Fear and Loathing of the Suburban Summer; and Oil Slick Lemonade

Oil Slick Lemonade (front); and my beloved woodpile (rear).
I miss winter.

I have always maintained that people with my complexion were never intended to live in this sort of climate.

In fact, I've come to feel (usually on particularly hot days as I sit in a miserable puddle in front of a fan) that my enterprising ancestors who first came from England to Australia were spitting in the face of thousands of years of evolution. And as for the Norwegians - they must have been completely barking mad.

Early European colonists in Australia formed Acclimatisation Societies. These were not, as you might assume, groups of sunburnt Europeans sharing tips on dealing with 40 degree summers. Rather, they were focused on building a replica of European society out here in the sticks. Their main method for achieving this was the import of every non-native plant and animal species imaginable, regardless of how poorly it was suited to the environment (for example, partridges) or what would happen if it turned out to be very, very well suited to the environment (for example, rabbits).

Humans also seem to fall into these two broad categories: those who wither in Australian conditions, and those who thrive. Needless to say, I am firmly in the 'partridge' category.

Pathetic pale specimens such as myself have been moaning about the heat since we arrived.

An early example is in an 1804 letter to the editor, in which "A Regular Passenger" begs local ferries to put up awnings:

"The intense heat of the sun increased by the reflection of its rays, to which with my fellow-passengers I was for several hours exposed, was as may readily be conceived, almost utterly insupportable."

To the Printer of the Sydney Gazette. (1804, January 8). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), p. 3. Retrieved October 3, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article625964

The Colonial era whinge which most spoke to my wretched summer condition is from 1860. Here it is in all its put-upon glory:

THE RECENT HEAT.  

"There be some sports are painful," as Shakspeare says.  

We have heard, for instance, of men so devoted to science as to test newly discovered poisons on themselves in order to be able, the more accurately to note down all the symptoms which such noxious agent are capable of producing.  

In the same manner there may have been amongst our numerous readers some qualified persons who, during the late visitation of heat, employed themselves, whilst the rest of the colonists were stupified by a sort of general sunstroke, in watching the meteorological changes which took place. If any there were who thus devoted themselves to turning the public calamity to the best account we shall be glad to publish a brief statement of the results which they arrived at, for at present we have nothing like a satis- factory record of various peculiarities which marked the progress of the late eventful Saturday.  

That the excessive heat destroyed large quantities of fruit and injured many valuable trees, besides, in numerous instances, causing sickness and sudden death, we have unfortunately abundant evidence. The temporary sufferings of persons otherwise in good health appear also to have been un- usually great— so much so, indeed, that the letters of some of our correspondents from the towns in the north look like the histories of places smitten with the plague, so utterly was business suspended and exertion made impos- sible.  

The people of Gawler especially seem to have caught the very worst of the hot blast which swept over the colony. The thermo- meter there rose to 123° in the shade, and the astonished inhabitants were in a plight not much better than that of the Ancient Mariner and his companions— ' And every tongee, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; We could not speak no more than if We had been choked with soot'

THE RECENT HEAT. (1860, January 25). South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), p. 2. Retrieved October 3, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49895555

So, Cookery Friends, what comforts are there for an English-Norwegian partridge facing yet another blistering Australian summer? Aside from air-conditioning, that is.

Well, summer is prime rice-paper roll season, which is certainly something to get excited about. There are also increased opportunities for barbequing - although this can be done just about year round in our relentlessly warm and dry climate. For me, the real culinary joy of summer is cooling drinks, and I've found a colonial era recipe writer who agrees with me.

The Age's 1860 food writer is that person:

Recipes for Cooling Summer Drinks.— Cream of tartar one ounce, three quarters of a pound of lump sugar, or less of moist, half the rind of a lemon, cut thin, one gallon of boiling water poured on it. When cold it is fit to drink. Corked and bottled it will keep three days. Any flavoring can be added.

(1860, March 10). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 6. Retrieved December 27, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article154880139

A cooling summer drink. Aaaah!

Take note, this lemonade isn't fizzy, the way we would expect it to be today. The citrus oil from the lemon peel creates a beautiful pattern of refracting swirls in each glass, and a slightly slippery mouth feel. Imagine sending your tongue careering down an ice-covered Slip'n'Slide.

Oil Slick Lemonade

Makes four large tumblers of lemonade.

7g (2 ½ teaspoons) cream of tartar
80g (3 ounces) sugar
½ the rind of a lemon, cut thin
1.1l (2 pints) boiling water

5 minutes of effort, and then waiting for it to cool down (about an hour on a hot day).

