Let them eat CAKE… Please

My mother would have felt an overwhelming sense of shame if her cake tins, biscuit tins and a slice tin or two, were not filled with deliciousness. The cake tin was always filled with two types of cake, one would have been a fruit cake (sultana or mixed fruit) and the other a plain cake, that was Dad’s fave, a chocolate, orange or lemon. Complex cakes were not usually the province of the home cook, even things like Napoleon Slice or a rolled sponge were left to Tommy Digby.. he did them better. Mum made a ripper Lamington and they were my favourite.

Lamingtons

125g butter

3/4 cup castor sugar

2 eggs

1 3/4 cup SR Flour

2/3 cup milk

1 tspn vanilla

Method

Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla, add eggs one at a time. Add flour alternatively with milk. Pour mix into a greased lamington slab tin, 11 inches by 7 inches and bake in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes. After it’s thoroughly cooled cut into four centimetre by 4cm pieces. Wrap cake in foil and put in the freezer.

 

Icing

3cups icing sugar

1 tspn butter

1 tspn vanilla

1 tbspn cocoa

Put icing ingredients in a double boiler, over boiling water.  And mix until smooth, adding a dash of hot water.

 

Assemble

Then put a lamington on a fork and ladle icing over the top until covered, hold it while it drips then roll in fine coconut.

Dry on cake rack with greaseproof paper over the top of it, or underneath to catch the coconut.

When transporting Lamingtons put extra coconut at the bottom of the container to prevent sticking to the bottom.

 

The gig was…

Family – a slice of cake for morning or afternoon tea, no supper in our house, it just didn’t happen. Maybe it was because Dad started work so early, the house was often put to bed by 9 pm.

Visitors – a pot of tea, until Mum discovered Turban coffee essence and thought it unbelievably posh, after that coffee was offered, but only in the morning. A plate of cakes, home made biscuits, slice or what ever was the go for the week was produced. Scones were a huge favourite for afternoon tea, so too buttered ‘pikelets’.

Mum’s Plain Cake… so easy and so tasty

250g (8oz) butter

250g (8oz)  sugar

4 eggs

1/2 cup (65gr or 2oz)plain flour

1 1/2 – 2 cups(200gr to 250gr or 6 1/2oz to 8oz) self raising flour

1/2 cup milk (approx)

pinch salt

vanilla essence or the grated rind and juice of one lemon (just add milk to make 125 mil)

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time beating well.  Add pinch of salt and vanilla essence and mix.  Alternately mix in flour and milk.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180°c/360°f for 30 – 40 minutes or until when tested skewer comes out clean.  Turn out of tin and allow to cool.

 

People ate cake. Today, we seem not to. I am mystified. There are a number of possible explanations… Can’t bake anymore! Time Challenged! Calories! Confusion!

We have forgotten how. Baking was always considered one of the house wives main duties, (It should be said that many men also took great pride in baking and entered competitions and shows) she took a lot of pride in keeping the tins filled and even entered shows and competitions with the results of her kitchen. The CWA (I love the heading on the CWA book on Cakes ‘ Traditional Tempting Tried and True’.) was the main support along with the PWMU and the dozens of local auxiliaries of various things who proudly produced local recipe books that were attributed to great local cooks. My mother collected recipes and swapped them, her hand written recipes books are filled with swapped recipes. Jennifer’s mother (Annie Belle) was an avid collector of recipes and hand written recipe books and I have them all.

But why? Why was life different then, so different that it is hard to even start to compare. Looking back I can see the changes starting. In the early days of marriage and family, we did keep a cake or two in the cake tin. We did not often make biscuits, a slice maybe but rarely. As the family grew and started to need things like school lunches, cakes became more important. Daughter Seryn was one of the family bakers and joined her mother and me. Jennifer was an exacting baker who liked to do things by hand, there is little doubt that cakes made this way are superior, the main problem was she was a reluctant baker. I was more inclined to toss it all in having read the recipe, I always wanted to innovate. Seryn fell somewhere in the middle, she liked to follow a recipe, yet innovate. Her innovations and particularly when she doubled a recipe on the odd occasion got messed up and the results, amusing. But I can say, my family was raised to enjoy cake. And still do.

Time is something that we have blamed too much for many of our shortcomings of the kitchen. Its time to stop and take a good hard look. Are we simply lazy? Are we overindulged, spoiled for choice, served by many to make our eating lives happy? Its true to say that in the past, women were not expected to work once they had started a family, but that certainly did not mean they worked less, it seem true that often women worked much harder and longer hours than they do today. And they had to cook much more than they do today. Grocery stores in the past were much different places. My mother would shop for.

*Flour: 3 types SR and Plain and Cornflour

*Sugar: Normal, Caster or Icing sugar

*Cleaning Aids: Floor wax, Velvet soap (used for all soap needs including washing the dishes)

*Toiletries were purchased from Olive Powell’s pharmacy, soap and toothpaste.

*Cheese and Butter. Mum had two cheeses only and butter was often not needed since Dad would get some milk from one of the farms and mum would make her own butter, the butter milk, the residue was great for baking.

*Eggs, always from our own chooks, I don’t think my family would have ever bought eggs.

*Sauces Chutneys and Pickles, along with Mayonnaise were always home made, never ever bought.

*Incidentals.. custard powder, vanilla essence, vinegar, jelly crystals, desiccated coconut, mustard powder, spices, tea. *Tinned foods were just a few, Condensed Milk, Rosella Tomato soup, Heinz Baked beans and my Mum’s fave, sardines. The occasional canned salmon.

*Sweet biscuits in great moderation and these would have come from large tins in the grocer’s shop.

*Meat from the butcher; chicken was unheard of as something you could purchase ready to cook. Fish was caught by Dad and when we lived down near the wharves, a few bits of flake or some of my favourite, couta bellies. *Fruit was grown and preserved or turned into jams in the summer, every house had a vegetable garden and grew a lot of their own needs, for the rest it would be Edgar Egan for vegetables and fruit we did not grow.

The number of products to be found these days in Grocery shops (now called Supermarkets) is astounding. It started with the addition of toiletries, then with amazing speed started to include delicatessen and butchering lines, the rest is a seemingly endless array of new product all designed to get us into the space and keep us there… insurance seems to to be the latest.

Calories are those unseen things that are in every bit of food that passes into us and have the ability to make us fat or thin. Water is calorie neutral. In the past they were also not something that was thought about, today with the advent of sales people selling weight loss, weight gain, long life and every other aspect of living, we are reminded over and over of there great relevance in our lives.

Calories intake in the 1950′s and 60′s are listed for Australian at about 2000 (+ or – a bit) and todays intake average for women is 2500 and for men 3000. Its also of some importance to note that obesity and even a great preponderance of overweight was not a major issue in the 50/60′s. The same cannot be said for today where the issues of body weight, world wide (except for the third world) are of major concern.

Since we are dealing with the why of not eating cake, it must be said that as a calorific food, cake has not had good press, it is regarded as a weighty item in the intake of foods, 60 grams of plain cake has a calorie content of about 197. Other cakes that have a higher fat content with cream, sugar coating have a much greater count. But by way of comparison a Big Mac hamburger has 560 calories and if you have it with a medium sized bag of chips, then a further 380 calories can be added. A really good roast dinner with all the trimmings, beef, potatoes and at least three vegetables and gravy, 600 calories, up to 800 should you be like my Grandfather and demand fat on your roast. You can have a great roast dinner, a slice of cake (think steamed jam pudding as a desert cake for 360 calories) for the same amount of calories consumed if you eat one Big Mac and a medium bag of chips – 940 calories.

Its dazzling how the youth of today would even begin to choose a Big Mac over a roast dinner. So perhaps it is that the cook in the house simply won’t cook a roast because it may interfere with some social occasion or god help us, a trip to some shopping centre to max out the credit card.

It’s not calories. Its simply not.

Confusion then? We are completely and utterly bewildered. We have lost the plot and have a lot of trouble finding our way through the food maze. Many possible explanations, I suspect that we are offered too much choice, we are goaded into believing that we must cook from a new country every time we enter the kitchen, that the super star chefs must also shoulder some blame I think is true, they have turned food from hearth and heart into entertainment.

