Ladies, bring a plate.

That phrase was everywhere, on social invitations, meetings, morning and afternoon teas, dances.
And it evokes memories of sausages rolls, pikelets with jam and cream, asparagus rolls and of course, lamingtons.
Right, let’s get this bit out of the way because it’s a bit of a chuckle. There really was someone called Lord Lamington.
And yes, the fluffy sponge dipped in chocolate and dusted with coconut is named after him.
Or probably more precisely his wife.
Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, Lord Lamington, was Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. Born in England, as a member of the peerage, he was given the best education and became the private secretary to the English Prime MInister.
Upon the death of his father in 1890 he became the second Baron Lamington.
He married Mary Houghton Hozier in1895 and a year later went to Queensland as governor.
It was there that the tale of the sweet treat seems to begin. The story is that during entertaining guests at Government House it was discovered there was not enough for a dessert. At the time the French chef Armand Galland is supposed to have cut up leftover sponge cake, dipped it in chocolate and covered it in coconut.
The new treat was a hit (even if Lord Lamington did refer to them as those bloody poofy woolly biscuits) and an icon was born.
There are many variations of the story - that a maid accidentally dropped sponge cake into some melted chocolate and the one that attributes it directly to Mary, Lady Lamington herself.
But she wrote a memoir of her time which includes no reference to the cake.
It’s just as likely that it was invented by Amy Shauer who ran a cookery school in Queensland that Lady Lamington was patron of.
The chef at the centre of one of the stories, Armand Galland, had arrived in Australia in 1911 and rapidly became the chef to celebrities - becoming something of a celebrity himself.
He may or may not have let behind a sweet treat we all know.
He is buried with with his wife Cladie in South Brisbane cemetery.,​