Said to be the ‘king of spices’ pepper was once the world’s most expensive spice. Continue reading
Peter Piper’s pick of peppers
Fresh green, dried white and black peppercorns. Photo by Rainer Zenz, Germany, via wikicommons
Posts in the category: Our kitchens
Sago plum pudding
Sago Plum Pudding. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums
With the winter solstice almost upon us my thoughts shift to foods that warm and nourish the soul. The Christmas style plum pudding was always intended as mid-winter fare and this variation on the plum pudding theme is simple to make, rich tasting and truly comforting to eat. Continue reading
An apple a day
Apple charlotte. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums
Before you crush all your apples into cider as the Curator had us doing last week, we thought we’d celebrate ‘Eve’s fruit’ with some tried and tested family favourites from our heritage kitchens. We’ve featured apple hedgehogs and apple snow in more summery posts, but Apple Charlotte, pictured above, and Auntie Tottie’s Apple cake make perfect autumnal fare. Continue reading
Eat your history – the book!
Jacqui Newling, author of Eat your history: stories and recipes from Australian kitchens Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums
Handwritten recipes passed through the generations, tales of goats running wild in colonial gardens and early settlers’ experimentation with native foods…
Eat your history dishes up stories and recipes for Australian kitchens and dining tables from 1788 to the 1950s.Jacqui Newling, resident gastronomer at Sydney Living Museums, invites you to share forgotten tastes and lost techniques, and to rediscover some delicious culinary treasures. Continue reading
Spring harvest festival – this weekend
Jacqui Newling, ‘the Cook’, and Scott Hill, ‘the Curator’, in the kitchen at Elizabeth Farm. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums
Our gardens with fruit and vegetables are extensive; and produce abundantly. It is now spring, and the eye is delighted with a most beautiful variegated landscape; almonds, apricots, pear and apple trees are in full bloom; the native shrubs are also in flower, and the whole country gives a grateful perfume … Continue reading
Our daily bread
Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums
One of my greatest challenges in presenting our culinary past to museums audiences is working out what form foods took – what they looked like, their colour, shape and texture – when we only have written accounts to go by, and many of those offering only scanty detail. Continue reading
The daily bread oven
‘Baking oven and kneading trough’ (detail) from Charles Tomlinson, Illustrations of useful arts, manufactures, and trades, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, [1858]. Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Sydney Living Museums RB 331.76 TOM
Now that your dough has had a chance to rise it’s time to heat the oven and get baking! Continue reading
…And the kitchen sink!
The scullery at Vaucluse at the end of the night (detail). Photo © Cath Muscat
If there was any role in any of our 19th-century houses that you’d want to avoid it would surely be the back-breaking, underpaid duties of the scullery maid. Continue reading
The de Maliez mystery – in search of the governor’s French cook
Governor's House at Sydney, Port Jackson 1791 by William Bradley. State Library of NSW Safe 1/14
Historical research is a curious thing. You find a fleeting reference or snippet of information that prickles your interest about a place, a person, an object or an incidence, then find yourself chasing leads that might shed more light on the subject. In this case, it is the mystery of Governor Arthur Phillip’s ‘French cook’.
Bake or roast? Now there’s a question.
View of an 'Australian Kitchen' (detail) showing a bottle jack in use, in Mrs Isabella Beeton, Mrs Beeton's book of household management, London, circa 1880. Sydney Living Museums R89/80
During one of the floor talks for Eat Your History: a Shared Table a conversation started at the curio wall regarding a piece of kitchenalia you never see anymore, the bottle jack, and a very old question indeed: do you bake, or do you roast? Continue reading