I am as guilty as the next foodie, I run all over Melbourne and beyond to get my grubby fingers on foods that I consider either tastier, better or more interesting. I run all over the place to get a loaf of white bread that is crusty and moist inside, I chase meat growers to get the best cut, I am always in search of the cheese that will make my ears tingle like it did when I was a kid. I drive to any market in any place to get my hands on the best fruit and vegetable. And yet I wonder if this is the right way. Is it possible that the growth in home grown vegetables and fruit are heralding a turn of events and that the ways that I look back nostalgically on are returning?

Napoleon Cake

INGREDIENTS

5-3/4 lb. self-rising flour

1-3/4 lb. butter, room temperature

14 oz. white sugar

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp. water

Raspberry jam

Cake

1-1/3 lb. butter (room temperature)

1-1/3 lb. white sugar

2-1/4 lb. self-rising flour

2 tbsp. milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

Strawberry frosting

Shredded coconut

INSTRUCTIONS

Cream butter and sugar. Blend egg yolk with water; mix with butter and sugar mixture. Blend in flour. Roll out very thin. Line a grease lamington tin with half of the pastry. Prick well and spread with a good layer of raspberry jam.

Cake:

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs. Fold in flour, then milk and vanilla. Pour this mixture into the pasty case, making a slight hollow in the centre. Roll out the remaining half of the pastry; spread with raspberry jam. Place on top of cake with jam side face down.

Bake in moderate oven 180ºC/350ºF for 35-40 minutes, or until pastry is browned and sponge cake is done. Turn onto a wire rack to cool. When cold frost with strawberry flavoured pink frosting, then sprinkle with shredded coconut.

Kitchen Collections

I have collected kitchen dining and eating bits and pieces for as long as I can remember. I have long… long coveted a set of copper saucepans and purely on a whim, just bought some. Now my collection of food paraphernalia is getting a bit silly, yet strangely satisfying. It’s not yet complete and I am having some moments where I remember buying certain things and believing that I still have them. I am one of those people who, in a crisis of need (and there has been a few), sell everything.

The list is strange, a sausage machine used by early Australian sausage manufacturers, made of black steel and powered by water pressure.. I think I bought this one day when the ghost of my Grandpa was inhabiting this shell. I have got old tin measuring jugs, metal lunch boxes … interestingly enough this box is more the sort of thing you used to see in early American movies, sort of like a small suitcase with a rounded top. Now there is a box that if it could talk, what tales it would tell.

I want to hear the stories of what was in them, who cooked what and how it was eaten.

It’s the copper saucepans fault, the dealer who had them had a more modern set, I was tempted, but in the end the old saucepans won the day. At the moment they have joined the collection of silver plated tea and coffee sets on the top of the book shelves in my study. That room must be alive with the ghosts of past things, so many stories, so much to say. I’ve even got an ancient (17th century) wooden bread trough, French or possibly Belgium that could even double as my coffin when that day dawns. Its story is also fascinating, it was bought into Australia many years back and found its way to an orchard where it was carried and filled with apples and pears as they were picked.

I found a glass holder, one of those wire things that would have graced the tennis matches of the early 1900′s. Glorious affairs with beautiful people all decked out in creams and whites, large hats, sweeping lawns and jolly good times. What did they drink? What did they eat? The drinks were just for refreshing their fevered efforts, the true pleasure was tea, served of course by the butler, with plates of glorious sandwiches, super duper cakes and the tea drunk from tissue thin porcelain cups, poured of course from silver tea pots.

Don’t make the mistake of believing that this was only ever done in England, it was done in this country too, cities and towns all had their social gatherings and these were done with as much attention to quality and detail as possible. Even in Port Fairy, hundreds of miles from a city, these events were much anticipated and enjoyed. And there was barely a week went by that there was not some sort of social occasion. As one aged and settled down into married life and children, the social occasions merely changed, but still took place. When retirement came and time was more abundant, the ‘clubs’ like the bowling club, golf club, became the centre of activities, still with as much style and good taste as they could manage.

My collecting of foodie/eating/dining stuff also saw me find a set of eight chairs that in fact are from the first era of the telephone exchange in Melbourne when, the ladies who manned the manual exchange, wore large full skirts with many petticoats, so the chairs had to be swivel and able to accommodate the dresses of the young ladies, also they had to be able to be raised and lowered to suit the tall and the short. Its for me, just another example of having things, loving them and treasuring the memories. Can you even image the sorts of gossip and stories that were told by the young ladies who, would have come from good, God fearing families and who, actually worked when most ladies simply did not. And these were ladies who were privy to many conversations as they ran the exchange.

http://www.retro-rotary-phones.com/ccp0-display/history-of-the-telephone-exchange-in-australia.html

Lots of what I have collected is aimed at the country estate that is in my plans for the future. I have this vision of a spacious, yet modern, built in a U shape of cement bricks with large sliding glass windows that allowed a lot of light in. All this will open onto the central courtyard that will contain a swimming pool and stunning herb gardens. The kitchen will be a central island bench of polished cement, suspended above will be an antique butchers rail (yet to be found) on which will hang all my cooking accoutrements. The stove will be a massive great Aga (I think oil or gas fired,

I am not sure I will want to have to deal with lighting fires) A large stainless steel refrigerator commercialish, without being overt. Like me. Then surrounded by my collections, all of course displayed ready for use, with impeccable taste and panache. Like me. Ah the dreams. But if we don’t dream it will never happen.

I know that I have written and even raved about things of the past and I confess to be somewhat obsessed with it all, but we do seem to live in the now so much with not much consideration about the things that surround us. I accept that the now is what matters and that the past is the past, but the now is a product of the then. In many ways, the then is not that far removed from my own memory and I recall the way that my mother and her sisters loved life and all the wonderful things they got up to. Its easy to eulogise, things were often tough in the old days, food was often boring life was often boring, unless you had bucket loads of money, nothing has changed!

Copper was a metal of the wealthy, it was not common for the ordinary people to own any copper cookware to use in their kitchens, over what was an open fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_stove

http://19thcentury.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/victorian-cooking-kitchens-14/

You will see that the first gas stoves were only invented in 1820. My mothers family home in Mount Gambier was not equipped with a gas stove and all the cooking was done on a a wood stove that was often kept alight all the time. It was the job of the men of the house to be sure to have a pile of wood ready, usually just outside the kitchen door, to allow the cook to stoke up the heat when needed. My much loved Aunty Mon never ever had anything but a wood stove, she learned to cook on one and simply never changed. When I was allowed to go and visit her, I loved when she and I would push an old wheel barrow down to the local saw mill (just around the corner) and fill it with off cuts, one barrowfull a day was enough to crank up her wood stove and allow her to cook the condiments, cakes, great roast dinners and just humble pieces of toast at the open door of the fire box. There is no better toast than that cooked on an open flame.. delicious, no wonder the Edwardian dandies enjoyed crumpets toasted with their very own fork, by the open fire. Completely understand.

It is of course very likely that the foods cooked in the various pots pans and devices from the past, was not the completely exotic and exciting range of delectable bites, we all envisage, indeed it is very possible that it was dull and mundane, even if it was from some current food country like Italy or France, there is little doubt that the daily foods that most people ate was, seasonally a little different, but year by year much the same.

http://www.localhistories.org/food.html

It was not until the end of the 1800′s that food began to improve for the masses and some diversity was able to be enjoyed. Until that time, most people ate a form of bread (mostly brown or wholemeal) cheese, onions and potatoes. Oysters were common food in London as they were found it great numbers in the Thames river. So it would be fare to say that my copper saucepans, although most likely French and from that era, cooked a modest range of foods, seasonal and more diverse than their English cousins.