Combine cream of tartar, sugar and lemon rind in a heat-proof bowl or a saucepan. Pour over the boiling water, stirring to dissolve the sugar. It will only take a minute, as the boiling water will do most of the work for you. Allow to cool.

If you like, add ¼ teaspoon of any essence (eg. coconut, almond, or lemon) to the whole batch, or a couple of drops to each glass.

It keeps well in the fridge overnight, but will need to be stirred well before serving.

Cookery friends - what is your favourite season? Which foods help you cope with bad weather?

Surprises in Colonial Era Advertising

I always find it interesting coming across mentions of topics in Colonial Era newspapers that would be taboo today.

Here is an example of an advertisement from 1870 for cure-all cream called 'Holloway's Ointment':

Advertising. (1870, June 11). Southern Argus (Port Elliot, SA : 1866 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved August 22, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article96875838

Fistulas are a common, and horrifying, complication of childbirth without the help of modern medicine. Most people these days in developed countries haven't heard of fistulas, despite the fact that women in first world countries still experience them, and yet here they are on p. 4 of the Southern Argus nearly 150 years ago.

"The Horror, The Horror" Vegetable Stew; and What Rich People Think the Poor Should Eat

Despite having a truly chef-worthy name, Adolphe Smith (the author of today's recipe) was not a cook. In fact, he was an early radical socialist whose best known work was the written element of the photojournalism book Street Life in London (1877), which offered the middle classes an insight into just how grim poverty could be.



"The Old Clothes of St Giles." Or, where poor people bought their clothes.
Street Life in London (Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London, 1877) by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith, http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/streetlifeinlondon
 

So why, in 1870, was Smith writing to the Food Journal with an article on vegetarian recipes?

Well, like many middle class people before and after him, Smith wanted to help the poor, and he thought a good place to start would be to address the fact that they obstinately wouldn't feed themselves nutritious food.

"To remedy these evils [poor nutrition among those living in poverty], good teachers and willing pupils are wanted: but in England the poor decidedly object to learn, and no one has had the courage to attempt to teach them."  

Vegetables Better than Nothing. (1870). Food Journal, 1, 125-125. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=1XgBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA524&dq=food+journal+1870&hl=en&sa=X#v=onepage&q=%22undoubtedly%20great%20sustenance%22&f=false

It all rather reminds me of that classic bully move, where the bully hits their victim with their own fist, while saying "Stop hitting yourself!". Yes, poor people, "Stop starving yourself!"

In any case, after some half-baked political theories Smith goes on to offer three vegetarian recipes, which form the portion of the Food Journal article that were excerpted in the Melbourne Leader later in 1870.



'The Horror, The Horror' Vegetable Stew.
I fed this to my toddler and she looked like she had feasted on the blood of her enemies.

Today, we turn to the first of the three recipes, root vegetable stew (or, 'A Medley of Out-of-Season Vegetables You Can't Afford'). The first defining characteristic of this recipe is the sheer variety of vegetables involved. And as anyone who has ever been poor knows, 'variety' is the watchword of frugal eating. The second defining characteristic of the recipe is beetroot, so consider yourself warned.

Here is the original recipe, as it appeared in the Leader:

COOKING VEGETABLES.— For a cheap; yet tasty and substantial dish let me suggest that the housewife grate two carrots, two turnips, one parsnip, a little beetroot and artichoke, into one   pint of split- peas, boiled in two quarts of soft water for two hours. The whole might then be boiled with three teaspoonfuls of Indian, wheaten,   or Scotch meal, mixed in cold: water, leaving it to simmer for two hours more ; a little parsley, mint, and thyme will flavour the dish. More     water might be added if necessary. This some what complicated : ' hodge-podge' would well satisfy a middle-class family, and cost less, at     any rate, than a joint. It would not do, perhaps, every day, but might occasionally save the   meat, and avoid the horror, of stinting at dinner.

RECIPES. (1870, September 3). Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918), p. 5. Retrieved August 18, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196691504

Ingredients

1 large carrot

1 turnip

1 small parsnip

1 small beetroot

1 small artichoke

250g split peas

1.5l water

2 T cornflour

¼ cup chopped parsley

¼ cup chopped mint

A few springs of thyme

Cooking Time

2 and a half hours, most of which will not require your presence.

Yield

4 serves filling enough to get you through a cold night on the streets of Victorian London

Method

Grate all the vegetables, and put them in a large saucepan with the split peas and water. A food processor with a grater attachment makes quick work of this – although when you put the beetroot through it will look like you’ve blended some small hapless critter, so prepare yourself for the gore. Seriously, we’re talking blood spatters here reminiscent of a promotional poster for Dexter.

