Food History

For those who read both my blogs, I’m sorry about the cross-posting. I’m not going to make a habit of it. I’m just bursting with excitement about this story, though.

While my foray into old newspapers today didn’t tell me a thing about chorissa in Melbourne in the nineteenth century, it did tell me two other items of highest importance. First, that a horse called “Kosher” ran in 1920s races in Victoria. (There are so many potential bad jokes in there I won’t even start.)

Second, and more sobering, from 1943 to 1947 kosher meat was nearly banned in Australia. Not before. Not after.

The timing is the sobering bit. The actual sequence of who demanded what and when has its funny moments. Everyone was united on wanting animals not to suffer, but some of the abattoir people were also united in wanting animals not to kick them after they’re dead. There was nearly a strike. The RSPCA got in the act and made a stand against kosher meat. The unions may have done unionish things. Two rabbis were reported on, but what they said was not.

Finally the Health Commission settled the matter by pointing out that a slightly different apparatus holding the animals would solve the problem. No pain for animals; no danger to employees. There was much grumbling about this: some groups maybe didn’t want that problem solved.

One day I shall find out the full story, because this is the newspaper-headline version and is likely to be full of inaccuracies. I can already see a strong possibility of there being a Melbourne abattoir view (’We shall not kill!’) and a Sydney one (’We shall not be kicked in the behind by a dead cow!’).

That timing is also curious. How did it feel to be a leader in the Jewish community and fighting the potential loss of kosher meat while dealing with the influx of Holocaust survivors and sorting out the whole Shoah foulness?

I might have to explore Australian Jewish food history a bit more. It appears that the GST on matzah and challah is not the first time that Jewish food has been under negative scrutiny.

Historiography may have to wait a few days. Janet from The Old Foodie just sent me information about an online cookbook. I feel a bit daft, because I knew about it (though not that it was available online) and I had completely forgotten. What’s more, it has some vital information in it. My mother is jumping up and down from excitement because it’s information about the Melbourne Jewish Community’s foodways in 1867. It’ an extract form the English and Australian Cookery Book, which is what’s so magic. There is a clear definition of what makes “Hebrew Cookery” as opposed to general cookery, simply in the selection of the dishes. That’s what my research ahs been about recently, and it backs up my research, which makes me rather relieved. I have to nuance the paper I was working on, not dump it and start all over.

The aspect of it that has both of us most excited, however, is that the booklet (price 3d) claims that chorissa and other kosher delicacies can be obtained from local butchers. Mum’s going to look into that. And I’m going to look into the possibility that it has stolen certain recipes and phrasing from another cookbook entirely and that the local butchers are in London.

If chorissa was available in Melbourne in the 1860s, then that’s the beginning of a very interesting sequence. This type of sausage was lost to the Melbourne committee for at least fifty years (possibly over a hundred – so much yet to be discovered!). It’s only just become available again.

The chorissa you buy in Melbourne now is thanks to the South African Jewish migrants. If anyone is fretted by the changes migrants bring, this is a reminder that the changes can be a return to one’s origins.

If the butcher Mum goes to makes kosher for Passover chorissa, we might try some of those recipes when I visit, quite soon. If not, it can wait til next time. The big thing is, there was chorissa in Australia – this is not something I had any evidence for before. I have to test the evidence (as I said) but the possibility is very exciting. It means that the foodways of Australian Jewry were seriously cool, for one thing. And, even if those passages have been borrowed from elsewhere, it still makes them rather more Sephardi than Ashkenazi.

I promised I would print out a copy of the booklet and so I have. I’d better pack it – Mum would not be happy if I forgot!

Thank you, Janet.

PS There is also a recipe for potato chips. Not thick ones, nor shoestring: thin as shavings.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Do not do as I just did. Always do your checks first and get excited later. The first Australian Jewish cookbook is kinda plagiarised from the first English Jewish cookbook. It means that Abbott (the writer) gets a big gold star for showing that book was available to him, but nothing more.

