Snake.

Today, May 25^th …

The Australian explorer John Oxley was in the depths of inland New South Wales on this day in 1817. As is the explorer’s lot, he and his party were hungry for fresh food, and hunger maketh man more liberal in his interpretation of what is food and what is not. Here is part of his journal entry for this day:

May 25. … At two we arrived at the base of a hill of considerable magnitude, terminating westward in an abrupt perpendicular rock from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet high. The country we passed over was of the most miserable description; the last eight miles without a blade of grass….. This hill was named Mount Aiton. The country having been recently burnt, some good grass was found for the horses a little to the south-west. We therefore stopped for the night, and ascended the face of the mount for the purpose of looking around: a very large brown speckled snake was killed about half way up, which, in the absence of fresh provisions, was afterwards eaten by some of the party. ….We have seen so few animals, either kangaroo or emu, and the country appears so little capable of maintaining these animals, that the means of the natives in procuring food must be precarious indeed. We found just a sufficiency of water to answer our purpose in a drain from the Mount; our dogs are, however, in a wretched condition for want of food.

Peter Lund Simmonds in The Curiosities of Food (1859) has a whole series of snake-eating anecdotes, all from the perspective of a civilised eater observing the ignorant (even if noble) savage or the fearless frontier pioneer. In case you are lost in the wilderness and get hungry and are not afraid to catch a snake (which in Australia is highly likely to be extremely poisonous) and do not already know how to cook one, Simmonds most helpfully quotes a certain Dr Lang’s account of snake cooking in Australia:

“One of the black fellows took the snake, and placing it on the branch of a tree, and striking it on the back of the head repeatedly with a piece of wood, threw it into the fire. The animal was not quite dead, for it wriggled for a minute or two in the fire, and then became very stiff and swollen, apparently from the expansion of gas in its body. The black fellow then drew it out of the fire, and with a knife cut through the skin longitudinally on both sides of the animal, from the head to the tail. He then coiled it up as a sailor does a rope, and laid it again upon the fire, turning it over again and again with a stick till he thought it sufficiently done on all sides, and superintending the process of cooking it with all the interest imaginable. When he thought it sufficiently roasted, he thrust a stick into the coil, and laid it on the grass to cool, and when cool enough to admit of handling, he took it up again, wrung off its head and tail, which he threw away, and then broke the rest of the animal by the joints of the vertebrae into several pieces, one of which he threw to the other black felllow, and another he began eating himself with much apparent relish.”

The observer in snake-eating anecdotes is almost always repelled by the idea, and responds with disgust or admiration at the habits or bravery of the eater. What is it about snake? Newly-hatched birds and other baby animals are said to react in fear to lengths of rope, suggesting that we are biologically programmed to see them as dangerous enemies. Snakes are stealthy creatures too, and we are more inclined to fear that which can sneak up on us. The poor eel is tarred with the same brush. Eels are fish, pure and simple, but they have a snake-like shape and this is often given as the reason for avoiding them. It seems unfair to me.

Here is Charles Elmé Francatelli’s Eel Pie from his 1860’s book The Cook's Guide and Housekeeper's and Butler's Assistant.

Richmond Eel Pie.
Skin, draw, and cleanse two good-sized Thames eels; trim off the fins, and cut them up in pieces about three inches long, and put these in a stewpan with two ounces of butter, some chopped mushrooms, parsley, and a very little shalot, nutmeg, pepper and salt, two glasses of sherry, one of Harvey sauce, and barely enough water to cover the surface of the eels; set them on the fire, tnd as soon as they come to a boil, let them be removed, and the pieces of eels placed carefully in a pie dish; add two ounces of butter, kneaded with two ounces of flour, to the sauce; and having stirred it on the fire to thicken, add the juice of a lemon, and pour it over the pieces of eels in the pie dish; place some hard yolks of eggs on the top; cover with puff-paste; ornament the top; egg it over, bake for about an hour, and serve, either hot or cold.

Monday's Story ...

Thankyou Erasmus.

This Day, Last Year ...

We thought about lettuce.