I am a romantic, at least when it comes to food. I have this whacky concept that everyone sat down to luscious meals prepared by deeply earnest, slightly over weight women whose whole life was dedicated to my enjoyment of the pleasures of the table. Naturally I would need a butler and a personal assistant, equally dedicated to ensuring that my life was filled with richness and pleasure on a constant basis. I of course would remain rake thin, playing tennis and sailing in jaunty little boats, occasionally rowing some punt or boat up some elysian river or lake whilst gentle breezes blew and the hum of busy insects and the call of beautiful plumed birds softy caressed the air. That said, should another type of mood fall upon me and I dream Grecian islands, sapphire seas, mellow wines and gorgeous people, then I want a small, but not mean, stone house on some Island in the Aegean, the beach at the bottom of the garden, a kitchen presided over by a foodie Yaya who spends her entire life in pursuit of perfection and tries hard, every single day to surprise, titillate and excite me with the delights of her skills in the kitchen. Naturally all the food is the result of home growing, fish from the sparkling waters and sheep that have feasted on the wild herbs to be found in the mountainous heart of this ancient, architectural wonderland, cheeses that have been aged to perfection, and the figs, pure jewels. And of course the pleasant company of writers, artists and creative people who needed to come to this idyll to recharge batteries. Money was never to be mentioned.

Its really not all that difficult to be what you want to be, just simpler in the imagination and far, far less expensive.

George Young, Boofy and Monty

Boofy, George Young & Monty

“Dad, next time you go to George Young’s place, can I come with you?” Dad looked at me with that look that said, what’s he on about now… but in the end, he was used to me and my crazy requests, Dad had heard so many over the years and in some ways was not well equipped for a son like me. But he tried hard to accomodate a curious non conforming child who was quite mysterious to him. Dad had six brothers and sisters, he was used to conformity, but didn’t understand the opposite.

‘Why do you want to see George again?’

‘I don’t know Dad, George scares me and he doesn’t scare you.’ I wasn’t really sure how to answer that one,  George did frighten me as he did most of the kids in the town. Port Fairy had more than its fare share of great characters and that possibly accounts for my special brand of insanity. In a town of 2500 people, 1250 were crazy characters. I have a list.

George Young: George was a victim of the wars, he had been shell shocked, I suspect that his mental state had been deeply affected by some of what he saw. He was not harmful but also not harmless. As kids we were terrified as lots of kids are of anything that they cant understand, the sight of George Young, summer and winter in his ex army great coat and fingerless gloves, reeking of wintergreen oil and moving at a fast pace, or at least a lot faster than most locals, with eyes flashing this way and that, accompanied by a herd of black dogs, was more than enough to scare us all. George also muttered and made noises as he moved about his business. He drove a small dark car around town, where he went, his dogs went too, I think there was either three or four dogs that always accompanied him, but more at home.

My father was very fond of George, they maybe shared the injuries of war since Dad had been too close to some bombing raids on Darwin and had developed ear problems, indeed in years to come, Dad’s life was taken by a brain tumour that doctors said was due to his war years.  Dad’s family were one of the local butchers, there was just one other, Keatings, they mostly supplied the Catholic population, my lot the rest. Dad was also the one who did the killing, I spent a great deal of my time at the slaughter yard, but that’s another story.

George depended on Dad for the meat scraps to feed his pack of dogs, dad always obliged, I think that he slipped in some meat for George too, but it was a two way street, George supplied Dad with beautiful fresh vegetables and fruit that he grew on his tiny bit of land that also housed his small home. The dogs shared the house with George, on the one occasion I ever went into his house with Dad I recall the over whelming smell of wintergreen ointment and dogs. George had a crooked kind of grimace, it couldn’t be described as a smile, but in Georges case it was the next best thing. Life I don’t think, apart from his dogs, garden and maybe my Dad, did not hold many thrills for George.

George was the first organic gardener I met, he worked hard on his gardens and was always seen at the greengrocers in town collecting the vegetable and fruit scraps and mixing them into the dark black soil, or for giving to his chooks, mixed as my dad did with bran and pollard, George’s chooks produced the best eggs, every year he scooped the pool at the Port Fairy Agriculture Show with his fruit vegetables and eggs. George became very popular with the local ladies around this time as they curried favour for a few of his ultra great eggs to get that winning edge on their cake entries. His vegetables were extraordinary. George lived in the last street in the town, behind the hospital in a very neat house with the whole of the garden given over to fruit and vegetables. The house was painted with tar in order to preserve it. There were some tin sort of outbuildings that housed the over flow of dogs. The front fence was made of wire netting, the gate a metal affair that had been covered in wood. George’s garden was unique, it had the darkest blackest soil I have ever seen, when you looked at the vegetables he grew, they seemed greener than green and I suspect, gave my father lots of inspiration.

‘Dad, how does George get to have the blackest soil in Port Fairy?’ I was hanging out the car window. I knew that Dad was a great fan of George’s garden although my mother would have thought it weird had my father decided that ‘organic’ was the way to go.

‘Lindsay, what about the cabbage moths? What about the slugs. What about the yudder yudder yudder’ Mum would have gone on and on and with great fears that her much anticipated summer crop of preserves would be in peril. My mother would have nagged Dad into submission sure that he would see the wisdom of her ways. Dad did use the chook pooh though, he and Mum spent a lot of time scraping the chook yard and putting it directly onto the garden… that was a big mistake, chook pooh is highly acidic and needs to be composted. That year between the two of them they destroyed the pea crop, the lettuce crop and sent the tomatoes into a downward spiral from which they barely recovered.  I suspect George Young was asked for his opinion, unbeknown to Mum who would not have approved. Secretly I think that George also frightened her and at least a good three quarters of the women of the town. But George did know his garden, he would have laughed a lot at my father and mother not knowing that chook pooh had to be composted.

As a small aside, at one point when I dragged my family off to Queensland in search of the dream of better climate, more organic living, started a restaurant in the packing shed on the small farm we had purchased in the Sunshine Cost hinterland and installed a whole host of garden beds meant to supply the restaurant, I too made a fatal mistake with chook pooh. I rang one of the large battery operators, asked how much a truck full of chook pooh was going to cost, we agreed a price. I had forgotten it was impossible to get a truck into the vegetable garden and so had to have it tipped onto the road side at the front of the property. I also had not thought for the merest millisecond that the stench of the pooh as well as the ammonia was overwhelming. In no time flat I had  a delegation of neighbours complaining bitterly at the horror of it all. We tried covering it with sheets of plastic, didn’t work as the dam stuff just belched its way out of the covers. In the end the solution was to wet it down and allow a top crust to form, took about two weeks and the neighbours had to be placated with cakes and pies and sweet talk.  Ah the vagaries of living organically.

The car that George had been driving for all his life, was a small black Ford Prefect, 2 door. They started making these in 1938. George kept his immaculately, yet I have seen three or four dogs pile out of the car as George cannoned about the town collecting his scraps and doing his chores. I suspect George was on some sort of disability pension from the war.

‘Dad, that’s the same car that Miss Bowker has isn’t it?’

‘Yes it is, they all came from Warrnambool, the dealer sold a lot of em… go on for ever those cars will!’

Dad looked longingly at the cars and dreamed of one day owning one of his own. It was when I was fourteen years old that Dad got his first car, a blue Vanguard, big bulbous frog like creation that he just loved, it had moroon leather upholstery, he drove it very proudly. On the weekends we would all pile in for a picnic and load the boot with food or in the event that no activity was planned, after the very traditional Sunday roast, we would fill the thermos, mum would pack some cakes and biscuits, we would head out for the round Port Fairy drive, usually ending up at Martins Point where we would all drink cups of milky sweet tea and have slabs of Sultana Cake, after that Mum and Dad would snooze in the car while I annoyed the fishermen or headed over to Griffith Island to see what was happening there. Until my eighteenth birthday, there was not a scratch or dent on that car. But during one of my fathers driving lessons, I managed to back it into the side of the garage and dam near bring the whole thing down on us. Dad had the great good sense to make me back it out and drive around the block a few times.

George’s dogs were always on leashes, they were a pack of snarling, long teethed wolves as far as I was concerned, they scared me to death. Dad on the other hand had no fear of them he would open the gate and head into Georges lounge room that opened straight from the front door to deliver the meat and bones. Meanwhile I would be hanging out the side window of car shouting for Dad to come and get me so I could also be part of the vegetable collecting expedition.

‘Awcome on Dad, please let me go in, you never do, always leave me in the car!’ I tried it all, bit of moral blackmail, coercion or anything else that would get me into George Young’s house and therefore make me one of the very few people in the town to have been there.

‘You promise not to ask him questions! You know how that makes him cross’

‘Yes Dad I know. I promise.’

