Deft fingers and dainty dishes

Mrs Macpherson's cookery class, Australasian Sketcher, 20 December 1879.

The rules of how a cookery instructress should look and behave had been established well before Harriett Wicken began her own career in Australia and reports of her classes suggest that she conformed to what was expected. Good instructors were practical but not didactic, they had a conversational, simple and easy way of explaining what they were doing. In the case of Mrs Macpherson, giving demonstrations in Brisbane, the audience was treated as ‘not being utterly ignorant of the elements of good cooking’ but were shown ‘how they may do it quickest and best, with the greatest economy and the most satisfactory results’.[1] 

Cooking lectures and demonstrations were hard work. Often conducted in crowded and hot conditions with limited equipment a successful demonstrator relied on physical stamina to maintain her schedule and an authoritative voice coupled with a certain amount of charisma to engage her audience. Reports of Wicken’s classes suggest that she had all the necessary qualifications. She was praised as an ‘efficient and painstaking teacher’, with an ‘admirably lucid manner’ who explained ‘minutely and clearly all her methods of making up’. [2]

All cookery demonstrators, walking the fine line between forging a public identity for themselves and reinforcing domestic values, needed to appear, like Mrs Macpherson, as represented on the front page of The Australian Sketcher, confident, efficient and businesslike while ensuring that they also remained ladylike and feminine without being frivolous.[3] Macpherson was described as appearing on the platform ‘exactly as if, as the lady of the house, she had just run to her kitchen to put the dinner on the way, and had hastily donned an apron and a pair of sleeves to save her dress’.[4] Mrs Wicken similarly fronted her classes ‘arrayed in a neat print frock with a large apron and a coquettish little cap.’[5] Neatly and dainty clad, sporting snowy white linen aprons, demonstrators ranged from attractive young women like Ramsay Whiteside, described as ‘most agreeable and winsome’[6] to the motherly and matronly, like Mrs Davis, demonstrator of gas stoves in Melbourne, who was referred to as ‘plump of person, rosy of countenance and beaming with good nature’.[7]One attendee of a class given by Mrs Fawcett Storey described her as the ideal of an instructress of cookery: ‘a pleasant, well-preserved little woman, apparently well aware of what she is about and what she is going to do, whose appearance is that of a strongly-marked intellect, combined with kindly decision of character and who has a facile power of conveying her knowledge to others, but who looks anything else but one’s preconceived ideas of a cook.’[8] Moreover it was evident that Annie Fawcett Storey had not commenced her education in the kitchen ‘and one feels thankful chance did not direct it to a scientific laboratory, where, no doubt, the mastering of her subject would have been equally certain but would have spoiled the “woman”.’ A cookery teacher needed to demonstrate that a scientific approach to cooking, and to household management in general, was neither antithetical to whatever might be considered appropriate womanliness, nor was cooking a menial task suited only to the servant class.

Various strategies were employed to illustrate that preparing economical meals was a suitably lady-like occupation - clean, orderly, simple and straightforward, in no way onerous and as far removed from household drudgery as possible. Overall the impression should be ‘that the kitchen is a deal nearer the drawing room than it is to the scullery’.[9] To that end demonstrators tended to use a limited number of pots and pans to show that cooking required no specialist equipment or an extensive, expensive array of utensils.[10] Mrs Macpherson ‘ostentatiously’ limited herself to ‘the machinery to be found in the humblest cottage’.[11] 

At the beginning of the class everything was laid out in front of the instructor in a neat and orderly fashion and all the equipment was, of course, spotlessly clean. Cooking was made to look effortless and in no way time consuming. Teachers were praised for their lissom, nimble fingers and dextrous handling of the materials they used,[12] their deft and dainty methods producing ‘dainty’ dishes that could be quickly made with simple materials. Emphasis was placed on garnishes and ‘the very effective look’ of the finished preparations, in some cases made from ‘the simple and ordinary remains of household food’.[13] Mrs Macpherson’s chief aim was ‘to show the dainty possibilities that lurk unsuspected in the despised scraps that to the thriftless cook seem not worth saving’.[14] The results were both economical and aesthetically appealing and the sort of dishes that a lady, and responsible housewife, might be expected to prepare, be happy to serve and also to eat. Daintiness represented the essence of how women should act.[15] Mrs Wicken and her ilk were the personification of modern, domestic feminism - intelligent women using modern technology to prepare dainty dishes while dressed in dainty clothes and demonstrating ‘dainty cleanliness’. [16]

Wicken’s publications – Fish Dainties, Australian Table Dainties and Appetising Dishes and later Dainty Foods – all capitalized on notions of daintiness, not just in the sense of femininity, but also the idea of something ‘dainty’ as a delicacy, requiring thought and care to prepare. [17] Dainty dishes, according to Wicken, required ‘dainty preparation’ and should be daintily served so that they looked appetising.[18] Dainty fare was also simple, easy to prepare, economical and easy to digest. [19] Daintiness implied something light and tasty, as distinct from something that was hearty, heavy or filling. These delicate and delectable dishes were more often associated with afternoon tea, the quintessential female activity, and breakfast or luncheon, the meals of the day most associated with women and children, rather than dinner, the meal presided over by the man of the house and designed to suite masculine tastes and appetites. 

