Grilling Sausages, courtesy Unsplash. Under Wiki Commons Licence, 2015.
With a Federal election being held across the nation this weekend, we’ve been having a bit of fun discussing the idea of the ‘Democracy Sausage’ Continue reading
A Victorian style luncheon featuring a saddle of lamb (right). Photo © Jacqui Newling for Sydney Living Museums
Now rarely seen in its traditional form, a saddle of lamb or mutton was a prestigious cut of meat that was highly fashionable on colonial tables in the late 1800s. Continue reading
A Victorian family dinner. Image source: Free Vintage Digi (digital) stamps. freevintagedigistamps.com
I was recently invited to give a talk for the New South Wales Dickens Society. I had no hesitation accepting, not as an aficionado of Dickens literary works, but because Charles Dickens’s wife Catherine (nee Hogarth), published a book of menus in the 1850s. Continue reading
Old fashioned sticky buns at the Wentworth picnic at Lucknow, NSW. Photo © Jacqui Newling, Sydney Living Museums
On the Queen’s birthday holiday on Tuesday May 24, 1887, the miners at the Wentworth goldfields experienced a ‘unique and enjoyable event’ – a picnic with their families, hosted by the mine manager, Henry Newman and his wife. Continue reading
Butcher's shamble, nr. Adelaide Gully, Forrest Creek. S.T.Gill.National Library Australia. Rex Nan Kivell Collection ; NK586/15
If I was going to do a ‘Julie and Julia’, the book I’d want to work through is Modern cookery for private families, first published 1845 by Eliza Acton’s (1799-1859). It is written with eloquence and grace, and with practical descriptions of mid-1800s English cookery.
It was sold in bookshops in the colony, and was the ‘go to’ cook book for prospector William Howitt, in the Ballarat goldfields in 1853. Continue reading
Mushroom ketchup and ingredients. Photo © Jacqui Newling for Sydney Living Museums
There are few households in Australia that would not have a bottle of tomato sauce in the pantry cupboard, or, in those that do not, some kind of savoury sauce such as Worcestershire or HP. More recently, Continue reading
Dinner bowl (reconstructed) used in the Hyde Park Asylum for aged and destitute women, 1862-1886, excavated from beneath the floorboards at Hyde Park Barracks. UF9831c. Photo © Jamie North
Archaeology Honours reasearcher Kim Connor joins us again with her recreation of a typical dinner served to women living in Hyde Park barracks in the Destitute Asylum and Immigration Depot in the 1880s. Continue reading
Burning of the Garden Palace, Sydney, September 22, 1882, as seen from Macquarie Street. Gibbs, Shallard & Co., 1882. Supplement to the Illustrated News, October 25, 1882. Image courtesy National Library Australia. PIC Drawer 2505 #S3158
In September 1879 Sydney presented itself on the world stage by hosting an ambitious International Exhibition, which ran until April 1880. The exhibition was held with typical Victorian pomp, Continue reading
Apple press at Woolmers, Tasmania. Photo (c) Scott Hill
Though it seems the weather in Sydney is never going to cool down, its time to look at apples: from apple Charlotte cake to chutney, and a baked apple recipe that kids will love to try for mothers day. But first its cider time! Continue reading
No.2 of panorama on two sheets, 1811 (detail). Hand-coloured engraving by John Heaviside Clark after John Eyre. Museum of Sydney Collection, © Sydney Living Museums
No city is without its skyscrapers, and Sydney is no exception. All eyes seem to be on the current developments at Barangaroo on the western foreshores below Millers Point, which itself was named after the sailed flour mill run by John Leighton – known as ‘Jack the Miller’. Continue reading