Pest for Dinner.

Today I want to tackle a tricky subject - the rabbit. Once upon a time there were no rabbits in Australia. Then, in 1788, the First Fleet arrived. The ships carried not only convicts, but also breeding stock for future food – including the rabbit.

By the mid-nineteenth century it became clear that a species spectacularly damaging to the ecology of this large country was on the loose and multiplying faster than you can say “rabbit rabbit rabbit.” Strangely though, it appears that escaped First Fleet rabbits perhaps did not spawn this plague, but that it was the progeny of specimens introduced in 1859 by a wealthy landowner in Victoria called John Austin, who released them on his property to provide future hunting amusement.

Many methods to control the rabbit population have been tried over the decades, including poisons, trapping, biological warfare (myxomatosis and calicivirus) and the building of a (theoretically) rabbit-proof fence in Western Australia. The bad ecological news is that the rabbit still survives here in the wild, but the irony is that it is no longer free bush tucker but an expensive delicacy at the butcher’s – presumably because the rabbits sold there are the cage-reared, disease-free version. Rabbit is now more expensive than rump steak.

In 1938 however, disease-free wild rabbits were there for the taking, and consequently a number of recipes for it were submitted to the Perth newspaper competition.

Rabbit Soup.
Take two large rabbits, half a head of celery, two carrots, one onion, salt, pepper, half a pint of milk and two quarts of water. Cut the rabbits up and well wash. Put into saucepan, boil with water about an hour and a half. Take the rabbit out and add the vegetables, salt, pepper and milk. Simmer for two hours. Sufficient for seven people.

Savoury Rabbit.
Use the meat taken from the soup, a quarter pound of fat bacon, two onions, one teaspoon chopped parsley, half a teaspoonful mixed herbs, four tablespoon flour, salt and pepper. Cut the rabbit and bacon in small pieces, put in a baking dish with chopped onions, parsley, herbs salt and pepper. Mix the flour with two tablespoons cornflour to a thin paste with milk. Pour the mixture into dish bake in moderate oven about an hour.

Rabbit Mould.
One rabbit, one oz. gelatine, three peeled tomatoes, one quart stock, sprig parsley, half lemon, three rashers bacon, two onions, two hard boiled eggs, half tablespoon bacon fat and seasoning. Blanch and joint rabbit, place in a sauce- pan with bacon fat, brown lightly all over, add cold water and onion, remove rind from bacon, cut up and add to pan, cover and simmer till rabbit is tender, remove bones, strain and season, add gelatine, dissolved in a little water, add juice of lemon. Decorate mould with slices of hard boiled eggs, and tomatoes and leave till set. Fill up with rabbit, turn out when cold.

Quotation for the Day.

Hare is respectable, even distinguished; rabbit is common and vulgar, and it is good form to turn up the nose at it.
Waverley Root.

Galah Grub.

We continue our week of Aussie bush recipes, thanks to our source for the week - several editions of the Perth newspaper The Western Mail, which ran a competition on the topic in 1938. I can pretty well guarantee that you wont find today’s dishes on the menu anywhere.

The galah is a noisy, pretty pink and grey cockatoo found all over Australia. It also used to be an ingredient for the stew-pot in the days of real bush cuisine. The ‘real’ way to cook it of course is well known, but just in case you have forgotten them, let me give the instructions again via the words of a South Australian newspaper correspondent in 1934.

“DR. A. M. Morgan, North Adelaide, writes:- "Dear Bufus -Your friend who says galah is too rough to eat, evidently does not know how to cook them. The proper way is to put the bird in a billycan with a medium-sized stone, and fill with water, and bring to the boil. When a fork will go easily into the stone, and come out clean, the bird is done, and will be found tender and tasty. This is an old bush recipe, and I am surprised that your friend did not know it.”

The newspaper competition provides some slightly more sophisticated ways of dealing with the bird, which I am sure will adapt easily to any sort of cockatoo or parrot that might fall into your hands.

Curried Galahs.
Take six galahs, cover with about one quart of water. When boiled for half an hour add two onions, pepper and salt to taste and let boil for half an hour longer. Then take out half a cup of the galah stock and add to it one tablespoon of curry and two tablespoons of flour. Mix well together and add to galahs. Let simmer for quarter of an hour before serving.


Braised Galahs.
Allow one galah for each person. Cut off the heads and then skin the birds and clean them. Place in a dish of salted water for a few hours. Make a nice stuffing of onion and herbs, breadcrumbs, a knob of butter, salt and pepper and a grating of nutmeg. Bind with a well beaten egg. Stuff the birds with this stuffing, make some dripping very hot in a saucepan, and place in the birds. Turn occasionally to brown. When half cooked put in a little hot water and finish cooking. A rasher of bacon placed on each bird while cooking is delicious.


Galah Savoury.
Take four or five birds, skin (do not pluck them) clean and soak in salted water for a few hours. Cut a rasher of bacon into small strips, put two or three pieces inside each bird, then arrange them in a casserole, cut up an onion very small, put over the top of the birds, sprinkle a dessert spoon of flour over them, then small dabs of butter, or dripping on top. Now half fill the casserole with cold water, put the lid on and cook in a slow oven for about two and a half or three hours. The result is a cheap and appetising dish. Bronze wing pigeons and parrots done in the same way are delicious.

Quotation for the Day.

Not presume to dictate, but broiled fowl and mushrooms – capital thing.
Charles Dickens.

Emu on the Menu.

The bush recipes competition run by the Perth newspaper The Western Mail in 1938, is proving rich fodder for this week’s stories. Today, for your delectation, I give you some ideas from the competition for emu meat and emu eggs.

Emu Liver Savoury.
Plunge liver into salt and hot water. Dry with cloth, rub with fine wheat flour, cut into two by four slices. Fry in a little boiling fat till brown. Cut in half as many large quandongs* as needed, and fry quickly. Make a sauce of half cup flour, pinch salt, pinch mustard and teaspoon butter. Place the liver on slices of toast, pour on sauce, place fried quandongs on top.
[*Santalum acuminatum , a common native plant of inland Australia, sometimes called the ‘native peach’]

Emu for Beef.
The meat from the breast of a young emu is luscious and highly nutritious, quite equal to rump steak. The meat may be casseroled, fried, stewed, or used in meat pies or boiled puddings, in fact any recipe may be used in which beef is required.

Emu eggs, as we found out in a post several years ago, are about ten times the size of a hen’s egg, and contain a higher percentage of fat. They apparently make great cakes.

Emu Egg Sponge.
Beat one emu egg for five minutes; add one and a half cups of sugar, beat for 15 minutes longer, then add two cups of flour to which two teaspoonfuls of baking powder have been added. Lastly add one cup of boiling water in which one tablespoonful of butter has been melted. Bake in a quick oven. This recipe makes two large sandwiches. For all measurements use a breakfast cup.

Quotation for the Day.
The strongest thing I put into my body is steak and eggs. I just eat. I'm not a supplement guy. Steroids are not even a thought.
Jim Thorne.

Lizard for Dinner.

The Australian monitor lizard - more commonly called the goanna – has an important place in Aboriginal culture and medicine and in Australian folklore. It also, apparently, makes good eating. The tail is said to be the best part, and - not surprisingly- is said to taste like chicken, or like fish, or ‘sweeter and more juicy than rabbit.’