In 1902, W Carew Hazlitt published “Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine” in London. I’m always fascinated by the ways other people see the past we’re looking at, not just how they live it. So I decided to take a look at how he sees food history. That got me thinking about how history of food has been written. I thought it would be entertaining to use Hazlitt as a launchpad for some thoughts.

For Hazlitt, food history is important because it distinguishes man from animals. Our tendency to eat fruit, salad and oysters is not so good, perhaps, but that least we’re not cannibals. Given there were cannibals around (though not, as a general rule, in London) at the time he wrote, Hazlitt claiming that man “entertains no sympathy with the cannibal” is either arguing that human cannibals are not men, or that he has way too little evidence and wants to make a point anyhow.

He admits that he might not be certain of this himself:

It naturally ensues, from the absence or scantiness of explicit or systematic information connected with the opening stages of such inquiries as the present, that the student is compelled to draw his own inferences from indirect or unwitting allusion; but so long as conjecture and hypothesis are not too freely indulged, this class of evidence is, as a rule, tolerably trustworthy, and is, moreover, open to verification.

His focus, though, is really on Western Europe and especially on Britain. These days, we’re admitting just how little we know. A hundred years ago, he was able to say with much greater certainty that his view was correct. Or maybe it’s just that I admit the fallibility of my knowledge, and other food writers claim more. Either way, he says that “it may be pointed out generally that the establishment of the Norman sway not only purged of some of their Anglo-Danish barbarism the tables of the nobility and the higher classes, but did much to spread among the poor a thriftier manipulation of the articles of food by a resort to broths, messes, and hot-pots. In the poorer districts, in Normandy as well as in Brittany, Duke William would probably find very little alteration in the mode of preparing victuals from that which was in use in his day, eight hundred years ago, if (like another Arthur) he should return among his ancient compatriots; but in his adopted country he would see that there had been a considerable revolt from the common saucepan–not to add from the pseudo-Arthurian bag-pudding; and that the English artisan, if he could get a rump-steak or a leg of mutton once a week, was content to starve on the other six days.” This is inferential – he gives no sources. That means it’s hugely unreliable. These days it’s possible to trace the changes from the eleventh to the fifteenth century a bit better (though it’s still a fuzzy picture) and there are some distinct changes.

What’s most interesting in terms of change of knowledge, the Anglo-Saxon ‘barbarism’ have recently been demonstrated (by the Museum of London) to have produced taller people than some of the later cuisines. In other words, nutritionally, the path for the British has not always been ever on and upwards, whatever tempting old writing suggest.

What I love is that the same applied in 1902. Hazlitt criticises Green’s History of the English people (1880-3) for forgetting kitchens and gardens as important sources. None of us contain in ourselves universal learning and understanding. This is why the historiography of food history is so much fun.

I’ll introduce you to a bit more leading up to Passover. That’s what brought this to mind, after all. The Passover seder is another piece of food historiography, after all.

Royal Canberra Show: pie judging

I am thinking about constructs today. When someone says ‘coffee’ what do you conjure up? Is it a particular aroma, or a blend of beans roasting? Is it a cup with steam rising from it, or is it a yearning memory for a place and time?

Most of us have a sort of construct we use for foodstuffs. Coffee, pie, bread, soda: these words conjure up something in our mind. We use that something to judge other somethings. When someone else asks of you want pie, you put the question alongside that mental code and add context. It helps us judge – using our cultural construct of pie – whether it will be apple pie or meat pie, whether it’s likely to be served upside down on a bed of tinned peas or in a wedge with a cream or ice-cream garnish.

How we create these codes is part of our personal food history. We share them with people who have similar backgrounds or with whom we have shared experience.

Coffee, for instance. Right now I’m drinking coffee with chicory. I have to explain to people that’s it’s the Louisiana variety, not the UK. Very few people in Australia can deal with the UK version.