Bring the water to the boil, and then turn down to a simmer. Cook for one hour.

In a cup, mix the cornflour with a dash of cold water. Stir it into the soup.

 

Cook the soup for a further hour, stirring to prevent it sticking.

 

Ten minutes before serving, add the parsley and mint, and the leaves stripped from the thyme.

Add more water at any point if the vegetables rise above the water line.

Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Don't wear white while eating this dish. Or any clothes that you like. Maybe eat it naked.

Corruption and Theft at the Colonial Bakehouse

As every reader of Melbourne Punch knew, working class people were shifty.

ANSWERED. (1884, March 6). Melbourne Punch (Vic. : 1855 - 1900), p. 10. Retrieved August 19, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article174561736

In my last post, I explained that many people in the colonial era bought their bread from a baker, rather than baking at home, because they didn't have an oven or couldn't afford to run it. For the same reason, they also sent roasts and other main meals to be cooked in the baker's oven.

Knowing this, I'm sure you will find the following account of one baker's dishonesty as alarming as the original readers would have in 1829:

CONFESSIONS OF A JOURNEYMAN BAKER.    

Mr. Maton was apprenticed, in the year 1792,   to a person in Salisbury, who was miller, baker,   &c., and who had some army contracts ; he afterwards came to London, and entered the service   of a baker, where on the first Sunday, he got initiated into one branch of the business, that it,   of managing the dinners sent to be baked.  

'As   I was an underman,' he says, ' it became my duty to take the dishes out of the shop into the bakehouse ; the second hand, as the cant phrase is,   shaves the meat (that is to say, cuts as much off   from each joint as he thinks will not be missed) ; the foreman drains the water off, and puts the   dishes into the oven until they require to be turn-   ed : after which, the liquid fat is drained off   from each dish, and the deficiency is supplied   with water ; this fat is the master's perquisite! Here is a pretty particular way of robbing Sunday   dinners, as our friend Jonathan would say.  

While   living with this master, Mr. Maton acquired a knowledge of the trade of dealing in ' dead men,'     or charging loaves to the customers which they   never had ; this is another lucrative branch of   the business, in which master and man strive   which can get the monopoly. Such at least was   the case in this place, and Maton kept a check   on his master. He found that four shillings per   week, with the spoils of the ' dead men,' was more profitable than sixteen shillings per week,   with lodging, bread, beer, a Sunday dinner, bro-   ken victuals, and the spoils of a ' sharp knife in   the bakehouse, which would shave off a dinner   to a hair's breadth.'  

This baker, who appears to have been a terrible plunderer, used to send a peck of flour four pounds short of the proper   weight.— To be continued.    

CONFESSIONS OF A JOURNEYMAN BAKER. (1829, August 24). Launceston Advertiser (Tas. : 1829 - 1846), p. 4. Retrieved August 19, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article84776238

So when you next enjoy a store-bought loaf, spare a moment to be thankful for modern health and safety laws and consumer protection bodies!

"Land Hunger"; or The Great Australian Dream

Commentators often note that the Australian obsession with home ownership is a cultural peculiarity. In Europe and Britain, where a great deal of Australians originated, renting is not seen as a financial black hole that will ruin your life, as it is here.

In Australia, every man's (or woman's) house is their castle. In the case of this 1860s house near Colac, it helped it that looked like an actual castle.

Image: THE RESIDENCE OF W. ROBERTSON, ESQ., NEAR COLAC. (1868, February 4). Illustrated Australian News for Home Readers (Melbourne, Vic. : 1867 - 1875), p. 5 Supplement: SUPPLEMENT TO THE ILLUSTRATED AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Reading very early newspaper articles from the Colonial Era gives interesting impressions about the reasons people came to the colony. The shared interests of these early colonists shaped the culture of our nation, and by all accounts one of the great draws of coming to Australia was owning property.

The following excerpt is from an advertisement for land in Colac, near Geelong. The language, though of course intended to persuade the reader, nevertheless used gives a clear idea of just how passionate the average colonist may have felt about the Great Australian Dream of land ownership:

"There is now no impediment to the gratification of land hunger to the extent of a man's means, and to all who covet a portion of the earth's surface, who wish   to try Sir Waiter Scott's recipe   for an appetite—" walk a mile or two on your own land before breakfast"; who wish to stamp their heel on the ground and say " this is mine from the surface to the centre

of gravity," now is the time."