The simplest bush recipe for cooking goanna was to roast it in the ashes, so that that when the ashes were brushed off, the skin came with it, and the flesh was then ready to eat. By the time of the Perth newspaper’s bush recipes competition in 1938 (mentioned yesterday), there was less of the bush and more of the French kitchen about goanna tail recipes, as the following competition entries show:

Goanna Tail.
Scald and skin the tail of a goanna. Cut into three-inch slices. Dip in egg and bread crumbs, and fry quickly to a golden brown. Olive oil is the best to fry in, but some do not like the flavour of olives.

Goanna Tail with Parsley Sauce.
Skin tail and cut into small pieces. Place in a saucepan, and just cover with water. Cook till tender. Make parsley sauce as follows:-Boil one pint of water, throw into it one tablespoon finely minced parsley and half a teaspoonful of salt. Then add two ounces flour, mixed to smooth paste in a gill of water. Stir over fire until it thickens. Break into it one or two ounces of butter. Put cooked tail into this, and serve hot.

Quotation for the Day.
You can never have enough garlic. With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times.
Morley Safer.

Kangaroo for Dinner.

Here in Australia, today is not only Easter Monday, it is also Anzac Day. Previous Anzac Day posts have been From Hardtack to Anzacs (on the now-defunct Companion site), An Aussie War Cake, and a story which included recipes for ‘Drover’s Dream’ and ‘Bushman’s Brownie’. In the hope that you are not exhausted or bored with Aussie recipes, this week intend to give you as interesting a selection as I can muster.

Australians have an enduring love affair with The Bush. It is a romance that has withstood reality with the fierce determination that befits the best romances. Most of us live in the cities that cling to the very edge of this vast continent, and certainly most of us never venture anywhere near The Bush, yet we love it just the same. Hell, I love it too, and I was born in Yorkshire - which, though wild and uncouth by effete Home County standards, is pretty tame compared to the Australian version.
In celebration of this (to most of us) semi-mythical time and place called ‘The Bush’, today I am going to give you a smattering of ideas from entries to a competition for bush recipes run in 1938 by a Perth newspaper (The Western Mail) in 1938. All of today’s choices are for kangaroo meat. I am not sure what eating one of our national symbols (totems?) says about a nation, but I am very sure that some of you will tell me.

Kangaroo Rissoles.
Take some nice slices off a leg of kangaroo, and put it through the mincer, with two nice potatoes and two nice onions. Mix all together, and add pepper and salt to taste. A little bacon is very nice minced with it. Mix in some plain flour; add a beaten egg to bind and make into rissoles, and fry in hot fat until a nice brown. A great favourite with everyone.

Braised Kangaroo Steak.
Two things that must be remembered in the preparing of “bush mutton” (otherwise kangaroo) are firstly, to be careful to cut the meat across the grain as this makes a great difference as regards tenderness, secondly to use plenty of dripping in the cooking of rissoles, etc.
Cut steak from the middle portion of the ‘roo, place in casserole with about half lb. of bacon cut in thick pieces and a large, sliced onion.Cover with good dripping and slowly bake for a couple of hours. Potatoes or swedes cooked in with this make a tasty dish.


Kangaroo Tail Brawn.
Cut up and joint kangaroo tail, put on to boil with two onions, mixed herbs, salt and pepper. Boil until the meat leaves the bones, then take out all the bones and pour the mixture into a dish. Add two hard boiled eggs and parsley cut small. This will set well if left overnight.


Quotation for the Day.
If we’re not supposed to eat animals, how come they are made out of meat?
Tom Snyder.

The Ginger State.

Pineapple, as my story a couple of days ago pointed out, is an important product in this state of Queensland. What is less well known, at least by non-Australians, is that we are also famous for our ginger.

According to the Queensland Government’s Primary Industries & Fisheries website, ginger was first grown commercially in Buderim, in the beautiful hinterland of the Sunshine Coast (a mere hour or so from Brisbane), in the early 1900’s.

It seems that the promotion of ginger as a crop was a project of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society, and that it was already being grown successfully in the early 1870’s. The monthly report of the society, published in The Queenslander in August 1873 had this to say:

The society having been largely instrumental in establishing the fact, for a long time controverted, that ginger could be successfully grown as a field crop, and the Queensland-grown root having now become an article of general culture and commerce, the following practical recipe, kindly forwarded by Dr Waugh, may be considered in place in this report :— Ginger for market.—The rhizomes are left in the ground until the annual stalks are withered. When for preserving it is dug while in sap, the stalks not being more than five or six inches long. The young roots are scalded, then washed in cold water and carefully peeled; they are then soaked for three or four days, changing the water frequently, and then put into jars and covered with a weak syrup - afterwards ex changed for a stronger one, and so one for two or three times. It is the method adopted by tho Chinese and Indian preservers. The tenderness and delicacy of the preserve depends, of course, very much on the age of the root. 

Ginger was grown in the Buderim region initially to supply the local domestic market, but a large amount is now exported around the world. The Buderim Ginger factory and tourist venue is now actually located in Yandina, but the ginger is still fabulous, and the ginger shop is said to stock the world’s largest selection of ginger products.

In addition to the above recipe for ginger in syrup, as my final contribution to Australia Day week I give you a few more recipes featuring green ginger root, sourced from Australian newspapers.


Ginger Beer.
[From an article entitled ‘Wholesome Field Drinks’]
Take of white Jamaica ginger root four ounces; pound it sufficiently to break the fibres; add to it three gallons of boiling water and two ounces of cream of tartar; boil it for five or ten minutes; then strain it and add two pounds of sugar; stir it until all is dissolved; pour it into a pail, and add half an ounce of tartaric acid, and let it stand until lukewarm; pour in three tablespoonsful of yeast, and mix it well; let it rise for six to eight hours; then bottle, securing the corks tightly. In two or three days it will be good to drink, and it will keep five or six weeks. It is a very delicious drink, and can be drank without injury in the hottest weather. Six lemons can be substituted for the tartaric acid. Grate the peels and squeeze the juice into the boiling water when the ginger is first added.
The Queenslander, December 16, 1871.

To Preserve Citrons, but not whole, try as follows:-
Boil till tender, cut in half, and remove pulp. Lay them on a dish (earthenware or tin) covered with syrup (½ lb sugar to each citron, boiled with two or three spoonfuls of water for a quarter of an hour) for two or three days, then pour the syrup off and boil it with 1 lb. sugar, skim and pour boiling upon the fruit. Soak twelve races of whole ginger in water for three days, scrape well, and boil in a little thin syrup, and add the ginger to the fruit.
The Queenslander, July 30, 1881.

Ginger Pudding.
Pick and wash ¼ lb. of Patna rice, and put it to boil with one pint of milk; when thoroughly done turn it out into a basin. Take a small bottle of preserved ginger, drain off the syrup, and mince the ginger quite fine, add it to the rice, and work it well with a spoon for some time. Beat up half a gill of cream with the yolks of six and the whites of three eggs; strain this into the mixture, and keep on stirring it for some time longer, then pour it into a buttered mould, and steam it for one hour and a half; strain the ginger syrup, warm it, add a glass of brandy to it, and pour it on the dish on which you turn out the pudding.
Burra Record, May 1, 1883.

