang - "call me Vincent!" - says he likes to deliver packages one ounce overweight to make sure none of his customers are shortchanged, and though his business growth from a one-at-a-time patty press (which he shows off as well to his visitors) to his current line up of gleaming giants has made him a rich man he is a devout believer in the Almighty as his most important partner and the real engine of his progress, he says, and his values go beyond making money to giving back to the community in many ways. Asked why his spicy patties are so much in demand and his enterprise so admired that huge corporations woo him to produce food items for them - he refuses all such offers, preferring to remain his own man and his company remain human scale - Vincent replies simply "God."
Luckily for his amateur inspectors today at the end of the tour with their appetites soaring they were invited to sit down and feast on their selection from full trays of the golden products after they doffed their blue coats and caps and sat down to listen to an informal speech by Mr HoSang and tributes for him from St George's office holders and staff including a party tote bag of offerings one of which was a splendid towel imprinted with the heraldic shield of the Society. But what seemed to please him most was the fact that his jolly mood seemed to be caught by all his visitors. And why not? His achievement in a world where email is bankrupting the Post Office and anyone disconnected from the Internet is a second class citizen is a part of the real world, not the new, virtual one which is so abstract and impossible to touch, smell and taste.
Anyone of any age - and many of the St George's group were senior citizens - could understand every thing he has built, from his factory to his snacks, as things with the kind of hands on, craft and engineering solidity which we are beginning to lose touch with just as we have lost touch with Nature itself.
Everything Mr HoSong showed us with such pride had about it the poetry of the concrete. We could touch it, smell it and taste it!
Read MoreAmong the thirty or so visitors were notables including the very tall and elegant John Shannon, 56, who after a worldwide schooling and the Lycee Francaise in Manhattan, and studying history at Trinity College in Hartford, left a banking career for non profit and became the Executive Director and Almoner of St Georges, one of the oldest charitable organizations in New York (it was founded in 1770 to rescue British citizens who had fallen on hard times in America); the almost as tall Mary Lamasney, Manton social worker at St Georges and a Columbia and Wurzweiler graduate who joined two years ago after nearly two decades in the field; and Moya Keys, retired crack corporate environmental lawyer and St George's committee member renowned for her realism.
In the same bus was Sir Ellsworth George Stanton III, MBE, Knight of St John, a graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the Philippines (where he played bass in the Manila Symphony after World War II), and the Executive Director Emeritus of the James N. Jarvie Commonweal Service, a charitable trust of the Presbyterian Church which rescues the elderly in the Greater New York area. Sir Ellsworth is an elder of the Presbyterian Church and a member of the Brick Church where he is Clerk of Session and sings in the Chancel Choir, after studying voice with the late Herbert Janssen of the Metropolitan Opera, and his support and participation in music and the arts is so wide (patron of the Metropolitan Opera Association, the New York Philharmonic Society, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and board of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, as well as many other positions including heading the Beneficiary Committee of St Georges) that he was recently knighted by the Queen.
Also present and correct were the elegant Missie Gibbs, chairman of the St Georges board, cheerful Robert Titley, Vice-President of St Georges and the Communications Director for VisitBritain/British Tourist Authority who has now formed his own travel marketing consultancy, whose very good idea the trip was, with his wife Patricia, past President of St Georges the very tall Victor Stewart, with his wife Carol, and the current President of St Georges, John Harvey; Steve DePass resplendent in a white suit, with Jacqueline, Steve and Shirley Hewitt, and many others benefiting from the company of so many others of British heritage and tradition, and all demonstrating the engaging individuality and strong character which seems to be a common thread of that national culture.
Certainly a prime example of that robust charm was Vincent HoSang, the host who seems to view escorting groups around his pristine factory as one of the high points of his own day. Wrapping all present in blue paper overcoats and shower caps, he gleefully led the pioneering group of a total of three into what must be the most spanking clean array of huge rooms filled with gleaming patty production machines on the planet - shiny metal monsters producing great belts of yellow pastry four feet wide flowing into the gullets of other clean machines whose internal knives and presses wrapped meat or chicken or vegetables and cut them into neat. crinkle edged pastries big and small, then blasted them in huge ovens and flash froze them until they emerged to be spilled into colorfully imprinted packages which found their way into colorful boxes and were then packaged in brown cartons to be sent to restaurants local and national - "I leave pizza parlors to my rivals" said Mr HoSang.
All of these wonders were automatic except for this industrial kitchen's white coated workers standing by key junctions to make sure defects are ejected tidily - defects meaning as little as one ounce short or long in weight as detected by the lightning quick reading of yet another machine. Actually in line with his entire philosophy Mr HoSang - "call me Vincent!" - says he likes to deliver packages one ounce overweight to make sure none of his customers are shortchanged, and though his business growth from a one-at-a-time patty press (which he shows off as well to his visitors) to his current line up of gleaming giants has made him a rich man he is a devout believer in the Almighty as his most important partner and the real engine of his progress, he says, and his values go beyond making money to giving back to the community in many ways. Asked why his spicy patties are so much in demand and his enterprise so admired that huge corporations woo him to produce food items for them - he refuses all such offers, preferring to remain his own man and his company remain human scale - Vincent replies simply "God."
Luckily for his amateur inspectors today at the end of the tour with their appetites soaring they were invited to sit down and feast on their selection from full trays of the golden products after they doffed their blue coats and caps and sat down to listen to an informal speech by Mr HoSang and tributes for him from St George's office holders and staff including a party tote bag of offerings one of which was a splendid towel imprinted with the heraldic shield of the Society. But what seemed to please him most was the fact that his jolly mood seemed to be caught by all his visitors. And why not? His achievement in a world where email is bankrupting the Post Office and anyone disconnected from the Internet is a second class citizen is a part of the real world, not the new, virtual one which is so abstract and impossible to touch, smell and taste.
Anyone of any age - and many of the St George's group were senior citizens - could understand every thing he has built, from his factory to his snacks, as things with the kind of hands on, craft and engineering solidity which we are beginning to lose touch with just as we have lost touch with Nature itself.
Everything Mr HoSong showed us with such pride had about it the poetry of the concrete. We could touch it, smell it and taste it!
