Food folklore
When I got sick, a couple of very close friends turned up on my doorstep and demanded to do housework for me. This is not something that usually happens to me – usually I muddle on somehow and just get through. It made the biggest difference to my temper and demeanour and, yes, it made life somehow completely worthwhile, even while I was fragmenting.
They brought with them a book. We read excerpts over tea and it was one of those books that you just can’t stop reading extracts to someone else. I was going to do you an analysis of it, as it’s something very interesting from the point of view of Australian food history, but instead, I think I shall give you extracts. It fits with my personal food history as regards the book.
What is this mysterious and entertaining oversized paperback? It’s When Mabel Laid the Table: The Folklore of Eating and Drinking in Australia, by Warren Fahey. It’s full of old ads and photos and anecdotes and cockers with the sort of memories that will lure almost anyone into food history.
Opening at random, I came across a erudite rhyme. Obviously you need it. I will happily blog any food-related children’s rhymes you know, by the way – just email me them with maybe a note of where you got them from. And I won’t put the book away yet. One rhyme is hardly sufficient, not when there are lists of sweets children ate and the exact texts of old advertisements. I’m going to have fun with this book from time to time, I can see that. I might also hunt out a couple of other books I have and find you some food history there. Not quite as exotic as this – nothing is ever quite as exotic as this little poem.
Great, green gobs of greasy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Dirty little birdies’ feet
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
And I forgot my spoon!
But I got a straw!
August 28th, 2008 at 7:01 am
It reminds me of:
“Blood and gore all over the floor
And me without me spoon!”
August 28th, 2008 at 7:40 am
In the couple version “And me without me spoon!” sounds gloriously plaintive.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Our pleasure. I’m keeping an eye out for more stuff like that.
Dad has a book at home about Australian Advertising with food ads in it. I could bring it back to Sydney and scan some of them for you as reference material if you like.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Maybe I could just take a look next time I’m down? I don’t know the copyright status of scanned material from a book in this instance and I tend to err on the side of copyright caution.