Melon Jam with Green Ginger.
201b. of melon cut into large pieces, 201b. of sugar, the rind and the juice of four lemons, 2oz. of green ginger boiled and sliced, and one teaspoonful of cayenne pepper tied tightly in a thick piece of muslin. Boil all together till the melon is clear; when soaked take out the pepper, add one glass of brandy. N.B.Green ginger can be bought from the Chinese or from Mr. Germain Nicholson, grocer.
Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld.), June 26, 1884. Recipe contributed by ‘Housewife’.

Quotation for the Day.

He boils milk with fresh ginger, a quarter of a vanilla bean, and tea that is so dark and fine-leaved that it looks like black dust. He strains it and puts cane sugar in both our cups. There's something euphorically invigorating and yet filling about it. It tastes the way I imagine the Far East must taste.
Smilla's Sense of Snow

The Aussie Barbecue.

Australia was alive with barbecues yesterday (which is still today for some of you), as many good citizens burnt all manner of proteins in the name of patriotism (it being our national day and all.)
I rather belatedly wondered when the Australia Day barbecue ‘tradition’ became established. The short answer arrived at from my short search is - not many decades ago. I did come across a few interesting ‘barbecue’ recipes in my search, which I have put away for a future historical barbecue event.

The first one was under the heading ‘Breakfast Dishes’, and I see no good reason not to start the national day next year with “Ham on the Barbie.”

Barbecued Ham.
Fry slices of cold boiled ham; keep warm while you stir into the gravy left in the pan four teaspoonfuls of vinegar, mixed with a teaspoonful of mustard, a teaspoonful of sugar, half a teaspoonful of catsup or chilli sauce and a little pepper. Boil up once and pour on the fried ham. This dish is sometimes called "devilled ham," and is a good spur to appetite.
Western Mail (Perth, WA) March 3, 1894

Barbecued ham appeared again in an article on how to cook ham in The Brisbane Courier of December 10, 1913.

Barbecued Ham.
Slice cold boiled ham, and fry it in its own fat. Remove the slices into another dish, and keep it hot while there is added to the fat a teaspoonful of white sugar, a little pepper, and a second teaspoonful of made mustard and three tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Let this boil up once and pour it over the ham. Serve hot.

Of course, seriously dinky-die Aussies won’t eat anything other than our national meat on our national day. I give you a recipe from The Australian Women’s Weekly of October 20, 1934 for the sort of barbecued lamb you have when you don’t have a barbecue.

Barbecued Lamb.

Slices of cold roast lamb reheated in a sauce made as follows: 2 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon vinegar, ¼ cup redcurrant jelly, ¼ teaspoon French mustard, salt, and cayenne to taste. Serve with mashed potato and moulds of spinach.

And what would a barbecue be without burgers? Here is a nice idea from The Australian Women’s Weekly of February 19, 1944.

Barbecued Patties (With Apple Rings.)
One pound minced meat, 1 tablespoon chopped onion, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, 2 tablespoons flour, 2 cooking apples, 1 tablespoon melted dripping or cooking oil, mixed spice, parsley.
Pound together meat, onion, salt, sauce, and flour, and form into patties. Dry fry or grill, turning frequently. Peel, core, and slice apples into ½ inch rings. Saute in dripping or brush with melted fat and grill. Sprinkle lightly with spice while hot. A brushing with brown sugar mixed with spice gives a good glaze and flavour. Serve patties on apple rings, brush with parsley and serve at once. For four.

Quotation for the Day.

The barbecue has endured as an institution because nobody has been allowed to put on an apron and begin monkeying with it.
Columnist in The Queenslander, Brisbane, June 26, 1930.

An Australia Day Menu, 1922.

Today is Australia Day, so naturally I feel obliged to have an Australian theme. My problem is that all of my historical Australian cookery books remain in boxes. The excuse(s) I am touting is a rapid sequence of events in my life - “house move + Christmas fun/chaos + beach holiday + Brisbane floods and no power for 10 days”. Oh! And no bookshelves (yet) to store the books, so no point in unpacking them anyway. I am not sure how much longer this excuse will be viable.

The Internet has come to my rescue (Thank You, Cyber-Gods) and I give you the “All Australian Menu” from the Australia Day dinner to Sir Joseph Cook, in London on January 23, 1922. The menu comes to you from the Sydney Morning Herald, which noted that “It was the first occasion in London that Australian products had been served at a public function.”

Tasmanian Tomato Soup.

New South Wales Grilled Rabbits and Victorian Green Peas.

South Australian Lamb and Victorian Celery Sauce.

Potatoes

Fruit Salad (New South Wales Peaches, Victorian Pears, and Queensland Pineapple)

West Australian Passionfruit

Mildura (Victorian) Grape Sweets

Wines: Australian “Imperial Reserve” (Red and White)

For the recipe for the day, I give you some pineapple recipes from The Brisbane Courier of November 8, 1923.


Pineapple Preserves.
Cut fruit in slices, chips, or quarters. To each pound of fruit add a cup of water. Put in a preserving pan, cover, and boil slowly until tender and clear. Then take from water in a dish. Add to the water, sugar, pound for pound. Stir till all is dissolved, put in pineapple, cover the pan, and let boil slowly until transparent, then take out the fruit and put in glass jars. Let the syrup cook till thick and rich,then pour over fruit.

Pineapple Marmalade.
To one pound of grated pineapple allow one-half pound of sugar. Scatter sugar over fruit and let stand three hours, then put on stove, and let simmer slowly one hour. Store in air-tight jars.

Pineapple Fritters.
Sift together a cupful of flour, a few grains of salt, a tablespoonful of sugar, and half a level tablespoonful of baking powder. Beat an egg, add a third of a cupful of milk, and gradually stir into the dry ingredients, then add a cupful of pineapple, chopped or cut up into small pieces. Drop by spoonfuls into the fat, and fry a golden brown. Drain on soft paper and serve hot, sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Pineapple Pudding or Pie Filling.
Peel pare and chop a pineapple; sprinkle with sugar and let stand an hour. Arrange in a buttered pudding dish slices of bread over which pour the juice from the pineapple and sugar.
Beat the yolks of three eggs, with half cup of sugar, adding last the whites, which should have been, beaten separately. A tablespoonful of white wine, and half a cup of chopped almonds will improve this. Pour over the juice-soaked slices and bake. '

Previous Australia Day stories can be read (or re-read) at the following links: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.


Quotation for the Day.
In Australia, what they do to eggs is incomprehensible-they serve them with spaghetti at breakfast. They cook the eggs for nine hours until all moisture is removed, then they cosy them up to thick chewy noodles, warmed in the can not moments before.
Jon Carroll.

How to Cook a Snake.

After the dinner-party standby of garlic butter as the topic for yesterday’s post, I feel the need to be a little outrageous. It is time to cook a snake.

I start with the instructions on the Australian ‘native method’ of catching and preparing snake from a book which today has a very un-PC The Uncivilized Races of Men in All Countries of the World, by J.G. Wood (1882)

Although the idea of snake eating is so repugnant to our idea that many persons cannot eat eels because they look like snakes, the Australian knows better, and considers a snake as one of the greatest delicacies which the earth produces. And there is certainly no reason why we should repudiate the snake as disgusting while we accept the turtle and so many of the tortoise kind as delicacies, no matter whether their food be animal or vegetable. The Australian knows that a snake in good condition ought to have plenty of fat, and to be well flavored, and is always easy in his mind so long as he can catch one.

