‘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
"Bread to strengthen mans heart", frontispiece in Eliza Acton, The English bread-book for domestic use, Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, London, 1857. Google Books
In these days of supermarkets, bakeries and bread makers we can easily forget how the simple act of baking bread has been a feature of life for thousands of years. Continue reading
Two Corellas feasting on bunya cones at Elizabeth Farm. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Museums
As this year’s Bunya season draws to a close it’s time to look at this extraordinary bush food, and its role both in Indigenous societies and in 19th century landscapes – just be careful not to stand too close! Continue reading
Silverplate eggcup cruet. Sydney Living Museums EB95/1-8. Photo © Paolo Busato for Sydney Living Museums
We often recreate breakfast scenes in our houses, evoking a time when the first meal of the day certainly wasn’t grabbed at a takeaway or drive-through. Here’s a tale of googy eggs, egg cups and bloody war at the breakfast table! Continue reading
The Rouse Hill dining room by candlelight. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Museums
Currently at various Sydney Living Museums Houses we’re running a series of night time tours, where you can see the houses as their original occupants saw them lit by candle and lamplight. Which raises the vexing question of just HOW should you light the historic dining table? Continue reading
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
Peaches fresh from the tree. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Museums
December is upon us, and it’s time to ready ourselves for Christmas and all its festivities. My Christmas plum puddings are on the stove as I write, the fruit mince is made and at the ready for ‘pies on call’ or Christmas ‘cassata’ if the big day is too hot to have the oven on.
In an age when so many of us simply have too much ‘stuff’ there is no better offering towards a party, a kris-kringle or to celebrate a friendship than an edible gift. With peaches in abundance, and at their best right now, Jacky Dalton, guide and resident foodie at Elizabeth Farm and Rouse Hill House & Farm, is guest blogger this week, sharing her beautiful peach jam recipe just in time to be bottled and decorated for special friends, neighbours, teachers or workmates, or indeed, to indulge in at home over the festive break. Continue reading
Young Henry's special Eat Your History brew: Porky's peach prescription
Local artisan brewer, Young Henry’s have concocted a special brew to celebrate our exhibition Eat your history: a shared table which opens this weekend at the Museum of Sydney. Its novel name, Porky’s Peach Prescription, hints at its historical connections with early colonial Sydney. Continue reading
British sailors boarding a Greek pirate (detail), J.L. Marks. The Mariner's Museum Collection
So blow me down ye son of a biscuit eater! Here be a tale of pirates at that den of infamy, Parramatta! – and a curious recipe for ‘Pirate’s delight‘! Arrrr!
Chinese export ware punchbowl featuring a scene of Sydney Cove before 1820 (detail). State Library of New South Wales: XR 10
In a world where the internet gives us access to the world twenty-four hours a day, and imported commodities arrive from across the globe by air and sea on a daily basis, it may come as a surprise, especially for our younger audiences, to know that a new ship in the harbour caused more than a ripple in the colonies of New South Wales. Each new arrival brought news from afar, fresh people to mix with in society, and coveted trade goods such as textiles, household items and ‘exotic’ food items that we now take for granted. Continue reading