For a long while, when I offered someone coffee, I would offer them a choice between Turkish style, 17th century style, plunger coffee, Italian style, French style and whatever else I could create. Now I just offer coffee. I can still make all those styles, but most people are happy enough with decisions that aren’t too hard and that fit their food constructs. Black coffee, white coffee, coffee with cream, with sugar. These are the most popular Australian options.

So you have your food constructs and they’re different according to your experience. You negotiate your way into something you are happy drinking, though, using words. Those Australian words are of limited use in the US. “Black coffee” and “white coffee” just don’t work in the US as descriptors (by and large) because constructs of race and prejudice are different. In otherwise, it’s possible to be quite offensive in simply asking for your favourite style of coffee.

We talk about mouth taste and memory. We talk about foodways. Every time we think about a particular food and apply particular labels, however, we are undertaking a complex negotiation.

Understanding and interpreting these negotiations is crucial to understanding food history.

Right now my biggest preoccupation is sorting out the food testing results for the Conflux banquet. I’m still waiting a few responses (a couple of which are particularly important) but tabulating it all and balancing comments is more complex this year. It’s the menu, you see. The structure of it is so very different, that sorting out the end result takes longer.

I find it interesting that only one of the testers has sent me a really colourful comment. They’ve all done fabulous jobs, but the food is closer to home, somehow and so the descriptions are more familiar.

The one really colourful description doesn’t need an explanation (except I’ve edited your daughter’s name out, Rachel, so that she has privacy and also full deniability):

We tried the Lemon Pie this evening and my 5yo daughter … has a few things to say about it.

“I didn’t like the way that the lemon sauce tasted too sweet. And I did like the meringue because it wasn’t too sweet. After we had the cake we had to brush our teeth because it hurt the sides of our tongues and throat.”

In short, Lemon Pie = FAIL.”

Most of the lemon pies didn’t match modern Australian notions of high deliciousness. You’ll be pleased to know that other pies worked better. Sugar pie was one of them. This means I get to sing old pop music when anyone asked for hints of where the menu might (or might not) be going.

In case you want to sing along with me, here’s the music:

I have started a dread task. The food history of this task goes back a vast historical distance. It’s “Once there was a Pharaoh in Egypt” stuff and no, the Pharaoh was not called Cleopatra.

It’s my own fault this year. I was so busy managing the testing for Conflux and testing things myself that I didn’t notice time passing. When I was told the deadline for testing was the end of March I didn’t look at a calendar and say “This could be a problem,” I asked for more helpers (and they volunteered and they have done wonders – I’m hoping that the last tests will be in by the weekend. If not, there could still be a couple of menu problems and I might have to angst a bit and ponder a bit and find solutions, which could be difficult, considering my other food obligations right now. So I am hoping that those last reports will appear magically in my in-box!).

Anyhow, I looked at the date two days ago and I did a reconnoitre of my pantry and my fridge. There’s no way I can finish everything for Passover this year, but I intend to make a valiant effort.

Finish food up for Passover is such an old tradition. Every Jewish family I knew as child had favourite recipes for the task. For us, it was a biscuit recipe. That biscuit recipe ahs so many potential variations that it’s good for a multitude of ingredients. It’s also wonderful for emptying pastries because everyone dives on the biscuits as soon as they’re made. We used to take boxes of biscuits to school the weeks before Pesach and even the anti-Semitic kids would be very nice and kind for a day. My mother and I would have talks every year about the power of food to win people over, at least while the food lasted.

Books are a very important part of our lives. They help us transmit culture, especially elite culture. Newspapers, too (as I just got an email from a friend telling me about the ‘Jewish mafia’ which is an piece of anti-Semitism that I wish would be thrown out as past its use by date – and why anyone should be sending it to me, much less a good friend is something that worries me – but that isn’t relevant to this blog) but that’s a bit different in how it works.