The process of cooking is exactly like that which is employed with fish, except that more pains are taken about it, as is consistent with the superior character of the food. The fire being lighted, the native squats in front of it and waits until the flame and smoke have partly died away, and then carefully coils the snake on the embers, turning it and recoiling it until all the scales are so scorched that they can be rubbed off. He then allows it to remain until it is cooked according to his ideas, and eats it deliberately, as becomes such a dainty, picking out the best parts for himself, and, if he be in a good humor, tossing the rest to his wives.

Snake hunting is carried on in rather a curious manner. Killing a snake at once, unless it should be wanted for immediate consumption, would be extremely foolish, as it would be unfit for food before the night had passed away. Taking it alive, therefore, is the plan which is adopted by the skilful hunter, and this he manages in a very ingenious way.

Should he come upon one of the venomous serpents, he cuts off its retreat, and with his

spear or with a forked stick he irritates it with one hand, while in his other he holds the narrow wooden shield. By repeated blows he induces the reptile to attack him, and dexterously receives the stroke on the shield, flinging the snake back by the sudden

repulse. Time after time the snake renews the attack, and is as often foiled; and at last

it yields the battle, and lies on the ground completely beaten. The hunter then presses

his forked stick on the reptile’s neck, seizes it firmly, and holds it while a net is thrown

over it and it is bound securely to his spear. It is then carried off, and reserved for the

next day’s banquet. Sometimes the opossum-skin cloak takes the place of the shield, and the snake is allowed to bite it.

The carpet snake, which sometimes attains the length of ten or twelve feet, is favorite

game with the Australian native, as its large size furnishes him with an abundant supply

of meat, as well as the fat in which his soul delights. This snake mostly lives in holes at

the foot of the curious grass-tree, of which we shall see several figures in the course of

the following pages, and in many places it is so plentiful that there is scarcely a grass-tree

without its snake.

One compelling reason for eating snake is hunger. In a situation of necessity, when unappealing protein substitutes are all that is available, the disappointment (or disgust) can be eased by re-naming. This is in the hope that the nostalgia triggered by the name will fool the tastebuds. Snake, in some parts of the world has, when being used for culinary purposes, been re-branded (as we would say today) ‘Hedge Eel’ or ‘Bush Eel’ (or anguilles des haies, if you want to be French about it.) This, of course, was in a time when eel was a desirable dish – I can’t see the real thing being much more popular than the substitute in  our more fussy age, when folk reject eels because they look like snakes..

Vipers were once highly sought after for medical use, and in a previous post I talked about viper wine. Another way of preparing the snake for therapeutic purposes was in soup. I discuss this in the chapter on Medicinal Soups in my book Soup: A Global History, which you can buy, if you wish. Here, to tempt you (to buy the book, not to make the soup) is the recipe from the book.

Viper-Soup.
TAKE Vipers, alive, and skin them, and cut off their Heads; then cut them in pieces, about two Inches in length, and boil them, with their Hearts, in about a Gallon of Water to eight Vipers, if they are pretty large. Put into the Liquor a little Pepper and Salt, and a Quart of White Wine to a Gallon of Liquor; then put in Some Spice, to your mind, and chop the following Herbs, and put into it: Take some Chervill, some white Beet-Cards or Leaves, some Hearts of Cabbage-Lettuce, a Shallot, some Spinach-Leaves, and some Succory. Boil these, and let them be tender; then serve it up hot, with a French Roll in the middle, and garnish with the raspings of Bread sifted, and slices of Lemon.
The Lady's Assistant for Regulating and Supplying the Table, Charlotte Mason, 1787

Quotation of the Day.
Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Ambrose Bierce

A Novel Recipe for Ginger Pudding.

I cannot resist giving you my serendipitous find for the week – ‘a novel recipe for ginger pudding’, found whilst I was browsing the Australian newspaper archives for something far more important. There may be an element of political incorrectness in giving this recipe, appearing as it does to take some of its novelty value from poking fun at the educational standard of the cook. I have chosen however to see it as a paean to several hundred years’ worth of cooks (mothers, grandmothers, aunts …) who, despite lack of education or access to cookbooks, just kept on cookin’ good food anyway, and sometimes left behind a treasured legacy of scribbled, badly-spelled recipes.

The recipe appeared in The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld) on Saturday 25 April 1896.

A Queensland correspondent writes to the “Australasian”:- Whilst visiting a friend who has a most excellent cook, I tasted some ginger pudding which was “positively ambrosial”. The cook wrote the recipe for me as follows:-

Gingar Puddin’

Won cup of Flor

Won cup of Brad Crums

Won spoonful of gingar

Tree ounce of suit

Half-cup of trackel

Won cop of shugar

Won cup of sor milk

Won pinch of spise

Won pinch of sode.

Quotation for the Day.

Hell is a place where the motorists are French, the police are German, and the cooks are English.
Anon?

Curried What?

I dallied rather a long time in the archives of Brisbane’s The Queenslander newspaper while I was tracking down food information for yesterday’s story on Ned Kelly. I cannot resist giving you the opinions on ‘curry’ from the edition of November 4, 1882. I was pleasantly surprised by the article. I expected the usual Anglo-Indian advice based on the ‘one curry powder fits all’ principle – which is how the article seems to start out – but read on, and see what is mentioned further down in the story – lemon-grass and fresh coriander for example. It is a broader view than usual for the era, that is certain, although a degree of kindly tolerance is still requested from my friends from the Indian sub-continent, please!