In his gastronomic history of Australia, One Continuous Picnic, Michael Symons argues that the concept of daintiness was used by modern food companies to coax housewives to adopt ‘profitable frills’ like jelly and custard powder, co-opting lightness, prettiness and gentility as ‘part of a long campaign to twist the traditional caring concerns of women into petty materialist preoccupations’.[20] In Wicken’s Dainty Foods she does suggested chopped jelly as a garnish which ‘improves many sweet dishes’ and proposes the use of both jelly crystals and French gelatin, along with recommending a range of Fountain brand products. But Wicken’s favouring of French gelatin, for example, was not about promoting a particular brand. Before commercial gelatin was available making jelly of any sort was a tedious, messy, multi-stage process starting with calves’ feet which meant that jellies were only produced in kitchens employing large numbers of workers, either commercial establishments or wealthy homes. The use of French gelatin was part of producing light and dainty dishes, and making available something previously only a luxury, the feminizing and democratizing of day-to-day food production in the home. While the concept of daintiness was later harnessed to commercial concerns, for Wicken it was tied chiefly to the gentrification of the kitchen craft and the promotion of a nutritious diet. [21] A mainstay of all Wicken’s publications was the economical use of leftovers, to produce light, tasty dishes and equally the use of fresh fruit, vegetables and fish as wholesome ingredients which were quick and easy to prepare. Moreover these dainty dishes were ideally suited to the Australian kitchen.

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[1] The Telegraph (Brisbane), 7 May 1880, p. 2, ‘Mrs Macpherson’s cookery classes.’

[2] Ballarat Star, 19 November 1887, p. 2, ‘No title’; Robertson Advocate, 31 August 1906, p. 2 ‘Cookery classes at Bowral’; Darling Downs Gazette, 18 January 1896, p. 4, ‘Mrs Wicken’s cooking classes’.

[3] The Age (Melbourne), 18 February 1899, p. 13 ‘Cooking classes’ describing Mrs Ross demonstrator for the Metropolitan Gas Company as not appearing ‘neither super business-like nor frivolous.’

[4] The Telegraph (Brisbane), 7 May 1880, p. 2, ‘Mrs Macpherson’s cookery classes.’

[5] Australian Town and Country Journal, 17 March 1894, p. 35, ‘At a cookery lecture’; Darling Downs Gazette, 22 January 1898, p. 7, ‘Cookery lectures’; Evening Courier (Freemantle), 13 May 1903, p. 3 ‘Freemantle technical and evening classes.’

[6] Evening News (Sydney), 4 March 1880, p. 3 ‘Demonstrations in cookery.’

[7] Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 9 February 1895, p. 4 Billy Nutts ‘At a cookery lecture.’

[8] Letter to the editor from ‘XYZ’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 8 March 1886, p. 7, ‘Cookery at the School of Arts’.

[9] Letter to the editor from ‘XYZ’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 8 March 1886, p. 7, ‘Cookery at the School of Arts’

[10] The Telegraph (Brisbane), 1 May 1880, p. 2, ‘Mrs Macpherson’s cookery classes.’

[11] The Queenslander, 15 May 1880, p. 60 ‘Instruction in cookery.’

[12] Australian Town and Country Journal, 17 March 1894, p. 35 ‘At a cookery lecture’; Armidale Express and Newcastle General Advertiser, 16 January 1891, p. 3 ‘Advertising.’

[13] Darling Downs Gazette, 18 January 1896, p. 4, ‘Mrs Wicken’s cooking classes’; West Australian, 19 March 1903, p. 3 ‘Social notes.’

[14]  The Queenslander, 15 May 1880, p. 620 ‘Instruction in cookery’.

[15] Sherrie A. Inness, Dinner Roles: American women and culinary culture (Iowa: Iowa University Press, 2001) pp. 54–55. ‘

[16] Annmarie Turnbull, ‘An isolated missionary: the domestic subjects teacher in England, 1870–1914,’ Women’s History Review 3, no.1 (1994), p. 84

[17] Harriett Wicken, Fish Dainties (Melbourne: The Mutual Providoring Company Limited. 1892); 1897 Australian Table Dainties and Appetising Dishes (Melbourne: Ward Lock & Co., 1897); Dainty Foods (Sydney: Progressive Thinkers Library., 1911) 

[18] Wicken, Dainty Foods, introduction.

[19] Wicken, Dainty Foods, preface.

[20] Michael Symons, One Continuous Picnic: A Gastronomic History of Australia. 2nd ed. (Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 2007), p. 160.

[21] Gelatine  was heavily promoted as ‘dainty’. Davis Gelatine, Australian manufacturers, published Davis Dainty Dishes beginning in 1922 and available up until at least 1955. For the craze for gelatine, and Jell-O and the democratization of daintiness in America see Sherrie Inness, Dinner Roles: American women and culinary culture (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press) pp. 63–68. For the connection of daintiness and creativity to the plethora of cake recipes in Australian cookery books see Barbara Santich Bold Palates (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2012) pp. 187–200. 

Cooking with gas

 Mrs Wicken had before her, on a large table, the materials carefully prepared, and their manipulation she as carefully and clearly explained, and, with an Acme gas stove, she cooked and placed before her audience most delicious little dishes, the appetising effect of which could not be doubted. Herald (Melbourne), 27 July 1887, p. 4, ‘Cooking lectures’.

