AUSTRALIA: (Un) fashionable fowl bows out to salmon pink

Charles Wilkins has recently unveiled his new winter collection, and the reviews have been good. The co-producer of Sydney caterer Culinary Edge revealed that salmon pink is the most fashionable item on the dinner plate: "People are too embarrassed to serve chicken at events nowadays, because of the rubber chicken circuit references."Once the darling of corporate caterers during the 1990s, it seems now that no one wants to be seen with chicken anymore. It's simply so… passé. Graham Bell, director of the Centre for Chemosensory Research at the University of NSW, explained: "Since the introduction of battery hen production in the 1960s, chicken has become a high-protein and tasty meal - but now it isn't such a luxury… if it is to share the exotic lure of salmon, it would have to market itself as game or fowl.".But to cater for what event director Jarrad Clark, from Spin Events, which produces Australian Fashion Week, has described as a "must-have" for functions, will the salmon industry have to adopt the intensity of the battery farming of late twentieth century hens?Purveying the restaurant orders of Sydney's Hilton Hotel, head chef Kurt Looser does not predict a fall from grace anytime soon: "All you do is grill it and serve it with a little salt and you have a wonderful meal."Beautiful colour, luxurious texture and heavenly lightness. Absolutely fabulous, darling.