Quotation for the Day …

To the goggling unbeliever [Texans] say - as people always say about their mangier dishes - "but it's just like chicken, only tenderer." Rattlesnake is, in fact, just like chicken, only tougher. Alistair Cooke.

A Receipt for Caveach.

Today, May 22^nd …

Major Thomas Mitchell, a distinguished military man of Scottish birth was appointed Surveyor-General of NSW in March 1827. His exploratory expeditions made a huge contribution to the mapping of inland Australia, but he was said to be a difficult, haughty man.

No doubt Major Mitchell’s wife, Mary was long-suffering on both counts. I wonder, when she found out that she was to be sent out to the colonies, did she relish the adventure, or dread the life ahead of her? Mary kept a manuscript book of recipes inscribed with this date in 1827. Did she bring it with her? Was it a gift from anxious female friends and relatives?

The waters of New South Wales had fish in abundance, and it is to be hoped that she made much use of the recipe for ‘caveach’ in the book. The OED says that to caveach is ‘to pickle mackerel or other fish according to a West Indian method.’ ‘Caveach’ sounds suspiciously like ‘ceviche’, does it not?. Surely both words have the same origin? But ceviche is said to have originated in South America (several countries claim the invention), not the West Indies. There is a persisting rumour that there is an Arab influence to the concept, so perhaps the Spanish are the common intermediaries.

A ceviche is ‘raw’ fish, in the sense that it is not cooked by heat, it is fish ‘cooked’ by the action of an acid, which in the case of South and Central America is in the form of citrus juice. Mary’s ‘caveach’ on the other hand calls for the fish to be first fried before it is pickled in vinegar. Minor variations of her recipe appear in English cookbooks from the early eighteenth century.

It seems that the name and the concept were both adapted by English cooks, as the following recipe (the earliest I have been able to find) suggests.

To Pickle Mackarel, call’d Caveach.
Cut your Mackarel into round Pieces, and divide one into five or six Pieces: To six large Mackarel you may take an ounce of beaten Pepper, three large Nutmegs, a little Mace, and a handful of Salt; mix your Salt and beaten Spice together, and make two or three holes in each Piece, and thrust the seasoning into those holes with your finger; rub the Pieces all over with the Seasoning; fry them brown in Oil, and let them stand ‘till they are cold; then put them into Vinegar, and cover them with Oil. They will keep, well cover’d , a great while, and are delicious.
[Collection of above 300 receipts … Mary Kettilby; 1714]

I would love to hear about any early references to ceviche in Spanish or Portuguese cookbooks!

Tomorrow's Story ...

Suffragette Food.

This Day Last Year ...

We had a story about Van Gogh

Quotation for the Day ...

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Chinese Proverb.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and get rid of him for a whole weekend. Australian version.

P.S Thanks to those of you who noted that the comments button for yesterday's Wonder Bread post had disappeared. It has been fixed, so please comment-away.

Water, Water, Everywhere.

Today, March 27th …

Edward John Eyre was the first European to cross southern Australia from east to west. He set off in 1841 with a party of five, but only he and his aboriginal companion Wylie completed the expedition. It was a gruelling journey of almost two thousand miles, and a large and very thirsty part of it was across the supremely inhospitable desert called the Nullabor Plain.

The party followed the coastline of the Great Australian Bight, and like the narrator in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, for much of the time they were in sight of water, but without a drop to drink. On this day in 1841 he noted in his journal the aboriginal method of finding water in the desert.