Classes in cookery were made possible, and their popularity influenced by, the gas stove. Cooking demonstrations were dependent on some form of portable apparatus on which to cook. It was the gas stove which made the cooking class viable across a range of towns and venues, Temperance Halls, Mechanics’ Institutes, the School of Arts and rooms in the Town Hall, anywhere where gas was connected, and a stove could be provided would suffice. When Miss Whiteside conducted a demonstration in the reception room of Government House in Sydney the ‘cooking apparatus’ was supplied with gas via rubber tubing connected to two of the gas brackets used for lighting.[1] In Mrs Wicken’s case the stove was invariably supplied by a local retailer of cooking equipment and it was usual for the local gas supplier to provide fuel at no charge. 

The use of gas for both cooking and lighting was modern and progressive but not inexpensive which meant that in the first instance the use of gas in the domestic sphere was the purview of the wealthy. Hence understanding and mastering gas cooking appliances was only likely to be of interest to ladies of the middle classes. The novelty of this new appliance and interest in how to use it contributed to make these demonstrations both fashionable and sought after.

The gas cooker was a recent, but not new invention. Buckmaster’s lectures at the 1873 International Exhibit in South Kensington had used gas stoves and gas cooking was part of the curriculum at the National Training School for Cookery (NTSC). Five Australian manufacturers exhibited gas cookers at the Intercolonial Exhibition held in Melbourne in 1875. Mr A. R. Walker, who claimed to be the first manufacturer of gas stoves in Australia, exhibited six different models suitable for preparing meals for from six to 25 persons. His designs had various significant features including modifications to allow for heating laundry irons and could be purchased with or without boilers for hot water.[2] Since 1873, when he had first exhibited gas stoves with James Ellis, Walker had supplied 2000 from his factory in Latrobe Street.

At the Intercolonial Exhibition Walker teamed up with Alfred Wilkinson, the chef de cuisine at the Athenaeum Club, to provide a multi course lunch for 20 people, cooked on one of Mr. Walker’s gas stoves.[3] The meal was pronounced excellent and the following year Wilkinson produced The Australian Cook a complete manual of cookery suitable for the Australian Colonies with special reference to the gas cooking stove.[4] It is likely that the publication of this volume was sponsored by Walker as a vehicle for stimulating interest in his products, and as such marks it as one of the very first cookery books to actively promote this new technology. Marie Jenny Sugg’s The Art of Cooking with Gas, which both advocated the use of gas and promoted her husband’s products, was not published until 1890 and was the first in Britain to claim to be written specifically for gas stoves.[5]

While gas stoves quickly moved into commercial operations, like the Atheneum Club, take-up of domestic gas cookers was slow. Acceptance occurred in three phases, with gas stoves starting as an expensive luxury in the 1870s, followed by growing interest and encouragement by manufacturers of stoves and suppliers of gas in the 1880s and finally gaining increased adoption in the 1890s. [6] Gradual improvements in the design of the stove to accommodate technological advances and the introduction of schemes whereby appliances could be hired rather than bought out right added to the growing enthusiasm for gas cooking. [7] By 1887 there were some 4000 gas cookers in use in Sydney.[8] The eventual embracing of the gas stove followed active promotion to potential users but also coincided with the growing dearth of domestic servants which meant that ladies were no longer in a position to distance themselves from household tasks. The need for more efficiency and increasing emphasis on scientific home management led to the more ready acceptance of labour-saving devices in general. 

Before cooking with gas became popular, most households either still cooked over an open fire or used a cast iron kitchen range of one sort or another, or a combination of the two. The cast iron range was essentially a black metal box with either an open or closed firebox, a flat, stable cooking surface for pans, and an oven.[9] Because they burned solid fuel these stoves still needed to be set into a fire-place or an alcove with a chimney. Although less messy, and more efficient than an open fire, closed ranges still required wood to be chopped or coal to be shovelled, the fire set and the whole appliance rigorously maintained. The Official Handbook for the National Training School for Cookery described a twelve step process for cleaning a closed range starting with cleaning out the ashes, cleaning the flues, dismantling the stove top and finally removing any rust with fine emery cloth and painting with blacking.[10] Achieving and maintaining the right temperature for baking and roasting required a combination of guess work and considerable experience and, since the fire was usually left burning all day, these appliances added considerably to the heat of the kitchen.

The advantages of cooking with gas seem obvious. It was cleaner since there was no smoke, no ash and no wood pile or coal scuttle in the kitchen. Gas cooking was more economical since there was no wastage of heat, it could be switched on when required and turned off when not in use, which also made the gas stove a boon in an Australian summer. The amount of heat was much easier to manage by controlling the flow of gas, although heat distribution was still problematic since early gas ovens had no thermostat or insulation, and the stove itself was easier to clean and maintain. In addition, the gas stove allowed for greater efficiency. With no need to chop wood or shovel coal and no fire to lay, light and constantly tend, the cook could be more productive now that she had more time to actually cook. As with the wood or coal burning cast iron stove, the gas stove allowed food to be cooked on the top surface while, other dishes were baked in the oven and thus made it easier to prepare more elaborate dishes and meals of several courses.[11]

