https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook Eat Your History Wed, 10 Jul 2019 08:22:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/polly-put-the-kettle-on-and-lets-have-fish/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/polly-put-the-kettle-on-and-lets-have-fish/#respond Wed, 10 Jul 2019 08:17:47 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=20343   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 […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/polly-put-the-kettle-on-and-lets-have-fish/feed/ 0 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/slippery-business/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/slippery-business/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2019 23:00:09 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=20134 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. We have no indication of what became of the eel in the above image from the early 1900s – was it grilled, stewed, crumbed and […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/slippery-business/feed/ 1 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/looking-further-back-in-time-for-dinner/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/looking-further-back-in-time-for-dinner/#comments Thu, 09 Aug 2018 00:10:15 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=19554 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. Living history With the assistance of Sydney Living Museums’ Ruth Pope Bequest research grant I visited Old Sturbridge Village, a […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/looking-further-back-in-time-for-dinner/feed/ 1 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/blazing-saddles/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/blazing-saddles/#comments Thu, 21 Jun 2018 00:00:24 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=19194 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. Tell ‘tail’ signs As the name suggests, the saddle is cut from the back of the animal, and the saddle meat is quite familiar to us, […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/blazing-saddles/feed/ 1 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/when-life-gives-you-lemons-pickle-them/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/when-life-gives-you-lemons-pickle-them/#respond Thu, 21 Sep 2017 06:15:19 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=18466 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. The principle difference between the recipe published by Pearson in the 1880s and our idea of Moroccan-style lemons – such as students […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/when-life-gives-you-lemons-pickle-them/feed/ 0 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/lets-katchup-sometime/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/lets-katchup-sometime/#respond Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:00:01 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=17819 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, the ubiquitous tomato sauce is being called tomato ‘ketchup’ – the term used for it in the USA. While […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/lets-katchup-sometime/feed/ 0 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/curry-stuff/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/curry-stuff/#respond Wed, 08 Feb 2017 23:00:49 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=8365 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’. Curry. Cut meats, fowls, or rabbits into small joints, and fry them brown in a pan with an onion chopped up. When half […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/curry-stuff/feed/ 0 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/mock-the-turtle/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/mock-the-turtle/#respond Thu, 02 Feb 2017 00:35:25 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=6297 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. The menu included consomme tortu or turtle soup. There was still a demand for genuine turtle soup well into the 20th century, harvested from Queensland waters, according […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/mock-the-turtle/feed/ 0 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/australian-tastes/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/australian-tastes/#respond Wed, 25 Jan 2017 23:00:05 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=17462 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. Iconically ‘Australian’ The notion of an Australian ‘national cuisine’ has been debated for decades, with iconic foods such as the […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/australian-tastes/feed/ 0 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/give-us-our-dairy-bread/ https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/give-us-our-dairy-bread/#respond Thu, 12 Jan 2017 12:25:02 +0000 https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/?p=16861 “Where are you going to, my pretty maid? I’m going a milking sir, she said” This verse is written on the back of the above image of Margaret Ross Steel (nee Macgregor) by its photographer, James Barnet Steel, whom this pretty maid married in 1912. Their daughter, June Wallace, was the last of the family […]]]> https://blogs.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/cook/give-us-our-dairy-bread/feed/ 0