I was in, out of the car with the black dogs going mental at the possible encroachment onto their territory. George had them corralled in a chicken wire enclosed area, but I was still afraid that they would leap the wire and tear me to shreds.

‘Your fault Peter, you asked to be allowed in. Now look what you’ve done to the bloody dogs, this will send George mad.’

True to his prediction, George’s face was half way between grimace and smile as he roared at his hounds, in time they settled, meanwhile I had remained stock still like a statue, waiting for Dad to come and collect me, Dad on his part was waiting while the dogs din abated to a rumbling growl and George, red in the face and coughing from all the shouting, had regained his breath, once again chatting amiably with him.

George grew the best potatoes, the greenest silver beet with the reddest and sweetest tomatoes possible. Dad always came away with a large armful and we headed straight down to Bank street to drop them off to mum.

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I have just returned from the kitchen, I was so excited about George Young and his green green vegetables, I have just popped a dish of green s in the oven with a great cheese sauce and topped with fresh white breadcrumbs minced with bacon. That’s what memory can do… I think the only thing that Mum would never have used was some parmesan, she would instead have sacrificed a small slab of her very ear tingling tasty cheese. None the less… try this.

Greens in Cheese Sauce

1 whole bunch of young Silver Beet or if you wish, spinach, I prefer silver beet.

1 large Zuccini

1 large red onion

place all of this in a flat dish and I must confess that this is one of those times when I use the microwave and cook for 11 minutes on high covered with some plastic… allow to stand as it cools a little.

Cheese Sauce

1 tablespoon of butter (heaped)

2 heaped tablespoons of plain (all purpose) flour

a good big handful of freshly grated parmesan

a good big handful of a zesty tasty cheese

a good big handful of a mild cheddar

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1/2 a red chilli finely chopped

500 mil of milk.

salt and pepper to taste and a good grind of fresh nutmeg

Melt the butter and when melted, but not bubbling, mix the flour in until a goo paste is made, place over heat to cook the paste a little and then start adding the milk…I am not even slightly good at being patient, so it all goes in along with the cheese, garlic, chilli, salt, pepper and nutmeg, I then stir with a whisk till it thickens.

Remove the plastic from the vegetables which will have made a little juice. If its too much, drain some off, but otherwise leave it, it is full of flavour. Add the cheese sauce and mix a little to disperse through, but don’t over mix.

Use your blender and chop up finely some good bread, your choice, I always add a little butter and in this case I had a couple of pieces of very good bacon and so in they went. Top the cheese sauce with the breadcrumbs, if you want to be very decadent, a little more parmesan. Bake in a hot oven till bubbling and the crumbs browned.

I am going to serve this with a good steak, rump as it turns out and it had better be tasty of else. For the vegetarians amongst us, try finely chopping a tomato with the breadcrumbs, if the tomato is to juicy, remove the inner pulp.

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George grew a selection of fruits as did almost every house in the town, not exotic, but practical fruits that would be picked and eaten fresh or preserved or made into jam. Plum, usually two or three of these very popular fruits, blood plum, a normal plum and in our case, a greengage since that was mums favourite jam. One apricot, always a couple of peaches, mostly the cling stone varieties as they grew better and of course nectarine. Lemon trees were in every home. Apples and oranges were usually not grown, but often a pear would be. Fruit trees are generally not huge trees, so even on small blocks, quite a few could grow. George had surrounded his perimeters with his trees, and I recall he also had a fig tree. In his garden beds every summer, George grew strawberries, luscious small luminously red berries that were sweet and filled with explosive flavour. Dad also grew strawberries, but somehow his were never quite as good as Georges and so mum was always nagging Dad to drop some meat up to George and get some strawberries for jam. She always made two types and it was a question of technique, not of content.

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Strawberry Jam.

So many differing opinions on how to make this delicious jam. The variances are such things as Lemon Juice/no Lemon Juice, weight for weight of sugar/less than the fruit weight in sugar/more than the fruit weight in sugar, pectin or no pectin.

Lemon Juice will help to cut the very sweet nature of this jam and I would recommend its inclusion, say the juice of one lemon to every 2 kilo of hulled strawberries. (Hulling a strawberry means cutting out the stem and the white centre of the berry, this is easily done with a small sharp knife).

Sugar – less/more/same. I have in the past been an advocate of the same, weight for weight, but over the years, as my taste buds seem to reject excessive sweetness, I have been opting for a little less sugar for most jams, I would suggest that to every two kilos of hulled fruit, use one and three quarter kilos of fine grade caster sugar.

Strawberries are notoriously low in pectin and although the lemon juice will help the set, in order for you not to have to cook too much to get a set. Testing for a set is easy, have a well chilled saucer or plate and test small drops of the jam until it is set (means you can run your finger through the jam and the jam will stay parted) Commercial pectin is not easily obtained, but try http://www.bakeandbrew.com.au and you will find it. Follow the instruction on the packet.

Hull the berries and with about half the sugar, mix together and leave stand for the juices to run, then put into a jam saucepan (or a big stainless steel pan) and slowly allow to come to heat. It is said that to warm the balance of the sugar so that when you put that into the pot along with the lemon juice, it will not ‘shock’ the jam. The pectin is usually added three quarters of the way through the cooking process, so when the jam has started to show signs of setting. If the foaming of the jam is excessive, then a knob of butter dropped onto the surface of the jam will stop that.

Don’t stir vigorously, this will break up the fruit and the object is to retain as much of the fruit as possible. Bottle in clean, warm jars and seal with paper seals, also available from Fowlers Vacola.

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By contrast the other very public dog in town was Boofy, the proud pet of one Mrs Snow. She, like George lived up near the hospital in a neat home that had immaculate front flower gardens, not many trees and shrubs as was my mothers want with a front garden, but over plantings of flowers. I doubt very much that Mrs Snow herself had ever ventured into the garden or indeed, ever ventured off the pathways that defined activities on the block, its even hard to imagine Mrs Snow being anything but the complete lady and never, never touching the soil, cooking was I am sure her province and once again, my father Lindsay was a firm friend and either he or Morrie Condon always delivered Mrs Snows meat order.

Mrs Snow used what was then described as a Clara Bow lip line, it was sort of an exaggeration of the lips when lips simply did not exist or for the young, a fashion statement. Things like botox and other methods to puff up the lips were not available. Mrs Snow, along with one or to other women all sported the luscious exaggerated lips. I was fascinated. Mrs Snows life was Boofy the dog, he was a rather small yappy sort of pug who seemed to take offence at anything that was not 100% to his liking and was loud about it. None of the kids in the town were in the least bit afraid of Boofy, but terrified of Mrs Snow. Mrs Snow was all about keeping Boofy clean and had developed the practise of wiping his small bum and penis when he performed his natural functions, which in the case of a dog, could be often. The minute she saw him either lower his rump or lift his leg, she would dive for the wiping device in her bag and Boofy was given the once over. None of us could believe it, so we followed Mrs Snow until we had seen the occurrence enough times, laughed heartily and stayed a good long distance from Mrs Snow who would swing her bag at anyone she thought was misbehaving. She was deadly accurate with the swinging bag, so we all kept well away, but enjoyed the experience.

She was, above all a lady, married and I think childless, Her house was immaculate, so too her dog. I remember that Mr Snow was an on going enigma and I can only recall seeing him on one occasion, Dad said he worked at the local milk factory. My Poppy was the only one allowed to call her by name, they went to school together and Pop knew them both well. In later years when Pop was installed in the old age section of the local hospital (which he hated and was constantly escaping) Mrs Snow would cross the street to the hospital from her small, neat house and bring pop an extra sandwich or a slice of cake.

 

I knew that I wanted a dog and so began a program of persistent nagging and starting to take note of all the expectant dogs in the town. It has to be free, even when I had convinced Mum and Dad to let me have a dog, the concept of paying for it was quite alien and impossible. I promised everything, I would take care of it, of course I would feed it and of course I would collect more bottles and sell them to Mr Dillon for a half penny each to help defray costs. I promised all and everything that Mum and Dad asked, nothing was too much trouble. I was a good nagger and in the end they gave in and said yes. I was overjoyed.