MOST people, more especially old Anglo- Indians, have a liking for a really good curry; but how very rarely it is to be obtained in England, unless at the house of someone who has passed a good many years in India. The dish miscalled a curry is very frequently set before people, but too often as far as possible removed from the real and appetising plat which a good Indian cook will send to table. The meat is tough, has most likely been boiled instead of gently simmered, the sauce, or thick gravy, is not enough in all conscience, but it tastes only of curry powder of an inferior kind; the rice is a sloppy mess, and the result is a fiery leathery sort of indigestible hash, instead of a sweet-acid highly but agreeably flavoured, perfectly cooked, and digestible dish, fit to set before a prince. The mere cooking of a curry is not the difficult part of it, though that requires to be understood. Any cook, of whatever nationality, who has really mastered the art of stewing properly—that is, very gently and slowly—can cook a curry; the real difficulties lie in procuring good curry powder or curry paste, which in England is by no means easy to do, and in properly flavouring. I read lately an excellent article on curries in the Pioneer Mail, written by "Wyvern," a great authority on Indian cooking generally, and, as the paper in which it appeared is not very constantly met with here, I extract his recipes on curry making and for curry powder, which last was given him by an accomplished chatelaine on the eve of her departure from India as a token of goodwill; he observes that the quantity the recipe makes is rather alarming; but, by keeping the proper proportions, half or a quarter of the amount could be made instead. All curry powders improve very much by being kept thoroughly well corked down in perfectly dry bottles, and if the dozen bottles—of the size of those used for importing tart fruits—which is the amount the recipe in full will make when finally mixed, are too many to be kept in stock, it would be easy to share them with friends by arrangement. Here is the recipe: 10 lb. of turmeric (Hind, huldi), 10 lb of coriander seed (dhunnia), 2 lb. cummin seed (jcera), 2 lb. of poppy seed (khush khush), 1 lb. of fenugreek (raaythi), 1 lb. of dry ginger (sont), 4 lb. of mustard seed (rai), 1 lb. of dried chilies (sooka mirrch), 1 lb. of black pepper corns (kala mirrch). Weigh everything most carefully. The coriander-seed and fenugreek must each be parched very carefully— i.e., roasted like coffee berries, before being pounded. The other ingredients should be cleaned and dried each separately, and, when pounded, well sifted. Weights having then been tested, the whole of the powders should be mixed, half a bottle of salt being sprinkled in by degrees during the process. The bottles thoroughly cleansed and dried in the sun, or before a fire, may then be filled and corked tightly down, the tops being securely waxed over. This is a stock powder, the flavour of which can be varied by the use of certain spices, green leaves, garlic, onions, green ginger, almond, cocoanut, &c, at the time of cooking the curry. The spices, which should be used according to taste and discretion, are these: cloves, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamoms, and allspice. A teaspoonful of one, or at most two, of these aromatic powders, blended, will suffice for a large curry. Dr. Kitchener's precept—that the mixing of spices is a blunder—should never be forgotten. The green leaves that are often useful when judiciously introduced are: fennel, maythi, baiee, lemon grass, bay leaves, " karay pauk," and kotemear leaves (green coriander). Pounded almonds (sweet) can be put into a curry very advantageously; they may be used alone or with the cocoanut; 1 oz. of the latter to twelve almonds is a good proportion. When green ginger is used it should be sliced very fine and pounded to a paste, a dessertspoonful being sufficient for one curry. The necessary suspicion of sweet-acid can be produced most readily by a dessertspoonful of powdered or moist sugar and the juice of a lime, or a spoonful of vinegar. A tablespoonful of sweet chutney and the juice of a lime make a good substitute; but a tablespoonful of red currant jelly, with one of chutney, and a little vinegar or lime juice, form the nicest combination for dark curries. The writer of the above has, of course, India in his mind's eye, and the recipe is intended for that country; but I see no reason why the ingredients could not be obtained in England, with the exception of the fenugreek and the green leaves mentioned. If, however, it is wished to avoid trouble, then get some really good Indian powder. "Wyvern" advocates the use of Barrie's Madras curry powder and paste. With a good stock curry powder, blended with enough fresh paste for the curry, made when the dish is being prepared, and with proper cooking, a really good curry ought to be sent to table without much difficulty. For the fresh paste to mix with the stock powder take " one small onion, one clove of garlic, one dessertspoonful of turmeric, one of freshly roosted coriander seed, one of poppy seed, a teaspoonful of Nepal pepper, one or sugar, one of salt, and one of grated green ginger. Pound all to a paste, also pound twelve almonds (sweet) and 1 oz. of cocoanut, with a little lime juice to assist the operation. Then mix the two pastes, and stir into them a teaspoonful of cinnamon or clove powder. A heaped-up tablespoonful of this powder to one of the stock powder, as given in the above recipe, will produce excellent results. Additional heat can be obtained by those who like very hot curries if red chili powder be added to the above ingredients, according to taste. 

Here is my pick of ‘curry’ recipes from Australian newspapers of the 1880’s.

Curry of Bandicoot.
Cut four onions and two apples in slices and put them in a stewpan with a tablespoonful of butter; place over the fire, stirring occasionally until the onions are slightly browned, then add two tablespoonfuls of curry-powder, mix well, and moisten with a cup of water or stock. Have a nice young bandicoot cut into joints and fried of a nice brown color, put it into the curry, season with a little sauce and lemon juice, and let it stew gently till tender. Arrange prettily upon your dish and serve with rice around it.
The Queenslander, Brisbane, Dec 18, 1880

Cheese Curry.
Grate a teacupful of rich, hard cheese, and add to it a teacupful of milk, a teaspoonful of mixed mustard and one of curry powder. Stir it over the fire till thick and smooth, and spread it over slices of buttered toast. Brown a few minutes in the oven, and serve hot.
The West Australian (Perth, WA) Jan 9, 1880

(This second recipe would, methinks, go nicely in the ‘Welsh Rabbit’ collection, which you can find here, and here.)

Quotation for the Day

“It is ludicrous to read the microwave direction on the boxes of food you buy, as each one will have a disclaimer: "THIS WILL VARY WITH YOUR MICROWAVE." Loosely translated, this means, "You're on your own, Bernice."”
Erma Bombeck.

Ned’s Bread.

The infamous Australian bushranger, Ned Kelly, was hanged for his misdeeds at the Old Melbourne Jail on this day in 1880. His exact burial place was not known until his remains were found by a construction crew working on what is now the R.M.I.T building, in 1929, after which they were removed to H.M. Prison Pentridge.

Details of Ned’s last meal would have made a marvellous blog entry, but if they have been recorded, I have not been able to find them. It is likely, however, that at least part of it would have been provided by the prison that was his last resting place. Pentridge prison had been built in 1850, and it had state-of-the art kitchens that supplied bread to other Victorian jails. Ned’s capture and execution occurred in the same year as the Melbourne International Exhibition, and a reporter from the The Queanbeyan Age who was in Melbourne for the event wrote a report on Pentridge’s kitchens, which was published two days after Ned’s demise. I give you an extract of the report:

The bread, though coarse in quality, is very sweet and nutritious. The ovens in which it is baked are not directly heated by fire, but the necessary degree of heat is conveyed to the ovens by means of flues or pipes. The advantages secured by this method are the moderation and equal distribution of the heat, and the cleanness of the bread from ashes. The officer in charge told me that beyond supplying bread for the 600 or 700 prisoners confined in Pentridge, more than half-a-ton of bread is daily sent out of these ovens for prison and other establishments in Melbourne.

Meanwhile, I wondered, what fine foods were the ‘better sort’ of folk eating at the time? Cookery columns were not a big feature in Australian newspaper of the time, although an exception seemed to be a Brisbane newspaper called The Queenslander. Five weeks after Ned’s execution, the following recipe appeared in the regular feature called ‘The Housekeeper.’

Recipes.

[CONTRIBUTED BY A LADY CORRESPONDENT.]

SPONGE CAKES

THERE is no cake more easily made than a sponge cake, if you but adhere to the following directions: - The weight of the eggs in sugar, and half their weight in flour. No occasion to use a given number of eggs; you can, if you like, make a cake with only one, provided you add the weight of that egg in white sugar and half its weight in flour. To make a good-sized cake, take eight or nine eggs - eight if all are large, nine if not; they will weigh exactly 1 lb. Separate the yolks from the whites, beat the sugar with the yolks, whisk the whites to a stiff froth (the whole success of your cake depends upon the whites) - they should be beaten until no liquid remains at the bottom of the basin; then add them to the yolks and sugar and stir till all are mixed; throw in the flour, and stir again till everything is blended - there is no occasion to go on beating after that. Pour into a well-buttered cake tin or mould, and bake in a quick oven. If the top gets brown before the cake is cooked wet a piece of brown paper and place over it; twenty minutes ought to bake it if the oven is in order. Many people use baking powder in their sponge cakes; it is quite unnecessary, unless the eggs are stale or you use duck eggs. A sponge cake made with stale eggs, either with or without baking powder, will not be very palatable.