I was thinking today about how many science fiction or fantasy novels only have very limited discussions of food. Despite the fact that speculative fiction fans I know (including myself) are often totally enamoured of cooking and of exploring new cuisines, the literature seldom has fully developed cuisines.

This means that food historians in 50 years time will be looking at an impoverished source to establish the food aspect of fan culture. Sure, they can look at SF conventions or fanzines or various other places, but the main source of elite transmission does not actually reflect the position out there.

I can give you examples of foodie writer who don’t include much food at all in their books and of foodie writers who do. The simple truth is, however, that food has very low importance in most speculative fiction. It doesn’t have equally low importance in the lives of all those who enjoy speculative fiction.

Why am I telling you this? Recently I keep noticing people extrapolating broad understandings of a place or a time from a single source or type of source. This is only very, very occasionally a good thing. Not everyone Jewish eats New York Deli style food. Not every SF fan lives on junk food. Balanced sources and appropriate use of sources are just as important for food history as for any other variety of history.

It being food history, your sauces also have to balance, but that’s really a different matter.

mushrooms (fungi) - This is one of those rare names that definitely sounds better in English. The botanical and Italian names, in particular, sound like something you will find in an unhappy bathroom.

mustard (white: brassica alba; black: brassica nigra)- Malaysian biji sawi - in British cooking you can cut the mustard because it is a paste. Red mustard seed is a lovely rich maroon colour, and comes from more tropical climes than yellow. Mustard needs light frying (until it starts leaping about with the joy of cooking) before you add it to an Indian curry.

mutton - trying to work out what mutton is turns out to be an exercise in cultural relativity. In Australia, goat’s meat is “goat’s meat” and sheep (the older, tougher variety of lamb) is “mutton”. Elsewhere, goat’s meat can be mutton, too. As I see it, the one universal truth about mutton is, like buffalo, it may well be tough and need slow cooking.

nigella seed (nigella sativa) French nigelle, nothing to do with Nigella Lawson. Black nigella is rather yummy sprinkled on bread. I have no idea how one would go about sprinkling Nigella Lawson on bread.

pecan (carya illinoensis)- a classic nut for US cooking. Pecan can usefully replace walnuts in many dishes.

plain flour – US all-purpose flour (from memory – the question is “Can you trust my memory?”) Sinhalese piti - bleached wheat flour with no leavening.

plantain (plantago) -the ultimate in cooking bananas, the various varieties of plantain can be fried or stewed, but I love them best baked or in a very rich casserole. Plantains are a bit unorthodox in a tsimmes, but taste great mixed with sweet potato, apple, maybe a bit of carrot, and lemon juice and honey.

I forgot to post yesterday because of being rather preoccupied by a book launch. Today you’re getting more ingredients. What a sad excuse for a blogger I am!

On the plus side, I got to spend the evening with several of the regular commentators on this blog. You are very fine company!

non-dairy creamer - an essential part of modern Jewish cooking, particularly in the US. Strictly artificial, and generally replaceable with cream or milk by those who do not follow the dietary restrictions. You may need to watch the temperature or general cooking environment of the replacement milk or cream, because non-dairy creamer does not curdle or sour easily, which means it is actually more versatile.

nori - prepared seasoned seaweed - used in Japanese cooking, but has similarities with seaweeds used in some Chinese and Korean cooking.

nutmeg (myristica fragrans) - German muskatnuss Italian noce moscata - now why, you ask, does it have the same botanic name as mace? That is because they are different parts of the fruit of the one tree. One is the fibre on the outside (mace) and the other is the solid lump inside (nutmeg). It has been a popular (imported) spice for European cooking for so long that we tend to forget it came from the Indonesian region.

pawpaw (asimina triloba) called papaya almost as much as pawpaw, this is supposed to have lots of wonderful enzymes to aid digestion

pea (pisum sativum) - Arabic: bisilla, Turkish: bezelye – a legume, snow peas are fully edible, as are sugar snap peas. Garden peas are almost fully edible - the peas themselves are, and so are the pods, but not the tough fibrous lining on the inside of the pod, which need to be peeled off.

pear (pyrus) - Turkish armut - not just good fresh or cooked in a dessert, you can make an almost idyllic jam using pear and just a touch of ginger.

