Eat your history recipe testing volunteers with Meroogal sponge cakes. Photo © Sydney Living Museums
We’re very excited to introduce our fabulous recipe testing volunteers – Charmaine, Margot and Paula, as part of our Eat your history heirloom recipe project. The team has been working their way through manuscript recipes from family collections at Meroogal and Rouse Hill House and Farm. Continue reading
A 'pink blancmange' created from resin by artist Janet Tavener, on the dining table at Rouse Hill House. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Musuems
With the temperature dipping out at Rouse Hill we’re all rugging up and have started lighting the fire in the mornings to take the chill out of the office. Which naturally brings us to a discussion about ice, and a strawberry blancmange for dessert! Continue reading
Making damper. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
Eat your history hits the road! We’ve been working with regional Councils to bring extra flavour to country festivals, cultural organisations and community events. I had the great pleasure to be in Nundle, in New South Wales’ New England region, on the Easter weekend, bringing heirloom recipes and forgotten favourites back on the menu during their Go for gold Chinese Easter festival! And this week I’m heading to Orange for their Villages of the heart project. Continue reading
Tea cosy embroidered with the Rising Sun badge. Sydney Living Museums R87/103
This handsome handmade tea cosy was made from a black silk skirt panel that belonged to Bessie Rouse (b.1843, d.1924). The cosy, and remarkably, the remnants of the skirt, complete with tea-cosy-shaped hole in it, remain in the Rouse Hill House and Farm collection. The tea cosy is an example of commemorative craft from the first World War period. It honours the 54th battalion which was active in Egypt and France between 1916 and 1918 and depicts the official design of the Rising Sun emblem that was used between 1904 – 1949.
The other commemorative craft that survives today is of course, the Anzac biscuit. Continue reading
1863 edition of Beeton's book of household management. Rouse HIll House & Farm collection R89/79. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
Through most of the nineteenth century, Rouse Hill House was the social hub of the district and the Rouse family regularly played host to formal society dinners, long luncheons and sociable tea parties, plus major family events to celebrate birthdays, weddings and Christmas. Continue reading
Apple snow. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
Apple snow! I have such fond memories of having apple snow as a child – you never hear of it any more! (Ruth, a visitor at Vaucluse House)
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
Fondest food memories - macaroni and cheese.
As part of the Eat your History exhibition we’ve been inviting visitors to share their own own treasured food memories and recipes. Particularly popular has been that pasta favourite – macaroni and cheese! Continue reading
A dairymaid at work.
Mmmmm, syllabub! Surely one of the best things about syllabub is its name – just saying it is fun! Syllabubs are yet another ‘ lost’ dessert – quite decadent, alcohol fueled and deliciously rich, with a long history. Continue reading
In the pantry at Meroogal. Photo © Nicholas Watt
Our volunteer, Bethany Leyshon, shares with us some recipes, tips and long lost techniques that piqued her curiosity while transcribing handwritten books from Meroogal…. Continue reading