History on the menu, Orange Wine Week, 2014. © Orange City Council
How can one refuse an invitation to a wine festival? Colonial gastronomy headed west to picturesque Orange, New South Wales, to support their Villages of the heart: telling rural stories project. Renowned as central New South Wales’ food bowl, the Orange district also boasts a vibrant ‘cold climate’ boutique wine industry.
'Cocoanut' ice. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
“½ cup of milk, 2 cups of sugar, 25 grams copha, 3/4 cup of coconut. How hard can it be to make coconut ice?” For the past few months a dedicated team of passionate and curious volunteer cooks have been testing out manuscript recipes from our families’ collections. One of the team, Paula Southcombe, reflects on one of the more challenging recipes: Continue reading
'Rapid' rotary egg beater, c1950s. Photo © Sydney Living Museums
We’re all aware of food fads and trends, especially these days on our quest for anything new, different or with newly identified health attributes (hello kale!). But sometimes food trends are the result of changing technologies, enabling a particular dish or cooking technique to be widely accessed rather than be reserved for restaurants with commercial equipment, trained chefs or a fleet of kitchen hands (or servants as the case may have been in centuries past). Continue reading
Apple hedgehog. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
When I was a child my dad would confuse me by asking “do you say the yolk of an egg is white or are white?” But it is their yin-yang, rich-light; oily-dry duality that makes eggs such a versatile food. While the sun shines in the yolk it is the whites that bring light to many a dish, including omlets, meringues and snows. 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
Boiled fowl, part of a meal filmed for the Eat Your History exhibition. Photo © Sydney Living Museums
In this, the KFC and BBQ’d chicken age, where even good quality cooked chooks can cost less than a fresh chicken to prepare at home, it seems extraordinary that on the most elegant tables in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was an open preference for boiled fowl. Continue reading
Regency breakfast at Elizabeth Bay House. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
We recently hosted a Regency-style breakfast in the grand dining room at Elizabeth Bay House as a “money can’t buy” experience for the literacy charity, Room to Read. The offer included a personalised gastronomy-focused tour of the House followed by a breakfast which was based on the menu plan given to Maria Macarthur in 1812, Continue reading
Quong Tart teapot (detail). Private collection. Photo © Jamie North for Sydney Living Museums
Quong Tart, celebrated in the Celestial City: Sydney’s Chinese story exhibition currently showing at the Museum of Sydney, played a significant part in Sydney’s colonial history. The exhibition explores many aspects of Quong Tart’s life, but he is famously remembered for his tearoom establishments, which helped revolutionise casual dining in the city in the late 1800s. Continue reading
Kangaroo steamer. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
But of all dishes ever brought to table, nothing equals that of the steamer. No one can tell what a steamer is unless it has been tasted: it indeed affords an excellent repast. Australia, Henry Melville, 1851.
Following Scott’s cry of Tallyho! last week, and the focus on wild game, we salute the kangaroo (yet again), colonial style. Continue reading
Winter medlars in the Vaucluse House kitchen garden. Photo © Sydney Living Museums
Long Life to that House on the Hill of Rouse! … for comfort peace and mirth,
…and oh the goodly Cream & Pies the Ham – the Fowls – the Custard,
The Rolls & Eggs – that cooked themselves – & don’t forget the Mustard
The Oranges & Marmalade – the Medlars & the damper…. Continue reading