“Mum, can you get me a collar when I get the dog?” I asked and Mum gave me one of those looks that said ‘Oh god here he goes again!! But the dog had to be real or I was going to be unmercifully teased and taunted by those kids who had dogs that had it all. It was a bit of a status symbol.

Port Fairy was not all that big, I could easily get around it on the Bike that Dad had repaired and painted bright red for me the previous Xmas. I started my campaign, I knew most of the dogs in town, either to say hello to or to avoid for fear of getting the seat of my pants ripped by them. I wanted a dog that was not too big, not too small, just sort of in the middle. It didn’t take me long to find out that Lorna Osmonds mother’s dog was expecting puppies. Great!! Only three doors from my house and a house into which I was not afraid of venturing.

“Mrs Osmond!” I sort of nervously asked with a look of pure pleading on my face…”Can I have one of the puppies when they come?” Mrs Osmond was a tease, Norma said so, she looked at me with one of those slightly cross looks she was good at “what makes you think that Dolly is having pups my lad?” I looked over at the reclining body of Dolly, stretched full tilt in front of the wood stove, with a belly that was seething with life and tits that had even begun to show signs of milk, “I just thinks she is Mrs Osmond… pleaseeee!!” I whined.

“Well if your mother says it’s ok, then yes!” I let out a whoop of joy. ‘Boy or Girl?” asked Mrs Osmond, ‘Boy if I can please, Mum says they are easier to look after. “Done!”

Norma Osmond had a speech impediment and was confined to a wheelchair, but I understood her easily, I had been talking with Norma all my life. She was no fool and despite the fact that many people treated her as if she was mentally deficient, she was far brighter that most of the people in town. I pushed Norma’s chair up and down Bank Street for a bit, kind of doing wheelies around the pavement cracks and asking about how long Dolly had been pregnant. “She has about a week to go!” Norma reckoned. ‘But you will not be able to have a pup for three or four weeks” Norma said, has to be fed by Dolly to make it strong. I’d forgotten about that. “Can’t I take it home and bring it up to your place three or four times a day?” I was trying. “Not a chance Dolly will not let it suckle if you do that.” Norma was right, I had to be patient.

Monty was born six days later, a ball or golden brown fur with a wet black nose. Part Corgi and part who knows, he was destined to be a good runner, a good swimmer and faithful to the point of pain. Monty was mine from the first moment I set eyes on him as he blindly sought his mothers teats after she had licked him all over. Love at first sight. I even named him moments after he emerged from his mothers womb. My Monty.

Where did that flesh come from you are eating?

Its amazing, I just read a blog from an American foodie living in Paris who was visiting Lebanon. He was doing a bit on the eating of lamb, showing the way it was to be slaughtered and butchered. (He said!) The point is that he was so worried that his delicate followers would have bad reactions to seeing an animal slaughtered and butchered, that he took up about a 200 words warning them that the images following (one) could make them distressed. The image was of the carcass of the sheep strung up with the skin being shucked off. No blood or gore, no look of pain on the deceased animal, nothing.

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2013/04/the-12-year-old-lahham/

Research has shown that the citizens of the USA are the most squeamish, followed I would suspect, but not confirmed by the UK and Australia. Other countries are much more pragmatic and accept that if you are going to eat meat, then its better if its dead. Why are we so strange about this?

My father was a butcher and he was the son in the family who did most of the slaughtering. I have written about this before. As a consequence and I suspect too, that because I am an inquisitive type, I was often at the slaughter yards with him. I saw cows, sheep and pigs despatched. Not to defend my father, nor offer apology, Dad was humane and I think that he did as much as he could to minimise the suffering. Mind you, I don’t think his victims were lulled in any way into a false sense of security. It was a job to do and it was done. On the occasions when we ate chicken, the bird was chosen from the chook yard (usually a chook that had seen better days and was round and fat and needed lots of cooking) and then over a block of wood, had its head lopped off and then plunged into hot water in order to get the feathers off.

I am not even sure where I would want to go with the whole idea of animals leading a sort of cushy life up to the point of demise, my suspicion is that some of the animals did not always experience the best of conditions… elysian fields of grass and daisies, sweet spring water, mud pits to wallow in for the pigs and caring owners liveried and delivering delicious meals to a grateful animal. The truth can be harsh, but I am certain that many of the animals destined for the stove led lives that were harsh.

Vegetarians and Vegans are for me, perfectly acceptable and I have no arguments with their choices, proving that they do not hurt or harm another.  The choice of ones food is something that needs to be accepted, on all sides. Clearly those who have chosen a certain way of eating, should have thought it through and have made the choice based on some moral imperative, religious belief or simply taste. I know people who do not like the taste of egg and onion. That said, it must be accepted on all sides that people have the right to make a choice.

The flesh eaters seem to be a bit lax. You cannot stare lovingly at a great steak, a delicious slow roasted shoulder of lamb or a steaming roast chicken with gravy, if you also do not understand that at some stage this was a live animal and in order to get to your plate, had to die.

Years ago when I had moved to the country for a stint, some might say to breed, we had a small farm and of course being enthusiastic, had soon got vegetable gardens, fruit trees and inevitably chooks. We loved the chooks but so too did the local bush rats who, along with goanna’s would try and raid the chook pens for eggs. Goannas by the way, specially the big ones just seem to take a run up for the wire and simply barrel through. On one memorable occasion as the mother of my children and I were doing some gardening at the front of the house, blood curdling screams startled us into instant action. It turned out that two of the girls had gone into the chook pen to get eggs and were followed in by a large goanna that was blocking their exit. I am not sure who was the most frightened, the girls or the goanna. I suspect the latter who did a lot of damage to the wire as it escaped.

The chook point is that we had some visitors from Melbourne along with their children. Naturally my kids took their kids on an explore, carefully explaining that the chook sitting on the pile of hay was in fact laying an egg. They needed more explaining to they picked up the chook and showed them where the egg came from. Dammed near caused a complete emotional melt down, the city kids thought that eggs came from cardboard boxes. No one had ever told them.

Starting in the late sixties with the growth of Supermarkets and the slow demise of the family butcher, began a radical change in the way we purchased meats for the table. They no longer were seen as a carcass hanging on a special two sided hook on the butchers rail, waiting to be cut up, a reminder that the animal had once lived, but were seen presented on small white polystyrene trays (later even with a kind of blood blotting paper in case a drop of blood be seen) and covered with plastic. No Supermarket ever showed the butchering side, this was deeply hidden behind windowless walls. We lost connection.

Interestingly it is now something that is being reversed as the meat peak bodies struggle to try and reverse what they see as downward trends. I recently heard that beef and sheep are down nearly 50% whilst pork and chicken have risen. You now see Supermarkets that have opened the butchering side of the business to public scrutiny and this is clearly done to attempt to gain sales. Mind you, maybe some of the researchers could have discovered since the explosion of Asian population in Australia, that Asians don’t usually eat beef or lamb!

Big business has certainly taken much control of the meat industry. even in my own family, some of the descendants of the butchering dynasty have become heavily engaged in feed lots and I have had some shattering arguments over the idea that pale pink, white fatted grain fed beef is better than free range grass eating animals. Big Business now can dictate so much and I suspect has even become involved in the peak bodies, inadvertently I am sure, but they would be there ensuring their survival and steering in the direction that best suits them. Small growers have all but been consumed.

I think that the whole question of feedlots and the impact on eating and farming is another story.

The reality is that we have given up our own responsible choices and simply allowed the masters of industry to dictate what we will eat and of course what we will see. Its not hard to imagine that if most people saw the slaughtering methods (apart from the lifestyle) of the tons of poultry we now consume, they would be severely put off consuming as much as they now do. This is not even an attempt to address questions of chemicals and growth hormones, but simply the fact that because our consumption is now so big, it would be daunting for some people. But in fact, is it better that we do see this, it may well make us more humane.

As a boy growing up in my family, meat eating was something that was done every day, chicken and poultry not so frequent, we were raised to understand that these animals had been alive, had been humanely dispatched and therefore we could make a choice. I saw it all. I went rabbiting, every country kid did, I had to dispatch the rabbits as we caught them. Living and dying was a part of the way things were.