… Whilst in camp, during the heat of the day, the native boys shewed me the way in which natives procure water for themselves, when wandering among the scrubs, and by means of which they are enabled to remain out almost any length of time, in a country quite destitute of surface water. I had often heard of the natives procuring water from the roots of trees, and had frequently seen indications of their having so obtained it, but I had never before seen the process actually gone through. Selecting a large healthy looking tree out of the gum-scrub, and growing in a hollow, or flat between two ridges, the native digs round at a few feet from the trunk, to find the lateral roots; to one unaccustomed to the work, it is a difficult and laborious thing frequently to find these roots, but to the practised eye of the native, some slight inequality of the surface, or some other mark, points out to him their exact position at once, and he rarely digs in the wrong place. Upon breaking the end next to the tree, the root is lifted, and run out for twenty or thirty feet; the bark is then peeled off, and the root broken into pieces, six or eight inches long, and these again, if thick, are split into thinner pieces; they are then sucked, or shaken over a piece of bark, or stuck up together in the bark upon their ends, and water is slowly discharged from them; if shaken, it comes out like a shower of very fine rain. The roots vary in diameter from one inch to three; the best are those from one to two and a half inches, and of great length. The quantity of water contained in a good root, would probably fill two-thirds of a pint. I saw my own boys get one-third of a pint out in this way in about a quarter of an hour, and they were by no means adepts at the practice, having never been compelled to resort to it from necessity.Natives who, from infancy, have been accustomed to travel through arid regions, can remain any length of time out in a country where there are no indications of water. The circumstance of natives being seen, in travelling through an unknown district, is therefore no proof of the existence of water in their vicinity. I have myself observed, that no part of the country is so utterly worthless, as not to have attractions sufficient occasionally to tempt the wandering savage into its recesses. In the arid, barren, naked plains of the north, with not a shrub to shelter him from the heat, not a stick to burn for his fire (except what he carried with him), the native is found, and where, as far as I could ascertain, the whole country around appeared equally devoid of either animal or vegetable life. In other cases, the very regions, which, in the eyes of the European, are most barren and worthless, are to the native the most valuable and productive. Such are dense brushes, or sandy tracts of country, covered with shrubs, for here the wallabie, the opossum, the kangaroo rat, the bandicoot, the leipoa, snakes, lizards, iguanas, and many other animals, reptiles, birds, &c., abound; whilst the kangaroo, the emu, and the native dog, are found upon their borders, or in the vicinity of those small, grassy plains …

Eyre was unusual for a colonial explorer in that he developed good relationships with the indigenous people he met, and he deplored their ill-treatment at the hands of so many of his countrymen. His good will persisted even when his co-surveyor was murdered by two of the three aborigines in the party, and the third - Wylie - remained his friend and companion and completed the expedition with him. He was still a nineteenth century man and felt that his was a more civilised race, but he was clearly willing to learn from the local people.

Most of us are lucky and we never have to go short of water. In fact historically most of us take it for granted, and even feel we need to improve on it. From medieval times we have made ‘cordial waters’ - the name originally comes from the Latin word for heart, and refers to their medicinal use as tonics. The Celts of course have their own version of ‘the water of life’, which they call uisge beatha, from which we get the word whisky (or whiskey if you like). There range of distilled drinks was huge a few hundred years ago, and the mistress of every household would have been expected to produce a range of them in her still-room.

Today I give you recipe for ‘Cinamon Water’ from Hugh Plat’s Delightes for ladies to adorne their persons, tables, closets, and distillatories with beauties, banquets, perfumes and waters .. (1602). It is of course quite illegal to make it at home nowadays in civilised countries, so I give the recipe to you for its historic interest only. Understand?

Cinamon-water.
Having a Copper bodie or brasse pot that will holde 12 gallons, you may well make 2 or 3 gallons of Cinamon water at once. Put into your body overnight 6 gallons of conduit water, and two gallons of spirit of wine, or to save charge two gallons of spirit drawne from wine lees, Ale, or lowe wine, or sixe pound of the best and largest Cinamon you can get, or else eight pound of the second sort well brused, but not beaten into pouder; lute your Lymbeck, & begin with a good fire of wood & coals, till the vessel begin to distil, then moderate your fire , so as your pipe may drop apace, and run trickling into the receiver, but not blow at anie time: it helpeth much heerin to keep the water in the bucket, not too hot, by often change thereof, it must neverbe so hot but that you may well indure your finger therein. Then divide into quart Glasses the spirit which first ascendeth, and wherein you finde either no taste or very small taste of the Cynamon, then may you boldely after the spirit once beginneth to come strong of the cinamon, draw until you have gotten at the least a gallon in the receiver, and then divide often by halfe pintes and quarters of pintes, least you drawe too long: which you shall know by the faynte tase and milky colour which distilleth at the ende; this you must nowe and then taste in a spoone. Nowe, when you have drawen so much as you finde good, you may add thereunto so much of your spirit that came before your Cinamon water, as the same will well beare: which you must find by your taste. But if your spirit and your Cinamon be both good, you may of the aforesaid proportion wil make up two gallons, or two gallons and a quarter of good Cinamon water. Heere note that it is not amisse to observe which glasse was first filled with the Spirit that ascended, and so of the second, thirde, and fourth; and when you mix, begin with the last glasse first, & so with the next, because those have more taste of the Cinamon than that which came first, and therefore more fit to bee mixed with your Cinamon water. And if you meane to make but 8 or 9 pintes at once, then begin with but halfe of this proportion. Also that spirit which remain unmixed doth serve to make Cinamon water a second time. This way I have often proved & found most excellent; take heed that your Limbecke be cleane and have no maner of sent in it, but of wine or Cinamon, and so likewise of the glasses, funnells and pots which you shall use about this work.