Nonetheless home cooks were wary. Cast iron stoves had been available in Australia since the early years of the nineteenth century but their acceptance had been grudging. Traditionally the fire in the kitchen was not used just for the usual cooking processes of roasting, boiling, steaming, frying, it was also a source of heat for baking bread and making jam, for boiling water for washing clothes and bathing, and for other household chores such as soap making and even heating the iron. Potential users of the new cast iron ranges needed to be convinced that all these processes were still possible, and that usual work practices and traditional values would be maintained.[12] Although some households enthusiastically embraced this new appliance, by mid-nineteenth century the majority persisted with traditional cooking methods. Moreover, even in those kitchens which boasted a cast iron stove, meat was still roasted before an open fire, a pattern of only partial acceptance of new technology which would persist into the early decades of the next century.[13] Mrs Wicken admitted that roasting before an open fire was ‘no doubt, the finest way of cooking a prime joint of mutton, lamb, beef or veal’ but assured cooks that ‘baking or roasting’ in an oven ‘answers exceedingly well if the operation of cooking in carefully conducted’. She was confident that: ‘Meat roasted skilfully in a gas oven cannot be detected from meat cooked before an open fire’.[14]

In addition to all the negatives associated with cast iron stoves in general, gas cooking ranges raised further concerns. Fears centred around the possibility of explosions and gas leaks. Gas was smelly, the fumes were known to be toxic and thought likely to poison the food cooked in a gas oven. In addition, consumers were discouraged by the initial outlay for connection added to the cost of the stove and fittings and need to be convinced that these new appliances were economical to run. Users needed to be encouraged, for example, to make sure that the gas flame was extinguished when not in use so as not to waste fuel.[15] Enter the cooking demonstrator.

While the promotion of cooking with gas was not usually her primary aim, Mrs Wicken was familiar with the operation of gas cookers and used them in her demonstrations from the outset. When she rented the Temperance Hall in Sydney in 1886 she applied to the board of the Australian Gas Light Company and was allowed free use of a stove and the supply of gas at half the usual rate.[16] It was certainly in the interests of the gas supplier and the agent for gas stoves in the places where demonstrations were to be held to involve themselves in these cooking lessons. Not only did the audience see a gas stove in use but newspapers often reported on the equipment that was used. For example, Wicken’s classes as the technical college in Hobart were facilitated in part by the free supply of a stove and gas:

The gas stove used was the ‘Eureka’ and by its side stood one by Wright of Birmingham, both of which had been fixed by the Hobart Gas Co. without expense to the Board, and the gas for which is to be supplied free of charge for the 12 lectures. The stove in use worked splendidly. The Gas Co. had also a display of various heating stoves and other appliances, showing the perfection to which such things have now been brought.[17]

Similarly, the Darling Downs Gazette reported that all the utensils used by Wicken were available from the local ironmonger, and that she had expressed her satisfaction with their quality.[18]

Gradually gas companies became aware of the advantages of hosting their own cookery demonstrations to promote the use of gas for cooking. To cultivate a positive public image, they looked to women with respected credentials, opening up job opportunities for trained women to act as cookery demonstrators and also making the field much more competitive. Lauded as a ‘teacher of scientific cookery’, Miss Swayne, who had been taught by Wicken at Sydney Technical College, was the first demonstrator for the Australian Gas Light Company at their new showroom on the corner of Gipps Street, Haymarket, next door to Anthony Horden’s furniture warehouse after it opened in 1893.[19] Mrs Isabel Ross, whose credentials included a teaching diploma from the NTSC, made her mark in Victoria as a demonstrator working for the Metropolitan Gas Company beginning in the 1890s and published collections of her recipes. [20]

The mission of the ‘lady demons’ who worked for the gas companies in England, has been described as one of both feminizing and domesticating this new technology.[21] Wicken’s was a similar role. The benefits of gas cooking were a neat fit for the preoccupations of the domestic science movement and the promotion of scientific cooking, although the taming of the gas stove, making it appear both safe and simple to operate, was incidental to her overall task of making kitchen work fashionable and appear both respectable and genteel.

 

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[1] Evening News, 13 March 1880, p. 3 ‘Miss Whiteside’s cookery’. ‘The gas cooking apparatus stood on the table furnished by a supply from two of the gas brackets, conveyed by rubber tubing to the stove’.

[2] The Australasian (Melbourne) 4 September 1875, p. 5 ‘Gas, coke, apparatus for lighting and cooking, hardware & co.’

[3] Age (Melb.), 1 October 1875, p. 2, ‘News of the Day’, the dinner included soup, roast beef, rhubarb tart and cabinet pudding.

[4] Alfred J. Wilkinson, The Australian cook a complete manual of cookery suitable for the Australian colonies with special reference to the gas cooking stove (Melbourne: George Robertson, 1876) 

[5] Marie Jenny Sugg, The Art of cooking with gas (London: Cassell and Co., 1890). See Elizabeth Driver, A bibliography of cookery books published in Britain 1875–1914, (London: Prospect Books, 1989). William Thomas Sugg was a gas engineer. The business William Sugg and Company was, and is, famous for gas lighting. Sugg lights which were used in Ballarat and can still be seen in Lydiard Street.