I had an immensely exciting food experience last night. A group of us were leaving the building after a meeting and had just decided we needed some quality DVD viewing (1 episode of 30 Rock, The Office and Bubblegum Crisis 2040, for anyone who cannot survive without knowing) when one of us spoke up and said “I feel like trying all the US candy we can get hold of.” It was not me. I claim complete and absolute innocence.

We went shopping and we came away with far too many varieties of sweet stuff, with mesquite and other flavoured chips to give us a base to pig out on.

The results were interesting. Some sweets were too sweet. Some were just right. None were short on sugar.

The extraordinary thing was how quickly it took for us to reach the “I’m going to be sick” stage. It may be that as adults we have sadly inferior stomachs to children. It’s more likely, though, that differences in formulation of lollies from continent to continent mean that we reacted differently.

I should have asked for the wrappers and done a comparison with local ingredients, because if there is more fat in the US sweets, then that would fit the responses by the fifteen people testing recipes for the Conflux banquet. US food was richer than Australian food in the nineteenth century. Not just marginally richer, but enormously richer. Cream instead of milk. Fried food instead of roasted.

So I find myself wondering if the difference in lollies is linked the fundamental food history differences. I doubt I can convince the others into another evening like last night, just to test my theory: US candy is very dear in Australia.

We’re so close to the end of the testing of recipes for Conflux. I’m just waiting for a few more results and I can put everything together and make sense of it all.

I rather suspect the last recipes will take the rest of March to produce, as everyday events have tended to push testing aside for some people. It’s still amazing. So many recipes done in so little time.

I wish I could give you the colourful comments I had for you last year and the year before, but there are remarkably few of them this year. There had been hard work by numerous people, but it’s all gone to good effect in my lists and plans. You don’t get the floor show this year, but the food is amazing.

Every single one of the testers so far has come up with a delightful dish. So many yummies! Everyone coming to Conflux will have to be ready for a huge array of delectables, and I’m thinking of blogging the best of the recipes that didn’t quite make it, once the chef and I have made those final decisions.

So, what happens next? I’ve got five recipes to cook and there are about 35 outstanding with the other testers. After that, a few of us will be going on diet. This is the richest cuisine yet. And it’s the most unusual menu yet, from the banquet point of view. The dishes aren’t unusual – it’s the structure of the menu. And that was so mean of me, telling you that and not giving you the details. No-one gets the details though, except the Chair and the chef, until Conflux. And then I shall blog everything, and you, too can eat your way happily to the stage where you need to diet.

Laura asked and here it is - more from Twopenny:

Generally speaking, food in Australia is cheaper and more plentiful than in England, but poorer in quality. Adulteration is, of course, as yet unknown, or but very little known, for the simple reason that it costs more to adulterate than to provide the genuine article. The working-man’s food here is also immeasurably better and cheaper. Mutton he gets almost for the asking, and up-country almost without it. Bread is only 1¼d. to 2d. a
pound, and all the necessaries of life are good, healthy, and fairly cheap. But the richer man, who asks for more than soundness in the quality of his food, finds himself worse off than in London. Meat of the same quality as he gets at his club in Pall Mall is not to be got in Collins Street for love or money. The flour is the
best in the world, and the bread wholesome and sweet; but the toothsomeness of German and French bakers is not to be had, and the finest qualities of flour are all shipped to England instead of being used here. The dearness of labour makes it impossible to give the same care to the cultivation of fruit and vegetables; and
though these are cheap enough, the delicate flavour of Convent Garden is hardly compensated by their superior freshness. In short, our food is somewhat coarse, albeit wholesome enough.
Up-country the meat is excellent; but in the towns it is not, as a rule, so good as in England, as the sheep and cattle have often to be driven long distances before they are slaughtered. Prices vary according to the different towns, seasons, and qualities from 6d. to 2½d. a lb. for beef, and from 4d. to l½d. for mutton. Pork is from 9d. to 7d.; veal from 8d. to 4d. All kinds of fruit and vegetables, except Brussels sprouts, are cheap and plentiful. I
will quote one or two prices at random from a market-book: artichokes, l½d. a lb.; tomatoes, 2d. a lb.; beetroot and cabbages, 1s. 6d. a dozen; potatoes, 6s. a cwt. During the season fruit is very cheap. Splendid Muscatel grapes can be bought in Adelaide from ld. to 2d. a lb.; peaches, 3d. a dozen; apricots, 2d. a dozen; raspberries, 5d. a lb.; cherries, 2d. a lb.; strawberries, 4d.; plums almost for nothing; but by far the best is the passion-fruit.