What has the impact been on us when we now have been removed from the facts, when we are so sensitive to blood and slaughter of animals we consume, that we must be warned not to look for fear of upsetting our delicate states. This is in fact wrong at almost every level. We can happily sit and watch our televisions and see guided missiles descend on innocent people, we can watch the slaughter of innocent people in countries like Syria and be shocked, but do nothing. One can of course turn the television off. But we cannot accept that flesh that forms part of our diet has had to be slaughtered and butchered in order to find its way to our plates.

On the other side of the coin we have lots of people trying to get our attention to remind us that organic, free range and various breeds are superior. But yet we are still to be protected from sights that may offend. Even the health departments regard blood as an undesirable. I am not and never have been someone who demands certain standards, I choose to eat what I like and want. I promote the fact that well raised animals are better tasting and I don’t shy from a bit of blood or a chook with its head still attached in the Asian butchers.

I cannot espouse nose to tail because there are some bits I just don’t like, not fond of tripe, don’t like tongue and find heart horrible… have never tried deep fried pigs ears, I am sure they are delicious, I do like fried pigs blood and blood sausage. I would have no qualms about cooking with blood. I may be a bit hesitant to lop the head off a chook as I saw my father and grandfather do often. I don’t think I could actually kill a cow, sheep or pig, but I could watch and I could be part of the butchering.

I suspect that we have become far to removed from the reality of food to be able to relate to it in ways that are true and meaningful. I think that if we were asked to join in the slaughter of a pig and the butchering and preparing of all the bits and pieces that people in Spain, Italy and many other countries do and enjoy, we would become very squeamish indeed. Yet we enjoy (it seems since almost every restaurant in Australia lists ‘slow roasted belly pork’ on their menu) pig in all its many forms. Xmas without a ham is not an option for most people, it did start its life out as one of the four legs needed to keep a pig upright!

I am reminded of the respect and love that the Spaniards have for their treasured pigs who are treated with much affection, fed well, ills attended to and then, when their time comes, dispatched with care and grace, every bit of them is used for food and the pig toasted with raised glasses in celebration. We need this, not the idiotic pandering to misguided stupidity and ill conceived sensibilities that many people espouse. With respect, if you cannot stand to see the animal slaughtered or suffering, then for gods sake, don’t eat it. I cannot imagine an animal disagreeing with me.

Rock and Roll

Bill Haley and the Comets were rocking the speakers at the new movie theatre that Pinhead Reardon had built in Bank Street, the very foundations of the place had been a playground for so many of us as we ran up and down the floor joists and perilously balanced above the floor metres below… eventually the council became worried about the kids and stopped us. A month or two later, the theatre was used for an Anzac memorial service and then the movies started. So did Rock and Roll.

I begged and begged, came up with every reason why I had to, absolutely had to see the movie, regardless of the fact that newspapers and radio commentators and any one else with an opinion that mattered, thought that this new phenomena was the absolute epitome of all evil and that Satan himself was on screen, hell bent on the utter corruption of youth and the destruction of society as they knew it. (Interestingly in some hindsight the phenomena of Rock had a massive impact and reverberated widely, even today the life style and changes that Rock music made to the lives of every day people, is profound.)

 In the end I won, but not before I huffed and puffed and Mum had grilled me closely about why I had to see the movie. Of course I had to see it, all the kids, teenagers and young adults spoke about nothing else and when 3YB Warrnambool played music that had a beat, we were all on our feet trying out the new moves we had seen on the movie promos and even on the news.

Its hard to imagine how a movie and a few singers and musicians could bring about so much change. I was on that wave. Until then we lived just like our parents, same thinking, same style. I was dressed like a junior version of Dad. Clothing was not thought of as something that was divided into age categories. Boys wore short pants for as long as it was thought appropriate (don’t ask… I don’t know!) mine seemed to last for my whole time at High School and when I was to start work at the National Bank (also don’t ask, I blame my mother for that monumental mistake!). I was whisked off to Warrnambool where there were a couple of men’s wear shops that Mum liked. We had a couple of places in Port Fairy, Walikers Men’s Wear and Gilpins, but these were more for the everyday and the farmers. Not special occasions. Mum was a great knitter, she knitted for the whole family and was seen always with her knitting bag. It wasn’t just Mum, it was something that, in the days before television, people did. I did manage a jumper from Walikers on one occasion, it had a sort of cowl cross over neckline that I thought very stylish, as I remember it was blue green and I hung on to it until it fell apart.

Wardrops my Tailor was in Leibig Street in Warrnambool and was a long store dedicated entirely to menswear. Long counters swept all the way down either side of the shop backed up with cabinets of shirts, jumpers, socks and in discreet areas, underwear, hidden so as not to offend the sensibilities of those unused to such a disturbing sight. In the centre of the shop were racks that contained trousers, jackets and coats, suits, considered as the top of the tree for the male fashionista, were located on the left as you entered and were shown in colour variations, the styles were very limited to a double or single breast, and some other minor changes. Real change did not enter the world of suits until a few years after Bill Haley when radical changes started, the first as I recall was a very slim leg (stovepipe) that had to be worn with shoes, sharpened (it seemed) to a pencil point, designed to destroy feet and when used in battle, inflicted hideous wounds to anyone silly enough to get in the way. Jackets did not alter much except that the shoulders became wider and a little more padded. The overall look kind of wide shoulders tapering down to the pencil pointed shoes. Ties, narrow, belts non existent, socks often loud colours. Hard to say it was a beautiful look, but it was the first time in my life that we dressed in our own way. And it was a battle.

Mum had determined that as a bank clerk, I needed white shirts, can’t remember the ties and grey pants, sensible shoes.

All that was soon to change as Port Fairy was swept up in Rock and Roll fever, the word spreading via the media of the day about changes. The girls started layering up the petticoats under swirling skirts and growing their hair to put into pony tails to stay in the fashions needed to part of the Rock and Roll era. The towns elders, the churches and the movers and shakers (read the gossips from the bowling and golf clubs) all started to worry. The young people were starting to rebel. It was no longer a question of being able to tell them what to do and they would do it, they were saying no. No to the hair styles, short back and sides for the men, butterfly waves for the girls, no to the clothing that was now ‘seriously’ unfashionable for the young and no to the music of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and the big bands. That was yesterday, today was a whole new world. Meetings were even held to try and prevent what was perceived of as the demonic and unchristian behaviour taking hold. Threats were made to ban the movies, ban the playing of Rock and Roll music and curtail the sales of records and record players so as to not allow this perversion.

It didn’t work, it never could. The 1940′s had seen a war, great devastation even in Australia as a result of men and women going to the war. Change was needed and inevitable. Dreams had been shattered, the world was a hostile unhappy place and Rock and Roll music and all that it brought with it, was the change needed to rebuild.

Hair for men started to become of great interest, no longer the short back and sides, the two resident men’s ‘barbers’ of the town both retired almost simultaneously, the barbershops being taken over by barbers from Melbourne who knew how to cut and style the Rock and Roll hair. In my case I was in a complete dilemma, my hair, whilst full, was fine and getting it to sit in some of the more extravagant waves and effects was not possible, even when I applied loads of Californian Poppy hair oil for men! It all just flattened out. I tried having a crew cut, that also failed, my hair had a will of its own and having it stand up all over my head, didn’t happen. I was much more successful when the era evolved a little and the start of the beatnik era happened, I could accommodate the look well, duffle coat, desert boots, corduroy pants, dark glasses. I did it well. Some would say too well. The era of mod was also not one of my better times, when the Rock stars of that era came out with shoulder length hair, I knew that would never be for me, I simply allowed my hair to be as full as I could, without showing off my hairs intractable nature.

Looking back at that time, I started work, and yes, it was a huge mistake in hindsight, but the choices for a kid in the country were limited, I started going to dances, even got a car (Morris Minor… very second hand) learned to smoke, became extremely confused about many things, never could work out what to do with the creative side of me. And the rhythm that beet in my life was Rock and Roll.

Bill Haley was followed by many, seems cruel to say that much of the blues, soul singers of the USA in particular were not well known or understood in Australia. There was not much exposure. That all changed when Rock and Roll allowed singers from the USA to start becoming well known. Think Elvis Presley, think Motown (my all time faves at that time, the impact that record label had was amazing… if you ever have the change, find the DVD, In the Shadow of Motown.. great stuff) and then it all exploded.