[6] Rosemary Broomham, First Light: 150 years of gas (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, c. 1987), pp. 75–6, 88.

[7] Broomham, p. 86. Sydney Morning Herald, 4 October 1884, p. 3 AGL gas cooking stoves for hire ‘advertising’.

[8] Broomham, p. 76

[9] Kimberley Webber, ‘Romancing the machine: The enchantment of domestic technology in the Australian home, 1850-1914’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Sydney, 1996, p. 81. 

[10] Rose Cole The official handbook for the National Training School for Cookery 2^nd. edition (London: Chapman and Hall, 1879), pp. 13–14. See also Harriett Wicken The Australian home: A handbook of domestic economy (Sydney: Edwards, Dunlop & Co., 1891), pp. 165–168.

[11] Webber, p. 80

[12] Webber, p. 80

[13] Webber p. 89. Anne Clendinning, Demons of domesticity: women and the English gas industry, 1889-1939 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004), p. 41 argues that ‘the cosy hearth with its attendant roast beef gently turning on a spit became a powerful image of English domesticity’ satisfying a sentimental ideal that the fully enclosed gas stove did not. In addition, the efficacy of the gas cooker was dubious regarding the preparation of that national favorite, roast beef, since cooking in an oven was technically described as ‘baking’. Doubters claimed that the meat’s taste could not compare to open-roasted beef and that the gas stove tainted the drippings, others were critical claiming basting the meat was near impossible. Webber, p. 86, also suggests that consumer dissatisfaction with the cast iron stove also arose because of the multiplicity of designs.

[14] Wicken, Australian home, pp. 47, 49.

[15] Wicken, Australian Home, pp. 165–6, ‘In turning off the burners be careful to turn to the stop, and when the stove is finished with turn the gas off at the main tap. Gas stoves soon become very expensive unless the gas is turned off as soon as finished with. As putting out and relighting is no trouble, it should be turned off the moment cookery is finished.’

[16] Broomham, p. 77

[17] Mercury (Hobart), 12 December 1889, p. 2, ‘The Mercury’. Also gas company lends stove Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 30 March 1897, p. 5, ‘Technical College’.

[18] Darling Downs Gazette, 15 January 1896, p. 2, ‘The cookery classes’.

[19] Evening News, 19 December 1894, p. 5, ‘Gas cookery’. Broomham, pp. 88, 90. See Sydney Mail and NSW Advertiser, 11 November 1893, p. 1001, ‘Events of the week’. Windsor and Richmond Gazette, 19 May 1894, p. 7 ‘Gas cookery’ – demonstration for the Windsor gas Light Company. Miss Asche, another of Wicken’s pupils, gave classes in King Street, Australian Star, 15 September 1896, p. 2 ‘Advertising’.

[20] Isabel Ross and Metropolitan Gas Company, Original and well-certified recipes in economic cookery (Melbourne: Ferguson & Mitchell, printers, 1894); Isabel Ross, Cookery class recipes: as taught in the kitchens of the Metropolitan Gas Company, Melbourne (Melbourne: Echo Publishing Company, 1900); Isabel Ross, Cookery class recipes: as taught in the kitchens of the Metropolitan Gas Company (Melbourne. Melbourne: Specialty Press, 1907); Isabel Ross, Invalid cookery class recipes as taught in the kitchen of the Metropolitan Gas Company Melbourne (Melbourne: Anderson, Gowan & Du Rieu, 1917).

[21] Clendinning, p. 66. Webber pp. 90–1 also notes that ‘the major consumer resistance to the cast iron stove was its challenge to the “cheerful fireside”. Heavy black and almost monstrous in appearance it was the archetypal product of the industrial revolution. Its entry into the home was therefore dependent upon it being feminized and domesticated.’ The style of the stove its ‘curved legs and rounded corners, embossed decorations on the front and sides, pierced shelves, decorative handles and nickel plating’ were all designed to give it ‘the aesthetics of the parlour.’

What happened to thrift and plain cooking?

Economy and practicality were the watch words of domestic cookery manuals in the late nineteenth century. It was Mrs Beeton who wrote that ‘Frugality and economy are home virtues, without which no household can prosper’ in the 1860s, but the idea that thrift was essential to good household management was by no means a new idea. A host of cookbooks had already addressed ‘the economical cook and frugal housewife’. As the nineteenth century wore on these notions became freighted with greater moral and social value. 

Thrift and good, plain cooking underscored all cookery teaching in Britain and were the implicit guiding principles behind cookbooks published in Australia throughout the first decades of the twentieth century. Plain cooking meant simple dishes utilising the resources available – think fresh, seasonal, produce prepared with a minimum of messing about. Roasting, boiling, baking, frying and grilling, the processes which created good honest, traditional English fare, were the foundations of plain cooking. But “plain” cookery required just as much care and skill as high-class cookery, the difference between the two related not to the method but to the kind, and quantity of the ingredients.[1] Advocates of plain cookery believed that a well-cooked dinner, no matter how humble, was guaranteed to promote digestion and would lead to contentment and happiness.[2]

As to thrift, economy in the use of both time and materials was recommended as the basis of all good cookery[3]. Economy was not to be confused with stinginess – to quote Mrs Wicken, a graduate of the National Training School in London, author of the Kingswood Cookery Book and one time instructor at Sydney Technical College:

Economy in the kitchen does not mean buying the cheapest eggs, butter and other provisions, but buying carefully of the best, and knowing just how much material is needed to make a wholesome and tasty dish.[4]

Wicken was very much of the opinion that it was ‘the duty and pleasure of every woman … to consider how to get the greatest amount of comfort for her family with an outlay proportionate to her means.’[5]

Apart from advocating plain cooking, the most popular Australian books of the early years of the twentieth century were themselves plain. Largely free of any sort of illustrations they offered minimal and sometimes downright vague instruction. There was an emphasis on the use of leftovers, recipes utilising offal and on simple preservation techniques such as jam and pickle making. These books provided sufficient inspiration for cooks to produce easily prepared, uncomplicated, nourishing and tasty dishes and to make best use of a garden restricted by seasonal availability, financial considerations and the dominance of British culture. Thrift and plain cooking continued to dominate Australian cookbooks until the 1950s. Consequently, many regard the first half of the twentieth century as the dark ages of Australian cookery, the era of food that was dull, bland and boring.

By the 1950s, years of Depression and war time rationing had given economising a bad name. Thrift was now associated with deprivation, with limited choices, and having to make do. Moreover, with increased prosperity a diet of meat and three veg and a weekly menu based around a roast on Sunday, refashioned leftovers for most of the week, fish on Friday and sausages on Saturday was now considered prosaic and monotonous.[6] Rather than being simply filling and nutritious meals now needed to be more varied and adventurous. Eating was no longer simply about staving off hunger, Australian eaters had grown up and now regarded themselves as sophisticated, with a taste for cosmopolitan food.[7] For many, plain food was conjured as a symbol of colonialism, cultural insularity and immature tastes, others embraced the development of a more diverse food landscape but retained a nostalgic appreciation of a simpler life. [8] Overall plain food was regarded as at best conservative.

As part of this food cultural awakening, writing about food moved out of women’s magazines and the women’s columns of the newspapers. Magazines devoted to food and wine – Epicurean and the Australian Gourmet - made their first appearance in 1966. It was no longer good enough that food was merely tasty, it needed to be delicious, and perhaps most significantly it needed to look interesting and stylish. In 1968 Paul Hamlyn published The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. 

This was by no means the first Australian cookbook to promote more sophisticated dining,[9] but, with its stylish design and full colour photographs, Fulton’s most clearly illustrates Australian culinary culture at the crossroads, poised to abandon any lingering parsimonious overtones, and launch headlong into the endless desire for new tastes, the latest ingredient, or the smartest restaurant. 

Fulton made no mention of leftovers or home preserving, although she retained recipes for old fashioned plain food such as rabbit, lamb’s fry, brains, Scotch broth and the like which, while they may have lacked imagination, were the ‘comfort food’ of the colonial past. These old standbys rubbed shoulders with more sophisticated ‘home style’ dishes from around the world, Chinese stir fries, Indian curries, and great dishes from Europe, such as Swiss fondue, Beef Bourguignonne and Osso Bucco included, according to Fulton, because they were ‘colourful, fascinating and varied’. 

Thrift was barely mentioned although Fulton espoused familiar attitudes to quality and good cooking – claiming to prefer ‘a superb chop to a filet mignon carelessly prepared’. Plain food, or at least using plain as an adjective to describe food, was pretty much on the way to the dustbin. Although on the whole Fulton’s recipes remained simple and uncomplicated the photographs made even hamburger patties appear elegant and luxurious. 

 The Margaret Fulton Cookbook (Sydney: Paul Hamlyn, 1968), p. 93.

Paradoxically, through the 60s and 70s as it became more usual for women to work outside the home and devote less time to food preparation, they were also expected to be more imaginative and creative in the kitchen. Little wonder then that thrift had less to do with saving money and more to do with saving time – think labour saving devices, the use of convenience products, from tinned tomatoes and frozen peas to ready-made meals, eating out and takeaway food - rather than with time-consuming shopping and hours spent on careful preparation.[10]

At the same time the range of raw materials cooks could choose from and the potential sources of inspiration, widened dramatically. Pantries became crammed with unfamiliar ingredients and home cooks became more reliant on recipes, rather than their experience and intuition, as they strove to master cuisines form all over the world. Good eating was promoted as less about nourishment and more about knowing the difference between a taco and an enchilada, or how to pronounce bruschetta. Where once dining at restaurants and hotels had been the purview of the wealthy, eating out became a middle-class hobby and it has been restaurant style food and chefs and their creativity which has become the benchmark by which the food in the middle-class kitchen is judged. 

So, what has happened to thrift and plain cooking? As an example, consider the latest publication from chef Neil Perry, Everything I Love to Cook (Sydney: Murdoch Books, 2021). While Perry enthuses about fresh, seasonal produce and valuing quality over quantity, the idea of thrift is now also linked to the broader implications of our food choices - to the health of the planet, to eating less meat and re-discovering seasonality. Thrift now translates as sustainability and ethical production. Paradoxically, for many these thrifty items - an ethically bred chicken, sustainably sourced fish and organically grown vegetables - are luxuries well outside their economic means. For anyone on a limited budget eating less meat is a simple result of financial necessity rather than a calculated ethical choice. For anyone without easy access to a farmer’s market the time and effort involved with obtaining the best fruit in season or properly free-range eggs, is no match for the vast range of the pre-packaged, mass produced and manufactured products at the supermarket.