This Day Last Year ...

We learned about the Gay Game of Rugby.

Tomorrow’s Story …

All at Sea with Leftovers.

Quotation for the Day …

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere
Nor any drop to drink.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Crunchy Cracknels.

Today, March 15th …

Mary Thomas was one of the first settlers in Adelaide, South Australia in 1836. Her husband and his partner published the first London issue of the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register in June 1836, and he then set off with his wife and four children to become the first Government Printer for the new colony. They arrived in November 1836, and by the end of December they had built a camp of tents and rush huts to accommodate their family as well as the first printing press in South Australia.

Mary was a resourceful and talented woman – a poet and writer herself. In addition to her role as matriarch of a family coping with a climate and living conditions at the opposite end of the scale to which they were reared, she contributed actively to the newspaper. She also kept up a correspondence with her brother in England, and she must have expressed a wish for some of the food that she missed from home, for he sent her occasional food parcels. On this day in 1840 she wrote to him:

“We have received the bacon and hams, and excellent they are: such a treat as I, at least, have not had since I have been in the colony. The cracknels were as fresh as if they were just out of the oven, but the pot of honey, I am sorry to say, was broken.”

The idea of hams and bacon arriving after many months at sea without refrigeration
horrifies us today, and it is tempting to think that pure nostalgia gave the ‘cracknels’ that just-baked aroma and crunch. The ‘cracknels’ Mary was referring to were thin, light biscuits “bak'd hard, so as to crackle under the Teeth” – although in some parts of the world the same word means “Small pieces of fat pork fried crisp.”

Perhaps Mary still did not have a proper oven, or surely she would have made the biscuits herself?

To make Cracknels
Take half a pound of fine flour, half a pound of sugar, two ounces of butter, two eggs, and a few carraway seeds; (you must beat and sift the sugar) then put it to your flour and work it to paste; roll them as thin as you can, and cut them out with queen cake tins, lie them on papers and bake them in a slow oven. They are proper to eat with chocolate. [English Housewifry; 1764]

Tomorrow’s Story …

Second Breakfast.

The story last year …

A Vegetarian Feast was the topic of the day.

Quotation for the Day …

When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste. Laiko Bahrs

The Pavlova: the story.

Today, January 31st …

[update: February 7th, see the entry for 1933]

The Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova was born on this day in 1885, so there is no difficulty guessing our topic today – ‘the pavlova, the sweet dessert’. There has been a longstanding battle between Australia and New Zealand as to who 'invented' the pavlova, with tempers getting quite nasty at times. This is my contribution to the war.

For those of you who need the clarification, a pavlova as defined by the OED is “a dessert consisting of a soft-centred meringue base or shell filled with whipped cream and fruit.” I would like it put on notice here that the OED, which should be absolutely non-partisan, has clearly allied itself with the “soft-centred like marshmallow” school of thought, in complete disregard for the very vocal opposition school that maintains a pavlova should be thoroughly dried and crisp throughout.

We have established then, that a pavlova is a form of meringue. Neither Australia nor New Zealand invented the meringue, because the meringue was invented before they were. As for meringue, it was not, repeat NOT ‘invented in 1720 by a Swiss pastry-cook called Gasparini, who practised his art in Mehrinyghen [hence ‘meringue’], a small town in the State of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.’ Even the venerable Larousse perpetrates this myth, in complete disregard for the fact that confections made from sweetened, stiffly-beaten egg whites appear in cookbooks printed well before that date. The earliest I can find appears in the recipe collection of Lady Elinor Fettiplace, which is dated 1604, which she calls White Bisket Bread.