Port Fairy would never be the same, the Debutantes Ball and the dances and balls that were held during the year when the music would be provided by a pianist, a saxophone, a set of drums and a guitar with the occasional trumpet or slide trombone, started to change. The young would dance for an hour or two to the music of the oldies, and then start to drift to the sides of the hall in anticipation of something modern. Often simply did not happen, there were times when the supper room, after supper, was cleared and handed over to the young people to dance and play their music, in those times, amplification was not something that was easy, you needed to call out the local electrician ahead of time. The volume generated by a record player was just not enough.

The Palais de Dance in Warrnambool started to change. The Palais was a dance hall that had been built in the immediate pre-war era and was renowned as having a ‘sprung’ dance floor, couples would glide around the highly polished floor to the sounds of swing music. But it was not enough, the local Warrnambool big band had started to learn some pieces of Rock and Roll and would intersperse that music with swing, it did not take the management all that long to notice that the floor would fill to overflowing when Rock was played. Change was inevitable. The menu was published as being 60/40, that meant that either swing or rock could be 60 or 40. The Palais would start at 8 pm and finish at midnight, that never changed. When the advent of me owning a Morris Minor happened, a few of us would head off to the Palais for a night out. Alcohol was not thought of as something you needed at that time, the Palais was unlicensed. Hotels had long closed since 6 pm closing was still in, so unless you had taken your own drinks, then you made do with soft drink. On one memorable occasion, one of my passengers decided to bring along some ‘Creme de Menthe’ liqueur and we were urged to try it, one glass was enough for me to be quite sick. The days of innocence.

Change had come, things would never be the same again, the new era had begun. We soon started wanting to eat things like Hamburger and drink Spiders, we wanted clothes that reflected us, we listened to music that for all her life, my mother never came close to understanding. For me it was exciting, like being let out of jail and be told to explore and be what ever you wanted to be. Sure we went to excesses, the free love etc., we dived deep into waters that were absolutely forbidden. We looked at new religions and spiritualties, we explored the world (often to the detriment of the countries we traipsed through eg: India) and we faced things that out parents never had to face, the annihilation of all life with the invention of the Atomic Bomb. We learned to live under a constant threat, Communism or the Red Peril was something we all feared. We stopped Australia’s involvement in wars, Vietnam. We protested in the streets which caused our older citizens to be very concerned. We started to change the world. Not always for the better, not always as we thought, more freedoms, but we did take on our own lives.

In the end I hope that we the Baby Boomers or Gen XYZ (I never know!) made the world at least a more open place, not better, just more accepting. 

Poppy

Pop sat in his lean-to office with its open window and roof sloped downwards, near the front of the shop so that he could watch the street, the black phone with the handle for vigorous turning when he needed to get the attention of the telephone exchange lady, mounted on the wall well within easy reaching distance. The desk was a piece of wood that was slanted to about the same angle as a school desk and like a school desk, had a small flat piece near the wall in which Pop kept an inkwell, a used cigar box for his pens and a couple of spikes for the in and out orders. The tall stool was designed so that Pop could ease his copious bum onto it while the stool legs were angled wide so that there was little chance he would fall. Once installed in his office, usually never much before 10 am most days since he did the first part of his days from home followed by a quick round of inspection of his world… abattoirs, paddocks, a cup of tea with the stock agent to get a handle on the upcoming stock sales, he just sat there, conducting his world and as much of the other world as he could. Pop always left his walking stick leaning near the door of his office, he glanced at it occasionally, he needed it, but it was also part of his persona and for some, a symbol of him.

The Boys, two or three of his sons, including my father were hard at work bringing in the freshly killed carcasses from the old covered lorry that Jack Flavan had driven down from the slaughter yards. Jack and Pop had an understanding, they had known each other pretty much all their lives and although it was often obvious they did not much like each other, they worked well together. Pop knew that once he had sent stock to the slaughterhouse yards, it would be attended to by Jack Flavan. Pop tried a bit of inside espionage and had my father working with Jack Flavan in the yards a day or two each week. That was how I got there.

Jack Flavan had an evil aura, he was a large strong man who claimed that he got his strength by drinking a large cup of fresh blood each day. Jack was not much bothered with talking, he found it a bit of a waste and much of what he said was done with his deep set eyes that blazed at you until you wilted. Jacks outfit week in and week out was a blue singlet, a pair of old army pants, an apron, a black beret and a scowling face. Most people were scared to death of Jack Flavan, me included, if I knew that he was alone at the yards, heaven and hell would not have moved me to go there. To make matters worse, Jack lived at the yards in a small timber house that was surrounded on all sides by dark pine trees. Not much interested in gardening, Jack Flavan kept the grass cut, but the house and the trees just sort of melted into blood drenched yards adding to the awe of subdued horror I always felt when made to go there. Even opening the gate felt like I was entering a place that I just should not have gone to.

Jack Flavan was a returned soldier from the first World War, he was married to a woman that I saw maybe one time and who rarely left the house. Jack was a Catholic and even at Sunday mass, wore the same clothes and his demeanour never altered. I am told that he and his wife did not sit together at church and that she walked the mile or so whilst he rode his bicycle, a big black very early model that forced the rider to be quite stiff looking and took a lot of effort since it was unassisted by gears or even for that matter, brakes.

Jack Flavan’s story is fascinating, married before being hauled off to fight a war that was nothing to do with Australia and undoubtedly subjected to gas when in the trenches in Europe, he returned a changed man. A man much diminished, unsure, moody and often disagreeable. The women who stayed at home and kept the homes and families together had to bear the brunt of the war and its after effects. Those who were lucky enough to be born into more affluent families were often quietly kept apart from the normal world and lived in isolation for the remainder of their lives.

Lindsay John, my Dad, got on alright with Jack Flavan, in fact in his whole life I can’t remember anyone ever not getting along with Dad, he was just one of those people who was easy to like, hardly ever impacted on anyone’s life and in some cases, made peoples lives easier with small gestures of kindness. If Jack Flavan had a friend, it was Dad.

Pop was not a man who had needs, he controlled his own empire and world and just so long as his world was going in the right direction, all was fine. Every day after he arrived at his office in the corner of the butcher shop in Sackville Street, his cronies would start dropping in, some in the hopes of a free chop or piece of meat, some popped by with a bit of gossip and some just because it was expected.

In all his years, Pop had never learned to drive anything other than a horse and cart, his large family had the job of transporting him here and there and he even had his favourites for that job. Pop liked to sit in the front passenger seat, and those wives that would give up their seat were given ticks while those who would not, were simply not spoken to. Pop was uncomplicated, so long as all was heading in his direction, his world sailed along on calm waters. His way of arranging a ride here and there was peculiar to himself, he never asked directly to anyone, but always rang one of his older children and suggested to them that he needed to be in such and such a place at a certain time, All flowed on from that and when who ever it was that got the job of driver arrived, pop would be there, sitting on his stool near the front gate, his ever present grey hat tilted back on his head, its sweatband deeply stained, leaning on his stick as he waited.

For many years my father did not have a car, Dad was not the favoured one in Pops world, his oldest son and his youngest took that status and had cars. I was fourteen when Dad got his first car, a blue bullfrog like Standard Vanguard. After that Dad’s status as one of Pops favoured was elevated and since Mum, grudgingly I suspect, was prepared to give up her front seat, Poppy was often to be seen being chamfered here and there by Dad. Many years later when Poppy had moved to Melbourne for a short sojourn and then decided that the double story house he had bought on the Esplanade in Middle Park did not suit him, was returning to Port Fairy. I shared the four hour journey with him and he regaled us with a constant flow of stories, most of which were made up, but that he swore were real.

I think I spent much of my young life never sure if my Grandfather was or was not telling the truth, I was more inclined to believe him, probably because I wanted to. On the four hour journey he started to tell us about how he, as a young man, fresh off the boats from Ireland (North or Orange part) had set off from Melbourne with his mother and father with a single horse pulling a cart and walked to Port Fairy. He said there were no made roads and the journey took them over four weeks. Complete and absolute lies, yet I believed it for much of my life until I found out that my Grandfather was born in Australia a few miles from Port Fairy at Bessiebelle and had never ever left the shores.

