Eel dish belonging to the Rouse family. Rouse Hill House and Farm collection. Photo © Sydney Living Museums
Included in the line-up of ceremonies at Sydney Living Museums Eel festival this week included yours truly preparing a popular 19th-century delicacy, ‘collared eel’ following a recipe from 1816. Continue reading
Fresh produce at the Elizabeth Farm Spring Harvest Festival. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums
Elizabeth Farm’s Spring Harvest Festival was a great success, and we’ve been looking forward to sharing these photos of the day! Continue reading
Place setting created at Elizabeth Farm. Photo © Scott Hill for Sydney Living Museums
Recently we celebrated the Elizabeth Farm Spring Harvest festival. It was a great day of artisan food, talks and demonstrations, and lazing about in deckchairs. Continue reading
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
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
Cherry guavas and flowers from the kitchen garden at Vaucluse House, September 2015. Photo Helen Curran © Sydney Living Museums
There’s a special pleasure in tasting a fruit straight from the tree. Just a few months ago, the cherry guavas in the kitchen garden at Vaucluse House were tiny, unpromising-looking green orbs. This week, the first of them ripened: little rose-coloured marbles of sweet-tart deliciousness, each a perfect mouthful – and the perfect ingredient for a clear fruit jelly.
Citrus maxima, or shaddock (detail), colour plate from B Hoola van Nooten, Fleurs, fruits et feuillages choisis de l’ille de Java: peints d’après nature, 1880. Image courtesy Missouri Botanic Garden
In the winter months, you’ll see them dangling from the branches of a tree at the bottom of the kitchen garden at Vaucluse House, by the compost heap, like bright baubles. These days, the shaddock (also known as pomelo or pumello) is less well-known than oranges and grapefruit. But in colonial Australia, this outsized citrus was a thing of wonder. Continue reading
Elizabeth Farm 'then and now'. A combination of a view from 1926, by E.G. Shaw, and one taken in 2015 by Scott Hill.
The dining rooms that visitors experience at our properties are very different: some are relatively intact, some are complete recreations, while some are evocative interpretations. Today I’m looking at the dining room at Elizabeth Farm, and how it was known by the Macarthurs, by the 20th century Swann family, and how we experience it today. Continue reading
The 'Belgenny sideboard' as seen in the Eat You History: A Shared Table exhibtion. Photo © Jamie North for Sydney Living Museums
Back in December we started looking at dining room furniture, and the ‘esky’ of the 19th century, the wine sarcophagus. Today we’re looking just a foot or two higher, to a piece of furniture many houses have done away with altogether – the sideboard. Continue reading
Detail of a coffee cup in the Vaucluse House collection. Sydney Living Museums V96/11-1:30. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Museums
A few weeks ago I was interviewed on coffee in the early colony for Channel Ten’s Lets do coffee program. We talked about how much was drunk, where it was produced, and just what was a proper coffee cup. Continue reading