Edible Memorials

The U.S. Senate set a new and imaginative fashion in memorials to its revered members last week by adding a favorite dish of the late Louisiana Senator Allen J. Ellender to the Senate restaurant menu. It is Louisiana creole gumbo, a concoction of rice, chopped seafood and okra, selling for $ 1.50.

An edible memorial may well nourish fond remembrances of a man more effectively and at far less cost than all of the cold monuments and dull libraries that are now so prevalent. A steaming bowl of Eisenhower vegetable soup might warm recollections more quickly than rummaging through the Eisenhower papers in Abilene. How better to catch the flavor of Lyndon Johnson than by munching a deer-foot sausage or supping on hot Pedernales chili? Richard Nixon could be forewarned to start scouring his ancestral cookbooks, if only to avoid being commemorated by cottage cheese with ketchup.

Perhaps the only weakness is that the practice could become repetitious. For many Washington politicians, only one recipe is both favorite and fitting. It begins and ends with the culinary instruction: "Pour whisky into a glass."

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