The Queenslander, Brisbane, Dec 18, 1880

Quotation for the Day.

You will never get out of pot or pan anything fundamentally better than what went into it. Cooking is not alchemy; there is no magic in the pot.
Martha McCulloch-Williams, Dishes & Beverages Of The Old South (1913)

Stealing Bread.

I found more than I was looking for when I went in search of an early recipe for rice bread the other day. Just below the recipe (which follows) in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, of August 1, 1839, was this short, sad, tale.

DISTRESS: On Tuesday last a little boy of about seven years of age was committed to take his trial for stealing three loaves of bread from a shop. The boy stated that he was hungry, and his mother was in the watch-house on a charge of drunkenness.

A ‘little boy’ – not even worthy of his own name! It is hardly likely, given the era, that his name was withheld on account of his young age. And he was ‘about seven years of age’ – did someone ask, or did he not even know his own birthday?

Most of the early convicts transported to Australia in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries were the urban poor, driven to crimes such as stealing a loaf of bread, by hunger. Supply problems were serious for the first decades in the new settlement, and convicts who stole food were severely punished – sometime actually executed. In the very first year of 1788, on February 11 - less than two weeks after the colony was declared - the first criminal court session was held. Three convicts were tried, and all were found guilty. One Thomas Hill was accused of stealing bread and was sentenced to a week in chains, on bread and water (and presumably not much of that), on a tiny, bare, rocky outcrop called ‘Pinchgut Island’ (now Fort Denison) in Sydney Harbour. The name may have reflected the nautical use of the term to mean the point where a channel becomes very narrow, but it certainly became apt as far as its temporary convict inhabitants were concerned.

I wonder what happened to the little Australian boy mentioned in the Sydney newspaper article in 1839? I don’t think there would be any doubt that he would have been convicted.

Rice and Wheat Bread.

Simmer 1 lb. Rice in 2 quarts of water till it becomes perfectly soft; when it is of a proper warmth mix it extremely well with 4 lbs. Flour and yeast and salt as for other bread; of yeast about 4 large spoonfuls. Knead it well, then set it to rise before the fire, some of the flour should be reserved to make up the loaves. If the rice should require more water it must be added, as some rice swells more than others. From this 8 ½ lbs of good bread will be produced.

(A gentleman of our acquaintance has requested us to give the above recipe publicly through our columns, and informs us that he has tried the experiment in his own family with perfect success. Now that wheaten flour is so dear, and rice so cheap, we cannot do better than to recommend our readers to go and do likewise.)

Quotation for the Day.

“There's a bread van outside Kathleen O'Connell's shop. The back door is open on shelves of steaming newly baked bread. The van driver is inside the shop having tea and a bun with Kathleen and it's no trouble for me to help myself to a loaf of bread. It's wrong to steal from Kathleen with the way she's always good to us but if I go in and ask her for bread she'll be annoyed and tell me I'm ruining her morning cup of tea, which she'd like to have in peace, ease and comfort thank you. It's easier to stick the bread up under my jersey… and promise to tell everything in confession.”
Frank McCourt,  Angela's Ashes (1996)

Drinking Mint, Part 2.

Yesterday’s post on the definitive Southern US beverage of mint-julep was the result of a deviation from the rather convoluted search for the prize-winning recipes from the state-wide competition run by the Milk Board of Victoria (Australia) in 1936. It seems the board had copied the idea from the British Milk Board, who ran a similar competition in the previous year. The competition proved to everyone’s obvious relief that ‘Victorian housewives show they know how to make attractive milk dishes.’

One of the winning recipes was for a mint beverage at quite the opposite spectrum to the mint-julep.

Supper Drink.

Place one or two strong peppermints in one cup of boiling milk, stir till dissolved.This is especially wholesome for winter nights before retiring to bed or before setting out on a cold journey.

That is not the end of the mint beverage theme. I give you two more, the first from the
Sydney Morning Herald in January 1918, in response to a correspondent’s request for recipes using mint.

First – used as a beverage. The leaves of mint should be steeped in sherry, then pass the flavoured wine through ice, till the whole has become impregnated with the mint aroma. When it is poured off it is regarded as a deliciously cool beverage, or stimulating cordial.

And finally, from the Southern Cook Book of Fine Old Recipes, 1935. What is it about those Southerners and mint?

Mint Tea

2 cups sugar

½ cup water

Grated rind of one orange

Juice of 6 oranges

6 glasses of very strong tea

Several sprays of mint.

Boil the sugar, water, and orange rind about 5 minutes. Remove from the fire and add the crushed leaves of mint and let cool. Into the tea put the orange juice. Half fill the iced tea glasses with crushed ice, add the tea, and sweeten to taste with the mint syrup. A sprig of mint or a slice of orange may be added to each glass as a garnish.

You don’t need to flood my email box, I know I have missed the liqueur, crème de menthe. It was deliberate. I like mint, but it will take me some time to understand crème de menthe.

Quotation for the Day.

Those herbs which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but, being trodden upon and crushed, are three; that is, burnet, wild thyme and watermints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.
Francis Bacon

Gingerbread Holiday.

Today is a public holiday here in Australia – the one we are ‘owed’ because Anzac Day (yesterday, the 25th) fell on a Sunday. As (a) I plan to have fun for the day, away from the computer, and (b) I am all out of pre-prepared blog posts, this will be short – but very sweet.

I wanted to give you something relevant for Anzac Day, and have chosen a recipe from a World War II Australian cookery book. I have not added anything to the gingerbread archive for some time, so this just fits that bill too.


Feather-soft Gingerbread.
Cream two-thirds of a teacup of margarine with a teacup of sugar. Beat in one egg and add two thirds of a cup of golden syrup. Mix well. Then sift two breakfast cups of plain flour with a teaspoonful each of ginger and mixed spice (or any spices available) and one small teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Add the flour to the syrup mixture, moistening with a teacup of sour thick milk. Beat all thoroughly. Stand a few minutes before turning into a deep well-greased gingerbread tin. Have oven well heated. Put in cake. Lower heat to moderate. Bake about an hour. Don’t hurry it!
Leave in tin for a few minutes when it comes from the oven as it is very soft and easily broken.
Wartime Cookery, by Sarah Dunne of The Herald, Melbourne.


Quotation for the Day.

Yet the boy was patently fallacious; and for that matter a most unsympathetic urchin, raised apparently on gingerbread.
Robert Louis Stevenson, in The Silverado Squatters.

Pikelets Anyone?

Everyone knows about the Aussie food icons of damper, lamingtons, pavlova, and pie-floaters, but there is another favourite snack in this wide brown land, and today I want to tell you about it.
It is the pikelet. You probably already know it, but by some other local name.


Pikelets came to my mind recently (the part of my mind that told me that I have not yet written about them) when I went in pursuit of something called a bara-picklet. I thought I had found an old food waiting to be rediscovered. Instead I found an old name and a nice example of recipe evolution.

