Poached snapper in the kitchen at Vaucluse House._Detail of photograph (c) Cath Muscat for Sydney Living Museums
Last year we talked about those confusing and interchangeable words baking and roasting, and got to grip with table- and soup spoons. They’re far from the only confusing words used in the historic kitchen and household, so today I’m starting a series of posts looking at the vast range of pots and pans you can see in a historic kitchen – and what exactly they were called and used for. Continue reading
'Moombara' Photograph by Arthur Wigram Allen, 1904. "5.45 pm on the wharf, Jacob having just caught a large conger eel". Moombara was located on Little Turriell Bay at Port Hacking. © State Library New South Wales call number PX*D 575 negative 921
As we gear up for this year’s Eel Festival at Elizabeth Farm on Sunday 3 March, we are exploring the various ways that eels were cooked and eaten in the past. Continue reading
Dinner at the Bixby's Old Sturbridge Village, USA. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
While our TV’s have recently been taking us ‘back in time for dinner’ from the 1950s, yours truly, ‘the Cook’ has been on a quest to learn more about the way we cooked before the 1850s.
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
Pickled lemons, made from Margaret Pearson's Cookery recipes for the people, 1890, in The Colonial Kitchen by Charmaine O'Brien, 2016. Photo © Jacqui Newling
As Charmaine O’Brien points out in her book The Colonial Kitchen, Margaret Pearson’s Lemon Pickle recipe reminds us that the relatively recent trend for ‘Moroccan preserved lemons’ is not new to Australian tables at all. 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
Edward Abbott's curry powder. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums.
Although being immensely popular, Australia’s first published cookbook, Edward Abbott’s The English and Australian cookery book for the many and the upper ten thousand (1864), featured only one recipe for a ‘curry’. Continue reading
The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle illustration (detail) by John Tenniel in Lewis Carroll, Alice's adventures in Wonderland, Macmillan, London, 1872. State Library of NSW DM/827.8/D645.1/4A1
When the Prince of Wales visited Sydney in 1920 (not Charles, but Queen Elizabeth’s uncle, who would later abdicate for Wallis Simpson), a grand ball was held at Government House. Continue reading
'Pavlova' (detail) 1930s style. The new Goulburn cookery book, Edwards, Dunlop & coy, Sydney, 1937. © Sydney Living Museums.
Yes folks, it’s a pavlova – or at least we are told it is, in 1930s cook book such as The new Goulburn cookery book and The Presbyterian cookery book of good and tried recipes.
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Margaret Ross Steel and the family cow at the Presbyterian Manse, Young, NSW. Photo James Barnet Steel c1918 © Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection 41289 2
“Where are you going to, my pretty maid? I’m going a milking sir, she said” Continue reading