Food History

Today’s herb is one I’ve mentioned elsewhere. It has a long prehistory - having been used well before Europeans discovered Australia - but a rather recent history. It’s one of my favoruite herbs of all time, and I suspect it will appear in other posts: you can never have too much lemon myrtle.

Lemon myrtle (backhousia citriodora) has nothing to do with lemon botanically. It’s an Australian evergreen tropical tree. Its leaves have one of the best lemon fragrances you can find, and makes a wonderful herbal tea (a couple of leaves in a cup with boiling water, and Bob’s your uncle, which is interesting, because I don’t have an Uncle Bob), it also adds a delightful scent to soups, stews and anything else where lemon is good. Its advantage over lemon grass is that the scent is closer to lemon, as is the taste, and its advantage over lemon is that it does not seem to be at all acidic.

food history, lemon myrtle, ingredients

A nice 1950s cake for the weekend (from my grandmother’s collection):

Condensed milk tart

1 tin condensed milk
yolks of 2 or 3 eggs
juice and grated rind of 2 small lemons

Beat milk, grated rind and juice of lemons and egg yolks till thick. Place in a pastry shell. Beat white of eggs and a little sugar and pile on top of filling. Bake till brown. Bake shell first.

Pastry:- 1 cup SR flour, 1/3 cup lard sugar, mixed with beaten egg.

Food ads are part of food history. I’ve decided you need one a week throughout my winter. I don’t endorse any advertisement or product - I just present it as another way of understanding food history. If I occasionally snicker behind my hand you won’t notice, I hope.

This is the first in a series of videos about various foodays. They’re pretty self-explanatory.

The thing is, I looked at my dairy and realised I won’t be doing any fine research for the next month or two. No amazing and illuminating insights. Besides, foodways belong to all humans, not just those represented by the people I study. I won’t drop any of my regular features, I promise - this is in addition to books and recipes and interesting blogs and websites.

For the next little while enjoy a Friday night video - and have fun exploring some delicious foodways.