According to the Dictionarium Rusticum, Urbanicum, & Botanicum (1726), bara-picklet is ‘Bread made of fine Flour, and kneaded up with Barm [yeast], which makes it very light and spungy. Its Form is round, about an Hand’s breadth.’ A later dictionary - an updated version of the above, it seems, with the far less interesting name of The Universal Etymological Dictionary (1773) describes bara-picklet as ‘Welsh. Cakes made of a fine Flower [flour] kneaded with yeast. So, we have a change of idea from ‘bread’ to ‘cake’, but still yeast-raised (there being no baking powder yet for half a century or so.)

Most sources do give the picklet a Welsh heritage, the name coming from bara, the Welsh word for bread, and usually referring to a type of ‘bun’ or griddle bread cooked on a hot plate, not in an oven. As always however, regional names and recipe variations abound. In several sources it is referred to as ‘a sort of muffin’ or a ‘glazy kind of muffin.’ In some references it is associated with London, in others with Midland counties of England, and in others with the North of the country. Sometimes it is a ‘pyflet’, and occasionally there is a reference to a ‘picklet (or pyflet) stone’ on which they are cooked.

The OED calls the pikelet ‘a thin kind of crumpet (also) a type of small round teacake made of fine flour; a muffin’, which is not a very definitive definition – which fits the variety of styles of pikelet. The modern variety is made with modern powder leavening agents rather than yeast, of course, it being far quicker and easier to make them this way – and indeed they do lend themselves jolly nicely to a spontaneous treat or unexpected visitors. Pikelets then fall somewhere on the multiple cusps between ‘English’ muffins, crumpets, griddle cakes and pancakes. In Australia they are usually eaten as a sweet snack for morning or afternoon tea, spread with jam and dolloped with cream.

I give you two versions of the pikelet today. Firstly, an early yeast-raised griddle ‘bread’ from the 1786 edition of Elizabeth Raffald’s The Experienced English Housekeeper.

To Make Picklets.
Take three pounds of flour, make a hole in the middle with your hand, then mix two spoonfuls of barm, with as much milk and a little salt as will make it into a light paste; pour your milk and barm into the middle of your flour and stir a little of your flour into it, then let it stand all night, and the next morning work all the flour into the barm, and beat it well for quarter of an hour, then let it stand an hour; after that take it out with a large spoon, and lay it on a board well dusted with flour, and dredge flour over them; pat it with your hand, and bake them upon your bake-stone.

And a modern quicky version from The Sydney Morning Herald of September 10, 1953.

Golden Pikelets.
Every young housewife dreams of making perfect pikelets. Here’s how to start, but remember that practice will help too.
Pikelets may be made with a special iron griddle iron, a very heavy quality frying pan, or directly on the solid type hotplate of an electric range.
The iron pan, or hot plate, must be heated first, greased quickly with a little white vegetable shortening of butter. The heat of the iron may be tested by cooking a couple of pikelets.
Ingredients.
1 large or 2 small eggs.
2 level tbsps. Sugar
1 level dstspn. golden syrup or honey
½ to ¾ cup of milk.
1 heaped cup S.R. flour
Good pinch salt.
Method.
Beat eggs with sugar until fluffy, add golden syrup, then ½ cup of the milk. Sift in flour, salt,mix well with wooden spoon until smooth. If necessary add remaining ¼ cup of milk. Allow to stand one hour if possible. Drop in spoonfuls on heated, greased iron, reduce heat, when surface begins to bubble, turn to cook other side. Keep hot between two plates on top of saucepan of hot water.

Quotation for the Day.

The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.
W.C.Fields.

Australia Day.

Today is Australia Day, hence a public holiday in this fair land. Previous posts on this day can be found HERE, HERE, and HERE. Naturally I am intending to have family fun, so I am sure you will forgive me for a short post.

I want to return to an ingredient much beloved of a previous generation of Aussies, but which is now, sadly, in the nutritional naughty corner. It is Copha. Copha is a product along the same lines as Crisco, although it is made from coconut oil (fully hydrogenated of course) rather than cottonseed or soy oil. As I indicated in a previous story, Copha is indispensible for the making of Chocolate Crackles, which are an indispensible offering at children’s parties in Australia. Chocolate Crackles provide part of the entertainment at children’s parties too, on account of the fact that they are not cooked but ‘set’ – a very temporary situation until they are removed from the refrigerator, when they rapidly melt and facilitate chocolately face and finger painting and general mess.

The manufacturers of Copha kept the adults in mind with a recipe for a ‘cake’ appropriate for dinner parties ,which was quite the vogue for a while. A promotional article in The Melbourne newspaper The Argus even suggested it as an alternative to Christmas cake and mince pies in a December 1935.

“Now we want variety - something utterly different. We know - Copha Chocolate Biscuit Cake! There's an idea – it’s so easy to make, and it's one of the most popular cakes we know. With good reason, too, Copha cakes are always so delicious.”

COPHA CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE
(Made in 5 Minutes).
5oz. Pure Essence of Copha (melted)
½ lb. icing sugar
1 heaped dessert-spoon of Cocoa
1 Egg
Essence of Vanilla to flavour
½ lb Coffee, Malt, or any suitable biscuits. These should be softened by exposure.
Mix together the sifted sugar, cocoa, egg, and vanilla. Then stir in the hot (not boiling) Copha.
Line cake tin with grease-proof paper; place alternate layers of the mixture and the biscuits until the tin is filled, beginning and finishing with the mixture. Stand in cold place until set.

Putting the Coffee into Christmas.

Well folks, I usually have a week’s worth of stories posted ahead, but these have now been all used up. I am rather busy and pre-occupied with non-bloggy stuff at present, so my posts may be rather more brief than usual over the next week or so. On top of that there has been no Internet access in the local area for 24 hours (although our provider is assuring its customers that it will be restored by this afternoon).

But, dear readers, rest assured, there will be posts – cant spoil a four-year old record, can we? Today’s story is reaching you – albeit belatedly - via a USB stick and my daughter’s computer in another suburb.

So - why are there no ‘plums’ in plum pudding? Because Once Upon A Time, the word ‘plums’ was used generically for any dried fruit, that’s why. The idea of ‘plum pudding’ can therefore be interpreted very widely indeed – if you need proof, just go over and browse the offerings in the Vintage Christmas Recipes Archive.

It seems that the word ‘Creole’ can be interpreted widely too. Here is a ‘new’ plum pudding recipe from a wartime edition of an Australian newspaper (the Melbourne Argus). Please do not be reticent with your theories as to what is ‘Creole’ about this dish!

The pudding is a nice take on the old standby, methinks, and happily also a new addition to the coffee recipe archive (go to the link in the sidebar - until I can regain Internet access I cannot find the direct url – sorry!)

This ‘new note in plum puddings’ won a prize of £1 worth of war savings certificate and 5/ worth of war savings stamps for the contributor (Mrs Cecile Besnard). The recipe for Creole Coffee Pudding was, according to the cookery columnist ‘succulent enough for the all-important Christmas festival dinner. Here it is.