 

THURSDAY MORNING, NOV. 15, 1860. (1860, November 15). Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1924), p. 2. Retrieved January 7, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148887775

 

It is also interesting to note that the view that one could own land was the basis for many misunderstandings between the European colonists and Indigenous Australians who see themselves as custodians rather than owners. When Indigenous people were offered goods by colonists to buy their land, they often thought they were being given a gift to allow the colonists safe passage through their tribe's territory. It must have been a nasty surprise indeed when the colonists began to set up a homestead instead of passing through.

 

Having said that, I fully admit to being a product of my culture. The day my wife and I bought our cottage was the culmination of a dream I have cherished since childhood. When I walk up the driveway of my cottage today, I may just give a little stamp, and say "this is mine from the surface to the centre of gravity".

Christmas, 1803 in the Colonies

CHRISTMAS. (1871, January 2). Illustrated Australian News for Home Readers (Melbourne, Vic. : 1867 - 1875), p. 1 Supplement: SUPPLEMENT TO THE ILLUSTRATED AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Merry Christmas, cookery friends!

Preparations for Christmas lunch are in full swing here at my Colonial cottage. As I've researched some of the earliest Christmas celebrations in the Australian colonies, I've come to see just how much my family's traditions are actually those of our nation.

We enjoy roast ham, pork and turkey, and serving platters piled high with roasted and steamed vegetables. The meal concludes with Wild Colonial Grandma's famous Christmas pudding, complete with sixpence coins. She always tries to put enough in for everyone to get one for luck, but probability being what it is, there is always one poor family member who ends up penniless and out of luck.

We are, however, all lucky to not be living in the Sydney colony in 1803, at Christmas-time.

Here are the General Orders from the Acting Secretary about Christmas rations, printed in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser:

Tuesday next being Christmas Day, the Commissary is directed to issue an extra Ration to each person on the Civil and Military Establishment, Constables, Watchmen, and Overseers ; One Pound of Fresh Beef, Half a Pound of Suet, with the addition of Half a Pound of Raisins to each Soldier's Family victualled from the Stores. To such Prisoners receiving a Ration, One Pound of Salt Pork, and One Pound of Flour or Wheat equal thereto,

By Command of His Excellency,

G. BLAXCELL, Acting Sec.

Government House, Sydney,

Dec. 22d, 1804.

 

General Orders. (1804, December 23). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), p. 1.


So what festive dishes would you be able to make with these ingredients?

Early colonists, like my family, enjoyed roast meat at Christmas-time; although those prisoners who only got salt pork may have enjoyed it somewhat less.

Suet was most commonly used in puddings, and the presence of raisins makes it a near certainty that most settlers would have cooked themselves a Christmas pudding with these rations.

It gives me a warm historical glow to think that on Christmas day, we too will sit down to a meal of roast meat and Christmas pudding, even if we will have greater variety and abundance of dishes than our Colonial forebears.

What are your family's Christmas food traditions? Are they similar or different to the nation where you live?


P.S. As a little Christmas extra, you can see the earliest mention of Christmas in Australia (that I could find) over on my twitter feed @thecolonialcook.

 

Tastes Like Colonial-Era Deprivation

In  my never-ending quest to find ever-earlier recipes in Australia's newspaper archives, I recently tried to wring blood out of the stone that is this throwaway line:

"If the price of wheat is high, a whole- some bread may be made with the potatoe fibre, and either barley, flour, or oatmeal."

POTATO-FLOUR. (1828, October 10). The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 - 1848), p. 4. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36864049

I tried two different variations, based on the two possible dishes that someone in the 1820s might have referred to as ' bread'.

The first attempt was ground oats and grated potato mixed with a little flour and then subjected to my usual process for making a leavened loaf. Though the regular flour and yeast did give it a bit of rise, it was very dense, and as my wife diplomatically put it the texture was "slimy".

The second attempt was ground oats and grated potato shaped into small unleavened cakes and fried, in the manner of griddle cakes or johnny cakes. These were slightly more palatable, although I think this speaks more to the miraculous process of frying than anything else. My wife and I each managed to choke down a few of these, and the verdict from her this time was "filling".
As we sat chewing away at them, I filled her in on their provenance - intended to supplement the diet of some of Australia's earliest colonists, and to stave off the famine that was never far away in the early history of the colonies. My wife looked back down at the hard medallions of carbohydrates and said thoughtfully, "Well in that case, they're pretty good."

So when you compare this dish to starving, it's great. I think that is an excellent illustration of the conditions of deprivation early settlers faced.

If you can get something delicious out of this 'recipe', please let me know!