No one today would suggest that Perry’s food was plain, although it requires no specialist skills or fancy equipment, and still relies on the basic techniques of roasting, frying, grilling, etc down to even extolling the results of cooking over an open fire. His recipes include for example a whole chapter on the humble sandwich, ‘pimped up’ versions of old favourites like rice pudding, detailed advice on making the best hamburger, and home cooked versions of the meals he serves in his restaurants and dishes up to international travellers on Qantas flights. This sort of simple food now draws from a global garden of ingredients, which include 4 types of salt, 5 olive oils and 7 vinegars, to produce dishes Perry describes variously as ‘gorgeous’, ‘epic’, ‘sublime’ and ‘awesome’. Where Fulton’s book made simple food look glamorous, the photographs in Perry’s book make sophisticated food, look both delicious and plain. 

Neil Perry's AKA Chinese Bolognese from Everything I Love to Cook.

Cookbooks, culinary literature, and food media in general, as part of our consumer culture, work, indeed some would say they exist, to encourage our dissatisfaction with the staid and familiar, and reshape our expectations of food and cooking by redefining our understanding of what is good, simple, and thrifty. But even in modern parlance ‘kitchen thrift’ is defined as ‘a home-based set of goal orientated practises that conserves or increases food resources while supporting well-being’, a sentiment with which Harriet Wicken would completely agree. [11] The understanding of what constitutes plain food may change but legions of home cooks, striving to get the greatest amount of happiness for themselves, and for their family, given the range of resources they can afford, and the limited time they have available, are still regularly making tasty and nourishing meals from leftovers. 

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[1] Mary Hooper, Good Plain Cookery (London: Ward, Lock & Co, 1882), p.  xiii.

[2] Harriet Wicken, Kingswood Cookery Book (Melbourne: George Robertson & Co., 1888), preface.

[3] Hooper, Good Plain Cookery, p. xiii.

[4] Harriet Wicken, The Cook’s Compass (Sydney: J.G. Hanks & Co., 1890), p. 11. 

[5] Wicken, The Kingswood Cookery Book, 6^th edition (Sydney: Whitcombe and Toombs Limited. 1905/6), p. 31.

[6] Mary Douglas, ‘Coded messages’, in Consuming Passions. Food in the age of anxiety, eds. Sian Griffiths and Jennifer Wallace (Manchester: Mandolin, 1998), pp. 103–109.

[7] Margaret Standish, ‘Australia is developing food-consciousness,’ Argus (Melb.), 27 December 1950, p. 2.

[8] ‘The food they loved as children,’ Australian Women’s Weekly, 21 October 1954, p. 38.

[9] For example, Donovan Clarke Cookery for Occasions (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1949); Ted Maloney Oh for a French wife (Sydney: The Shepherd Press, 1952); Maria Kozslik Donovan Continental Cookery in Australia (Melbourne: William Heinemann Ltd, 1955) and an Australian edition of The Far Eastern Epicure (Melbourne: William Heinemann Ltd, 1961). 

[10] For example, ‘Be creative with cake mixes,’ Australian Women’s Weekly, 22 January 1964, p. 41; ‘How to glamorise quick frozen vegetables,’ Australian Women’s Weekly, 13 August 1975, p. 121; ‘Hours or minutes,’ Australian Women’s Weekly, 23 April 1980, p. 80.

[11] Jennifer E. Courtney, ‘Understanding the significance of "kitchen thrift" in prescriptive texts about food’ in  ed. Melissa A. Goldthwaite,  Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017) , pp. 48–59.

 

 

A Merry Jelly Christmas

What to serve for the Christmas meal that is suited to the local climate is something which has exercised the imagination of Australians for many years. Plum pudding in particular has long been deemed entirely inappropriate for the local conditions. While some may have dreamed that one day the stodgy plum pudding would be superseded by ‘some delicate, delicious, fairy-like masterpiece, some wonderous cunning blending of choicest fruits and merigued trifle and exquisite jelly’,[1] the idea of a jellied pudding did not really arouse much interest until the 1930s when ice boxes and refrigerators were becoming increasingly common in kitchens, and powdered gelatine and packets of jelly crystals were readily available. Not that the idea of combining the ingredients you might expect to find in a Christmas pudding with jelly was an entirely original idea. 

For example, way back in 1660, in The Accompisht Cook, Robert May had included instructions ‘To make another excellent Jelly of Harts horn and Ising-glass for a Consumption’. This involved making a gel with both hartshorn and isinglass, and adding sugar, sliced figs, sliced prunes, ginger, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. (The recipe also calls for red sanders and liquorice, the former probably largely for colouring, but both were thought to have medicinal properties.) Whether the result was any help to the consumptive, it does bear some resemblance to a jellied Christmas pudding. Similarly in The Experienced English House-keeper (first published in 1769 and enlarged in 1771) Elizabeth Raffald, provided directions ‘To make a TRANSPARENT PUDDING’ which involved alternating layers of clear calf’s foot jelly with blanched almonds, raisins, citron, candied lemon and currants, another recipe which includes some familiar plum pudding ingredients. Of course, neither Raffald nor May lay any claim to either of these concoctions being Christmas puddings. The impetus for a jellied Christmas or plum pudding finally came from commercial interests promoting the use of dried fruits and locally manufactured gelatine. 