Creole Coffee Pudding.
Take 3 oz. of light brown sugar, 4 oz of maple or golden syrup, 4 oz. sultanas, 2 cups of flour, 1 egg, ½ teaspoon carb soda dissolved in a little warm water, ½ cup of chopped almonds, 2 tablespoons black coffee, 1 tablespoon brandy (can be omitted). Unsweetened coffee essence can be used instead of the ordinary black coffee.
Heawt the butter, syrup, and coffee, and stir until melted not hot. Add the egg, sift in flour, then add sultanas, almonds, brandy, and lastly soda. Beat thoroughly, and steam 2 ½ hours. Serve with the following sauce:
Take one cup of milk, 1 dessertspoon of butter, 1 tablespoon of syrup, I tablespoon of coffee. Heat these ingredients in a saucepan, and thicken with 1 tablespoon of cornflour blended in a little cold milk. Bring to the boil, stirring well. Mask the pudding with this, or if preferred, serve in a sauce-pan.
[The Argus, Nov 21, 1944]

Quotation for the Day.

The discovery of coffee has enlarged the realm of illusion and given more promise to hope.
Isidore Bourdon.

Bunya Nuts.

[image courtesy of Wikipedia]

We do nuts pretty well here in Queensland. The macadamia nut is a native of this particular part of the world it (it will happily grow in the backyard) and was once called the Queensland Nut – the Hawaiians did a better job of processing and marketing it than we did, is all! Our state is also irredeemably associated with the peanut because a previous Premier of the state (the one with the Senatorial pumpkin-scone-making wife) was a peanut farmer – the particular style and quality of his regime ensuring that the peanut-farmer concept is a pejorative one. The peanuts are good though.

There is another sort of nut here that is not well known outside of the country. It is the bunya nut, and it is the product of the bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) which grows in that part of the Great Dividing Range known as the Bunya Mountains. The bunya nut was an important food for local aboriginals, and every third year (when it produced a bumper crop) tribes from within a 200 mile radius gathered to make the most of it. Tribal rivalries were suspended for the duration while up to 20,000 folk feasted on it and collected supplies to take home.

The nut is found in the female cones, which weigh up to 10 kg each, so there is an intrinsic danger inherent in being on the ground in a fruitful forest of bunya pines. Our family will be spending several days in the region in early July as my sister is getting married there. The brochure from the accommodation on the mountain lists includes a list of things under the heading “BEWARE” . It does not include snakes, strangely enough, but includes ticks, Gympie stinging trees, stinging nettles, and falling Bunya cones. I am not sure how one avoids falling Bunya cones. If one looks up to see if any look a bit ripe and loose, does that not mean that it splatters your nose, not the top of your head? Anyway, I digress.

The aboriginal people ate the nuts raw (when they were fresh), or roasted. They also pounded them into a sort of flour (the nuts are very starchy), and made ‘bread’. The first white settler to see them and remark on them was Andrew Petrie, a foreman of works in the penal days, in 1843. He wrote:

“The kernel of the bunya nut has a very fine aroma, and is certainly delicious eating . The blacks roast them, and we tried even to boil them, but the fruit lost its flavour in both cases. Besides it did not agree with my stomach. The blacks thrive on them.”

Later in the century, the white man had found another use:

“…. the following information received by the Department of Agriculture from Mr. Harold E. Meyers, of Bollier Plain, Gympie, with reference to the use of bunya nuts
as a substitute for coffee will be of interest. In a letter to the department Mr. Meyers says:-"Did you know that the nuts of the Araucaria Bidwilli produce as good coffee as is obtained from the best coffee beans? The coffee has been tried here in several places, and found equal to the best commercial article."

Recipe for the Day

The Bunya nut is underused, methinks – probably because it is not easy to grow commercially, and it is difficult to get the seeds from the cones – and there is a dearth of recipes for it. I therefore give you a nice recipe using peanuts, from the Courier Mail of October 12, 1933. The recipe contributor won the ten shilling prize of the week for the best “Household Secret”.

Peanut Crispies.
Half a cup of raw peanuts, half cup sugar, two-thirds of a cup of coconut, 4 cups cornflakes, the whites of 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons butter. Beat the whites to a stiff froth, add the sugar slowly, a drop of vanilla and a pinch of salt. Melt the butter, add to the eggs and sugar. Mix the dry ingredients in, and bake in small portions in a moderate oven about 16 minutes. Allow to remain on the tin until cool

Quotation for the Day.

And Mocha's berry, from Arabia pure, In small fine china cups, came in at last
Gold cups of filigree, made to secure the hand from burning, underneath them place. Cloves, cinnamon and saffron, too, were boiled Up with the coffee, which, I think, they spoiled.
Lord Byron.

A Café in the Colonies.

Migrants and colonists are sometimes faced with an uncomfortable move away from the food of their homeland when they arrive in their new land. How - or if - they adapt to this change depends on a multiplicity of factors, not the least of which is the availability of familiar ingredients.

The early settlers in Australia not only brought with them livestock and seedstock from Britain, they also brought an absolutely firm determination to make everything as much like “Home” as possible, and were resolute, on the whole, to avoid the food of the “natives”. Those who settled around the penal colony of Moreton Bay in what is now Brisbane could however hardly eschew the abundant local seafood (which would indeed have been foolish, as it is magnificent) even if they had wanted to, for fish cannot be farmed as easily as land, and cannot be preserved as readily and “sent for” from home.

The following menu for a Brisbane café in 1898 could have been lifted from any English café. Although the snapper and oysters must have been local varieties, they were prepared in a thoroughly English way. Not a sliver of kangaroo or a sprinkle of lemon myrtle or a bit of macadamia crust anywhere to be seen. This was solid, heavy English fare for the mild Queensland winter season.

From the Brisbane Courier, July 22, 1898, this advertisement for the Café Imperial.

BILL OF FARE FOR THIS DAY

Pea Soup. Beef Tea.

Boiled Schnapper and Oyster Sauce.

Fried Schnapper and Anchovy Sauce.

Saute of Kidneys and Bacon.

Veal and Ham Pie.

Lamb Cutlets and Tomato Sauce.

Roast Turkey and Pork Sausages.

Roast Fillet of Beef.

Grills.- Fillet Steak and Oyster Sauce.

Loin Chops and Chip Potatoes. French

Cutlets and Bacon. Peas. Potatoes.

Fruit Salads and Wine Jellies, 6d. extra.

Soup, Fish, Meat, or Poultry, with Tea,

Coffee, Bread and Butter, and Cheese, Is.

Three Courses for One Shilling.

Cafe Imperial, 28 Queen-street.

P.Hart, Proprietor

From Phillip Muskett’s The Art of Living in Australia (1893), a recipe for a local ugly but not particularly interesting fish, cooked in a thoroughly Victorian English style:


STUFFED FLATHEAD
1 Flathead—9d.
2 oz. Forcemeat—2d.
1 gill Gravy
1 oz. Dripping—1d.
Total Cost—1s.
Time—Half an Hour
Take a little veal forcemeat and season nicely. Sew this into the flathead and truss it into the shape of the letter S. Rub some dripping on to a baking sheet, which should only be just large enough to take the fish. Put some dripping on the top, and bake in a moderate oven for half-an-hour, or longer if large. Slip it on to a hot dish, draw out the trussing string carefully, flavour and boil up the gravy and pour round it. Serve very hot.


Quotation for the Day.

"In the hands of an able cook, fish can become an inexhaustible source of perpetual delight."
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826)