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.

On armadillo and hot spices.

Today, November 14 …

Walter Raleigh’s voyage in search of “El Dorado” had gone badly wrong. He was carried ashore at Cayenne (French Guiana) on this day in 1617, ill with a fever. A crowd of curious locals brought food:

“… which they did in great plenty, … and great abundance of pinas, the princess of fruits that grow under the sun, … One of them gave me a beast called by the Spaniards armadillo …”

Few Europeans had tasted pineapple at this time, and even fewer had eaten armadillo, which Raleigh and his men did a few days later. He was no foodie. He did not record his impressions, but subsequent heroes say it is just like chicken, or pork, or rabbit, or duck (not armadillo?). He also made no comment about the spiciness or otherwise of the food, although the name “Cayenne” is now inextricably associated with the “pepper” of that name, which is not pepper, but simply chilli powder after all. Until it arrived in the Old World there was no chilli in Indian food (and no tomato in Italian food – but more on this tomorrow).

“Curry” is not an Indian term, it is an Anglo-Indian concept received in exchange for the love of cricket. The first English recipe for curry occurs in 1747; by the end of that century recipes were common. Sarah Martin included one for curry powder in “The new experienced English-housekeeper…” (1795).

To make Curry Powder.
Take an ounce of the best turmerick beaten and sifted very fine, fourteen bay-leaves beaten and sifted, one large nutmeg, a quarter of an ounce of mace, as much chyan [cayenne] as will lay upon a shilling, mix these well together, put them in a dry wide mouth’d bottle, and keep them in a dry place.

… and to make “curry balls”:

“ … take the yolk of an egg boiled very hard, and a lump of fresh butter the same size, beat it in a small mortar, mix it up with curry powder to a paste, make it into balls the size of a nut, lay them on a saucer, and cover them with a piece of writing paper, set them into an oven, to be made hot, but not to burn them, so send them to the table; these are to be sent on a dish by themselves, for those who like to add them to their sauce.

Tomorrow … Back to the Future.