To make White Bisket Bread.
Take a pound & a half of sugar, & an handful of fine white flower [flour], the whites of twelve eggs, beaten verie finelie, and a little annisseed brused, temper all this together, till it be no thicker than pap, make coffins with paper, and put it into the oven, after the manchet [bread] is drawn.

Note: this is clearly what we would call ‘meringue’, but Lady Elinor does not use the name. The first use that I am aware of (and I stand willing to be corrected) is in the cookbook of François Massialot, the first chef of Louis XIV (1638 - 1715). His book was published in 1692, and contained a chapter on “Meringues and Macaroons”. This is one of the recipes from the English translation of 1702.

Dry Meringues.
Having caus’d the Whites of four new-laid Eggs to be whipt, as before, till they rise up to a Snow, let four Spoonfuls of very dry Powder-sugar be put into it, and well-temper’d with a Spoon: Then let all be set over a gentle Fire, to be dried a little at two several times, and add some Pistachoes, that are pounded and dried a little in the Stove. Afterwards, they are to be dress’d as other, and bak’d in the Oven somewhat leisurely, with a little Fire underneath, and more on the top; When they are sufficiently done, and very dry, let them be taken out, and cut off with a Knife: Lastly, as soon as they are somewhat cold, let them be laid upon Paper, and set into the Stove to be kept dry.

So, should M.Massialot get the credit for ‘inventing’ the meringue, as the evidence is that he used the name first? Or, until an earlier manuscript turns up, should it go to Lady Elinor, on the principle that the concept is the thing, not the name?

Australia and New Zealand, we have established, did not invent the bisket-bread/meringue style confection itself. Did either of them actually invent the particular iteration which both now call the pavlova, or did one of them steal the name an apply it to a similar, but quintessentially different variation? Here we have the nub of the dispute. It is all in the name.

It is not my job here to take sides (although as I have pointed out elsewhere, NZ is the country that re-named the Chinese Gooseberry the Kiwi Fruit, in what was clearly an attempt to give it origin status), so I hereby give you the known facts/factoids in chronological order for you to make up your own minds.

1926: A cookbook printed in NZ called Cookery for New Zealand, by E. Futter contained a recipe ‘Meringue with Fruit Filling’. It was not, however, called Pavlova.

1927: The OED cites the first use of the word ‘pavlova’ in ‘Davis Dainty Dishes’, published by Davis Gelatine in NZ. It was ‘composed of coloured layers of jelly made in a mould resembling a ballerina's tutu’. Pavlova, as coloured jelly – I don’t think so!

1927: A group of Congregational Church ladies produced a cookbook called Terrace Tested Recipes, in Wellington NZ in 1927. One recipe was for ‘Meringue Cake’, which was made in two tins, the resulting two cakes being sandwiched together with cream and fruit, or serves as two cakes. Not called pavlova. Structure similar? Not the two layer one, certainly.

1929: Yet another NZ cookbook, Mrs. McKay’s Practical Home Cookery, had a recipe for ‘Pavlova Cakes’, the plural representing the three dozen little confections made from the mixture. This is hardly the same thing as a pavlova with the traditional filling/topping, now is it?
1933: Bron at Bron Marshall Classic & Creative Cuisine sends this correction on Feb 7th:

The recipe was submitted by a Laurina Stevens for the Rangiora Mother’s Union Cookery Book, it was called “Pavlova” - the correct name, the recipe was for one large cake and contained the correct ingredients, egg white, sugar, cornflour, and vinegar, and it had the correct method for cooking. This has been proven thanks to the research of Professor Helen Leach, of the University of Otago’s anthropology department. Prof Leach also uncovered a 1929 pavlova recipe in a New Zealand rural magazine which had the correct ingredients and correct method of cooking, however it was unfortunately published under a pseudonym.