Neither vegetables nor fruit, as sold in the markets and shops, are as good as those you buy in England. The inferior quality is due to the grow-as-you-please manner in which the fruit is cultivated, pruning and even the most ordinary care being neglected; but you can get as fine-flavoured fruit here as anywhere, and to taste
grapes in perfection you must certainly go to Adelaide.

Of course meat is the staple of Australian life. A working-man whose whole family did not eat meat three times a day would indeed be a phenomenon. High and low rich and poor, all eat meat to an incredible extent, even in the hottest weather. Not that they know how to prepare it in any delicate way, for to the working and middle, as well as to most of the wealthy classes, cooking is an unknown art. The meat is roast or boiled, hot or cold, sometimes fried or hashed. It is not helped in mere slices, but in good substantial hunks. In everything the colonist likes quantity. You can hardly realize the delight of ‘tucking in’ to a dish of fruit at a dinner-party.

I once heard a colonist say, ‘I don’t like your nasty little English slices of meat: we want something that we can put our teeth into.’ Imagine the man’s misery when dessert came on the table, and he was asked whether he would take a slice of pear! Vegetables are for the most part despised, though the thoroughly old English dish of greens remains in favour, and potatoes are largely eaten.

Today, a simple extract from Twopenny’s 1883 Town Life in Australia. I was looking for a different book and this appeared and it is a lot of fun. Let me assure you that Australia is no longer like this. Pie crusts these days are mostly quite edible.

But enough of drinking. It is not a pleasant subject. Besides, I have not yet described the food of any but the working-class. And if they live ten times better than their fellows at home, it is equally true that the middle, and especially the upper, class live ten times worse. It requires the tongue and the pen of a Brillat-Savarin to give flavour to a Barmecide’s feast; but as victualling is as necessary a condition of existence here as anywhere else, I must do my best to enlighten you as to our situation in this respect. May you never have practical experience thereof! If it be true that, while the French eat, the English only feed, we may fairly add that the Australians ‘grub’. Nor could it well be otherwise under the circumstances. It is not merely because it is difficult to entice a good cook to come out here. If he really wants a thing, the wealthy colonist will not spare money to get it; but how can you expect a man who–for the greater part of his life–has been eating mutton and damper, and drinking parboiled tea three times a day, to understand the art of good living? Even if he does, he finds it unappreciated by those around him; and there are few men fond enough of the luxuries of life to be singular in their enjoyment. It takes a lot of trouble to get and keep a good cook, and there is nothing the Australian abhors like trouble. Consequently–I am now speaking only of the wealthy–he adopts one of two courses.

Either he gives occasional grand dinners, in which case he imagines he has got a good cook because he is paying £60 or £70 a year for him–no very large salary even in England for a chef; or he is contented to live anyhow. In the latter case he dines at his club (where, by the way, he gets a very fair meal) in the middle of the day, and has meat-tea in the evening. In both cases the family dinner is much the same. No. 1 cannot see the use of having what he would call a ’spread’ for his own selfish benefit, and leaves his grand cook unemployed the greater part of the week. The dinner consists of beef or mutton, roast or boiled, potatoes and greens, bread-and-butter pudding, and cheese. The details change, but the type is always the same–what his
wife calls ‘a good plain English dinner, none of your unwholesome French kickshaws,’ which are reserved for company. Fortunately his cook, if not very expert in the ‘foreign’ dishes required to be concocted for company, has generally pretty correct notions within the limits of the family dinner.

