Celebrating women’s history through food
No ancient history today. No profound historical contemplations or insights. Also no recipes. This is because today I was in Sydney, with friends, visiting the grave of an early nineteenth century Australian dignitary, Esther Johnson (nee Abrahams).
Her eating habits would have been very English. Not the sumptuous kind of English that you can see if you check out my posts on the Regency Gothic banquet. The cuisine we used for that banquet was very much a country house cuisine from the south of England.
The difference between early colonial Australia and England at the same time is primarily in the number of available ingredients and their amount. The early nineteenth century was important for Australian farming because it was when European crops were planted and European animals introduced. ‘Important’ doesn’t always mean prosperous or sophisticated. The early years included crop failure, dependence on imports and other exciting impediments. The early colonists worked ery hard to put food on the table, and Esther Abrahams was certainly prosperous enough (especially later in her life) to afford the finest the colony had to offer. What this mean, however, is an abundant supply of good plain food (at its best) and some uneven access to ingredients when ships didn’t arrive or new farmers failed to produce the expected crops.
For her, since she started her Australian career as a convict, exported from London in great poverty, it was probably an improvement. If Jane Austen’s family had experienced it (and one nearly did) the food would have been a let-down.
PS Happy Women’s History Month
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