Pop called everyone ‘son’. No matter who they were, what sex they were, relative or non relative, including his wife, all were called son. He had a way of adding some sort of inflection to the word son so that you would know how you were standing in his eyes at the time. Come to think of it I cannot recall him ever calling my mother son, I actually don’t recall him ever calling her anything at all. I tried to find out if he had attended his sons wedding in Mount Gambier, where Mum’s family lived, I suspect not as the journey in those days was one that took many hours and frankly I find it hard to conceive of Poppy feeling any need to attend. I am certain he never called her Iris, just referred to her as Lindsay’s wife. His own second wife was Pop’s equal in every way.

Pearl White came from the rough side of Melbourne. Pops first wife died not long after the birth of her last child, when my father was twelve years old. Ella Rebecca Sharrock had been unlucky enough to have Rheumatic Fever when she was a child and it had weakened her heart, she died peacefully at home. Pop was not a man who could manage with no home support and although his three older daughters were still at home and took charge of the younger children, it was not ever likely to be the answer, Pop’s daughters, like their mother had strong wills and there was no way that any of the three was ever going to stay in Port Fairy and they made it very clear to him. Melbourne called and each had their sights set on work, husband and a better life than a small seaside town could offer. Legend has it that Pop took to the drink and every day would finish work and head for Star of the West Hotel, just over the street and drown his sorrows in a whisky or two. It was here that Pop met Pearl White who had come to Port Fairy to get out of Melbourne for a while.

Pearl White was a woman who came from the wrong side of town and whose life was chequered. She had three children by a previous marriage, one of whom was conceived out of wedlock and who in the future would also give birth to a child who in turn would repeat the same thing. Her life in Melbourne was mysterious, her life in Port Fairy was as a bar maid at the Star of the West Hotel. The rest is history. Pop’s three daughters were horrified and refused to accept the developing friendship. They threw down the gauntlet to him and told him he had to choose between them or Pearl and Pop being Pop, chose Pearl. The girls left the next day for Melbourne aboard the train and set about starting a life in the big city. None would return to Port Fairy to attend their fathers wedding.

Pearl or for me Aunty Pearl was a woman who took no prisoners, was honest as the day, spoke as she saw it and someone I just loved. She and I spent a lot of time together when I was nipper and until the day she died, I simply worshipped her. She was my rock and was always there for me no matter what. My three Aunts eventually came around, but never completely, as they saw how well she took care of their father and his household. Auntie Pearl smoked Craven A corked tipped cigarettes and was rarely seen without one dangling from her smoked stained lips. She said she did not draw on the smoke much, but in the end it was the cigarettes that claimed her. Pearl knew just how to keep Pop well under control, she fed him well, three big meals a day, lunch and dinner with a good desert, made sure that every bit of meat he consumed was accompanied by a bit of fat from the animal and between meals, made him cups of sweet milk tea and at five, every day, bring out the Scotch and pour him a good slug. Poppy at home was a contented man and with the success of his business and the pleasure of his cronies around the card table, life was good.

I dropped in to visit Poppy and Aunty Pearl when they lived in a great old early sprawling house down by the river they called Emoh Ruo, I walked in the front door past the well clipped hedges and lawns that I laboured over most Saturday mornings and walked in the front door. The long central passageway lead straight to the kitchen. Auntie Pearl was sitting in the chair in the winter sun, snoozing. On the table reposed a massive plate of cut sandwiches, piled high. On a tray eight cups and saucers and a huge teapot at the ready. I must have woken her as I came in the door and her familiar ‘hello ducky’ got my attention and she laughed. She took me by the hand and walked me up the passage saying nothing until we got to a door on the left, It was the room where they kept the old billiard table, the walls were covered in green baize and had lots of those pictures of dogs playing cards and framed prints of horse finishes from famous races. Aunty Pearl opened the door and the cigarette smoke trapped in the room rushed into the wide passage. I looked in and there, sitting around the billiard table which had its card playing top fixed on, was my grandfather and most of the towns more notable citizens engaged in what had been a twenty four hour game of cards, complete with bottles of scotch and over flowing ashtrays.

I was stunned, Auntie Pearl just giggled and gently closed the door on the marathon card game which by 5 pm that day, came to a halt as the wives of the players came to find their missing husbands.

Poppy was a large and demanding figure in my life, he asked for and got most of what he wanted, including his family (all of them from his seven children plus grandchildren and wives and even great grandkids) be present with him on New Years in Port Fairy, we were allowed to float about the town, enjoying the annual festivities until about 11 pm and then come hell or high water, it was time to join Poppy for the midnight hour. Just before midnight, he would hand around a 10/- ($1-00) note to all the second and third tier offspring with a look of extraordinary benevolence. It should be noted that Poppy rarely if ever dealt in real money, his world was one of negotiation and real money was something that he simply did not employ.

He was a rogue, a gambler, a womaniser, an indignant and difficult man, he was demanding, arrogant and just plain difficult. But he was the largest and by far the brightest light in my starry world and I loved him. I am often told by family that I am a lot like him, I cannot see it, I am not a womaniser nor a drunk, but perhaps the rest. One of my all time treasures is a photo that I have of Poppy, my Dad, me and my first born… four generations. I am proud he was my Pop.

Poppy died at the age of 94, still smoking, still drinking his beloved whisky, still eating big meals and still arguing with anyone who dared to contradict him. Auntie Pearl predeceased him by a few years. 

Last Night I made a Bologonese Sauce… or did I?

Last Night I made a Bologonese Sauce… or did I?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolognese_sauce

 

This is probably one of the most bastardised recipes on the planet and who can blame the city of Bologne in Italy from occasionally getting very ticked off. For those interested in the etiology of the recipe, the above link will give you a clue or two.

 

I made a Meat Sauce, loosely based on Bolognese, but not and besides I had it with some Gnocci and no0t with the more traditional Paparadelle or Tagliatelle noodles that the orginal sauce was made to be used with. Italian cooks say that the meat just does not ‘cling’ to finer pastas like Spaghetti, hence the ubiguitious Spag Bol flies in the face of Italian logic and taste.

 

I have, many times made the fully traditional Bolognese and it is a delight, specially if you have the time for a long slow cook. The sauce I made last night was cooked in about 2 hours.

 

Meat Sauce

1 kilo of pork mince (not to fine, I like it to have a bit of fat and be coarser.

2 large Onions chopped into smallish dice

2 – 3 cloves of garlic crushed

2 – 3 rashes of bacon chopped to match the mince

Good splidge of EVO… you are going to eat it, so use good oil.

1 jar of Peter Watson Basic Tomato sauce

1 375 gr tin of cherry tomato (organic)

750 ml of water.

 

Fry the Onion in EVO until it starts to become golden. Add the finely chopped bacon and garlic and fry until the bacon is cooked. Add the pork, breaking it up with a large fork, I like it to be well cooked and starting to get some colour. Add the two tomato products and break the cherry tomatoes up a little with a fork. Add the water and place a lid on the pan and cook on a slow heat until the meat is cooked and the sauce beginning to thicken.

 

I served this with Gnocci and added a good handful of chopped parsley and basil, along with some salt and pepper and a good shake of Balsamic reduction. (for the sweetness and tang). I grated some good Parmesan over the top.

 

It was delicious. It just wasn’t Bolognese sauce.

 

Now for those of you determined to be traditionalists, then the following is a recipe for a proper Bolognese Sauce and remember, it is used on wide pasta of your choice.

 

2 tbsp olive oil

6 rashers of streaky ‘pancetta’ bacon, chopped

2 large onions, chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed

2 carrots, chopped

Stick of celery chopped fine

1kg minced beef

2 large glasses of red wine

2x400g cans chopped tomatoes

2 fresh or dried bay leaves

salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan and fry the bacon until golden over a medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, frying until softened. Increase the heat and add the minced beef. Fry it until it has browned. Pour in the wine and boil until it has reduced in volume by about a third. Reduce the temperature and stir in the tomatoes and celery. Cover with a lid and simmer over a gentle heat for 2 – 2½ hours until it’s rich and thickened, stirring occasionally.

 

Serve with your choice of pasta, enough for 4 good eaters.