But it is not so with No. 2, and with the large middle class who all live in the same way. The usual female cook at 12s. a week is not even capable of sending up a plain meal properly. Her meat is tough, and her potatoes are watery. Her pudding-range extends from rice to sago, and from sago to rice, and in many middle-class households pudding is reserved for Sundays and visitors. A favourite summer dish is stewed fruit, and, as it is not easy to make it badly, there is a great deal to commend in it. At the worst, it is infinitely preferable to fruit tart with an indigestible crust.

PS The picture is the modern version of the cuisine so deplored by Twopenny. If you want to know what the Australian working class ate, just ask and I’ll post it tomorrow.

Today you get more ingredients. This is because an online convention takes up an awful lot of time. For one hour I was troubleshooting and being a guest on a Jane Austen panel and moderating a chat. My mind is getting very multiskilled, but is still not quite clever enough to focus on food history while I do these things. This is a great pity, because if I were that flexible I could have done you a nice post about Jane Austen’s food whilst answering questions about the timelessness of the writer. That’s another post whose day will come, one day. Like those posts about food poisoning I promised you. One day.

chapatti - a type of bread, it is flat and round except when you try to make it in a hurry (the it becomes either square or very, very odd-looking). Different cooks make it in different ways, using different types of flour, and all my Indian friends swear that their way of making chapatti is the classic one.

curry leaves (Murraya koenigii) - Thai bai karee, Malaysian daun kai pla, Indonesian daun kari, Tamil karuvepila. Crumble curry leaves and sprinkle into everything savoury. These small leaves are not hot at all, but have a really gorgeous flavour. But whatever you do, don’t mistake them for small bay leaves.

icing sugar - used to be called pulverised sugar, then powdered sugar - not the same as icing mixture, which has cornflour in it as well.

jelly - made from something decidedly unkosher (it used to be calves feet - but don’t let that put you off).

jibnee - a mild white cheese used in Lebanon - can use ricotta as a substitute.

The Aunt Daisy Cookbook was edited by Barbara Basham. This is rather important. Aunt Daisy was a radio personality from 1936 to 1963. There’s a two page introduction to her career in the front of the book, which gathered together recipes and household hints from the many years of her voice echoing in New Zealand kitchens.

So how did a disembodied voice become such an iconic part of New Zealand food? I have no idea. The introduction doesn’t say. It does, however, explain why Barbara Basham is the editor of her collected recipes and hints. “Aunt Daisy” was Mrs Daisy Basham MBE. There aren’t many Members of the British Empire round these days. I guess this is something to do with there not being much British Empire around much.

The recipes aren’t written in a standard modern Ingredients/method format, but in exactly the way those home made cookbooks I have describe how to make something. One day I might have to trace that format and find out where it came from. It’s too standardised to have appeared by chance.

For North Americans, make sure that you sound that ‘h’ at the beginning of ‘herbs.’ Otherwise it won’t sound like a NZ recipe.

Some of her recipes are conservative and some are drawn from international sources. Some have names that these days are rather unacceptable in a cookbook. Let me give you an example of one.

Faggot Loaves

Half pound raw liver, 2 medium onions, 2 rashers of bacon, 2 or 3 slices of bread, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons flour, milk, seasoning, herbs if liked. Beat eggs and make into batter with flour and milk, add seasoning and herbs. Mince liver, onion and bacon, catching juice; soak bread in milk. Mix all, blend with batter. Put into greased tins with covers, or in pie dish. Cook in oven in pan of water. Serve hot or cold in slices.