1935: The family of Herbert Sachse of the Hotel Esplanade in Perth, Western Australia have maintained a vigorous claim that he invented the dish to be served at afternoon tea, and commented (or someone did) that “It is as light as Pavlova”, and hence the name Sachse claimed in a magazine interview that he ‘improved’ a recipe for Meringue Cake he found in the Women’s Mirror Magazine on April 2, 1935 (which had been submitted by a NZ resident.

I guess the only way this dispute will get resolved is if we can come to a consensus as to what defines a pavlova, as distinct from a meringue or a meringue cake or a pavlova cake(s).

I reckon the passionfruit is crucial.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Pepys’ Pease Porridge.

A Previous Story for this Day …

We had a story about monkeys and bananas on this day last year.

Quotation for the Day …

Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold. Judith Olney.

1 can of meat, 100 recipes.

My search for a recipe for yesterdays post Australian Meat, English Pie led me to Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, which was published in England in the 1870's. It gives, under Tinned Meat, Australian, a total of one-hundred recipes for this product.

The recipes are, let it be said, not particularly appetising to us today. There is, in fact, a certain cant look/cant look away quality to them, but for reasons which I am at a loss to explain, and which perhaps are best not explored, I feel compelled to make this culinary treasure more widely available.

I have, therefore, decided to gradually post them. As the topic is above and beyond the normal Old Foodie postings, I have decided that the recipes will be housed on the Companion to the Old Foodie site. Doing it this way also ensures that visitors to this site dont fall over them accidentally and get a fright.

If you are interested, and are not afraid of fatty lumps of canned meat, or other ingredients such as Pea Powder, you will find "Tinned Meat, Australian" HERE.

Australian Meat, English Pie.

Today, January 26th …

There is no avoiding it, today Down Under it is Australia Day. When America won its War of Independence, Britain was forced to find another dumping ground for its criminal class (most of which was the urban poor). The prison hulks in the Thames soon proved insufficient (and had rather too much unsightly proximity to the urban rich), so a fleet of slightly more seaworthy hulks were obtained, filled up with convicts, put under the charge of Captain Arthur Phillip, and sent off to the Great South Land.

Australia Day commemorates the day in 1788 that this “First Fleet” sailed into Sydney Cove and was formally claimed for Britain by Captain Phillip. The last shipment of convicts arrived in 1868, just as a trade opportunity in the opposite direction was starting to assert itself.

There was a serious shortage of meat in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century due to a combination of circumstances: the population grew from 28 to 35 million between 1850 and 1880, and cattle plague (probably Rinderpest) had drastically culled cattle herds. In the new colony of Australia there was an abundance of cattle and sheep. How to get this beef and mutton to the Mother Country? Many methods of meat preservation were tried and patented.

The Australian Meat Company was established in 1865, with head offices in London, and a large canning business in South Australia. It is difficult to avoid thinking that the amount of effort expended by the authorities, companies, and cookbook authors to promote the use of this tinned Australian meat somehow reflects its lack of intrinsic appeal. Its one great virtue was its cost, and Phyllis Browne, who addressed herself to “people of moderate income, with moderate domestic help, and ordinary kitchen utensils” in her book A Year’s Cookery (1879), had this to say about it:

“Australian Meat is at its best when served cold with pickles. It should be turned out of the tin very carefully, and the dripping that lies on it should be taken away, and will prove a valuable addition to the household stock of dripping to be used in cookery. .. The jelly should be preserved – it will make excellent gravy; and in order that there may be no waste the tin should be rinsed with warm water for gravy.”

Canned Australian meat remained a common commodity in Britain for decades after the first successful shipment of frozen meat from Australia arrived in England aboard the Strathleven in 1880. The 1910 edition of Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery feels justified in providing 100 recipes for using tinned meat because “considerable prejudice exists, owing, to a great extent, to the fact that few know how to cook them properly”.

Naturally, I have to give you a recipe for meat pie today (it is our national dish, after all), and have chosen one from a junior cousin to Cassell’s Dictionary, a cookbook “written on the basis of the maxim that economy and simplicity are not incompatible with excellence and elegance”. It is Cassell’s Shilling Cookery (1888).

Australian Meat Pie.

Warm the tin; strain off the jelly. Place this in a saucepan with six beads of garlic, and let it boil gently for ten minutes. Take out the garlic. Add a teaspoonful of salt, two of black pepper, a pinch of cayenne, and half a grated nutmeg. Mix the meat thoroughly in this gravy, and put it in a pie-dish. Cover with a crust and bake till the pastry is done. Take it out of the oven, and let it get cold.
This pie must be eaten cold, not hot. If the jelly were insufficient to moisten the meat, some water, or still better, stock, should be added.
Australian meat lacks flavour and requires vigorous treatment, as above.
Should such a strong flavour of garlic be objected to, put in less, or an onion, but garlic is best.

[I must add, for those of you who have not experienced a good Aussie Meat Pie, that we dont make them from canned meat nowadays!]

Monday’s Story …

Mulling it over.

A Previous Story for this Day …

This day in 1888 marked the centennial anniversary of the day that Captain Arthur Phillips formally claimed the land as the furthest outpost of Her Majesty’s Empire, and landed a considerable number of her less desirable subjects as its first citizens. The ‘Inevitable Banquet’ that accompanied such events was the feature of the story on this day last year.

Quotation for the Day …

I live on toasted lizards,
Prickly pears, and parrot gizzards,
And I’m really very fond of beetle-pie.
Charles Edward Carryl (1841–1920), U.S. poet

The inevitable banquet.

Today, January 26th …

This day in 1888 marked the centennial anniversary of the day that Captain Arthur Phillips formally claimed the land as the furthest outpost of Her Majesty’s Empire, and landed a considerable number of her less desirable subjects as its first citizens.

The colony celebrated the day from the beginning, first as Foundation Day or Anniversary Day, and after 1946 as Australia Day. The centennial anniversary of white settlement was celebrated particularly magnificently and magnanimously in Sydney. A public holiday was declared, the public (presumably the white members) were allowed into Centennial Park, and religious services, parades, and exhibitions were held. Centennial ration packs were handed out to 11,000 deserving poor (presumably the white ones), and 13,000 workers marched (as they do) and laid the foundation stone for a new Trades Hall. Naturally, there was a statue unveiling, and naturally, it was of Her Majesty.

In the Town Hall in the evening there was “the inevitable banquet” for the most important white folk – or at least the male ones, ladies not being allowed at public banquets at the time. The first murmurings of Federation were already being heard, but loyalty was indisputably to the Empire, and the culture was resolutely British – which meant the formal menu was in French, and dishes did not include such things as fresh local oysters or kangaroo.

Potage.
Tortue.
Poissons.
Saumon à la Royale.
Filet de Sole, Crême des Anchoies. Schnapper à la Maréchal.
Entrees.
Les Pâtes à la Reine.
Salmi des Perdrix.
Chaud Froid de Volaille.
Releves.
Dinde Rôti à la Perigord. Dinde Boulli, Sauce aux Champignons.
Jambon de Yorc. Langues de Bœuf.
Selle d’Agneau. Haut de Bœuf.
Bœuf en Preserve.
Gibier.
Faisans, Sauce au Pain.
Pâte de Foie Gras en Aspic.
Salade à la Russe.
Mayonnaise des Crevettes.
Entremets.
Gelée à l’Australienne.
Gelée des Oranges. Gelée au Ponche.
Charlotte aux Fraises.
Pouding à la Princesse. Pouding aux Amandes.
Crême à la Vanille. Crême au Fleur des Oranges.
Crême au Chocolat.
Nougat au Crême.
Fanchettes.
Bouchées des Dames. Tartelettes au Crême.
Pouding Glacé à la Nesselrode.
Eau Glacé aux Oranges.
Dessert.
Café

Wines
Sherry, Hock, Chablis, Australian Wine.
Champagnes: Ruinart, Irroy, Pommery and Greno.
Clarets: Mouton de Rothschild, Latour.
Port.
Liqueurs: Curacoa, Maraschino, Old Brandy.

The entremets/dessert puzzle must wait for another story!

No recipe today folks, fresh oysters need no cooking, only the accompaniment of a good white wine (Australian of course).

Tomorrow: The Baronet’s Egg.