Trying to establish where and when the first recipe for a jellied plum pudding was published is a futile exercise, however there is ample evidence to suggest that the idea dates from the early 1920s.[2] The Davis Gelatine Company had been manufacturing gelatine in Sydney since 1919. In 1921 the company announced their intention to publish a book of recipes and solicited contributions from the public.[3] The first edition of Davis Dainty Dishes was printed in 1922 and included a recipe for Christmas Plum Pudding.[4]

In July 1923 the Australian Dried Fruits Association (hereafter ADFA) awarded Mrs Bessie Potts of Armadale, Melbourne, a consolation prize for her recipe for Gelatine Christmas Pudding. It was duly printed in the pages of the Argus newspaper. [5]

The following table compares these two recipes.

Table 1.

Ingredients	Davis Dainty Dishes	Argus, 4 July 1923, p. 20
gelatine	3 dessertspoons	3 dessertspoons
Milk	1½ pints	1½ pints
Sugar	1 cup	1 cup
chocolate	1½ squares	1 square
cocoa	3 tablespoons
raisins	1 cup	1 cup
currants	½ cup	½ cup
Lemon peel and nuts	¼ pound	¼ pound
Dates or figs	½ cup
prunes		½ cup
Dried peaches or pears		1 cup
Vanilla essence	½ teaspoon
salt	pinch	pinch

 

From the similarity of these two formulations, it seems likely that Mrs Potts derived her recipe from that originally published by Davis Gelatine and was the first of many who contributed their own reworking of the recipe to newspapers over the following decades. Variations on this theme, that is using gelatine, chocolate, milk and a mixture of dried fruits, became by far the most common incarnation of a cold Christmas pudding, no doubt as a direct result of promotion by Davis Gelatine and regular newspaper advertising by the ADFA and inclusion of the recipe in ADFA publications.[6]

Clearly, although served cold, the jellied pudding was intended to resemble the traditional boiled pudding as closely as possible, even down to recommendations to decorate the pudding with sprigs of holly. The fruit combination and spices, where used, follow standard plum pudding formulas and every attempt was made to give the solid appearance and brown colour of a cooked pudding. 

Adaptations over the years involved more or less gelatine, more or less fruit and different combinations of fruit, the use of strong black coffee or coffee essence instead of or as well as chocolate and/or cocoa,[7] and the addition of stiffly beaten egg whites.[8] A more elaborate recipe published in the Hobart Mercury incorporated cream, ground almonds preserved ginger and maraschino cherries along with muscatels, dates and figs.[9] The cookery expert writing in the Daily Telegraph(Sydney) combined gelatine, milk, black coffee and cocoa, raisins, dates, cyrsytallised cherries, crystallised pineapple, marzipan meal and condensed milk. This mixture was beaten until thick and creamy and a stiffly beaten egg white was folded through before it was set in a mould.[10] Another version published in The Australian Women’s Weekly improved on the basic recipe with the addition of evaporated milk, glacé cherries and even the traditional trinkets and threepences.[11] As late as 1968 Golden Circle advertising was promoting a Cold Christmas Pudding set with gelatine which involved milk, cocoa, dates, raisins, sultanas and cherries mixed with a can of crushed pineapple.[12]

A far less popular way to achieve an appropriate colour was to use prune juice rather than chocolate, as in this earlier recipe from the Weekly:

Boil ½ lb prunes in 2 cups water and cinnamon to taste. Dissolve 2 tablespoons gelatine in ½ cup cold water, pour on ¾ cup hot prune juice. Add ¼ cup chopped figs, the cooked and stewed prunes, ½ cup seeded raisins, ½ cup sugar, juice 3 oranges, juice 2 lemons, 3 tablespoons sherry or brandy, 1 oz. peel, 2 oz. cherries, and nuts if liked. Mix well. When beginning set put into a wetted mould. Chill. Turn out. Decorate with whipped cream, chopped cherries and nuts.[13]

Jelly crystals were also recommended as the basis for a jellied pudding, and, although no advertisements have been found, it is likely that these recipes also originated in promotion by manufacturers of jelly mixes. Sometimes lemon flavoured jelly crystals were specified but more often it was raspberry or some other darkly coloured blend. [14] The simplest of these versions suspended a combination of fruits and nuts in the clear, flavoured jelly. Others, again in emulation of a traditional plum pudding recipe, incorporated breakfast cereal or bread, or biscuit, crumbs. The following recipe promised a Jelly Plum Pudding which was light and digestible, and had all the traditional richness and mellow flavour without the bother:

Dissolve a package of lemon jelly in a pint of boiling water, and when still hot stir in ¾ cupful of grape nuts [sic], ¾ cupful of seeded raisins, ¾ cupful of walnut meats, ¾ cupful of cooked prunes, ½ cupful of citron – all cut fine. Also add ½ teaspoonful of cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoonful of cloves. Salt to taste. Mix and let harden.[15]

An imported product, the uses of Grape Nuts were promoted with recipes published in Australian newspapers and distributed in booklets. Given the use of a specific brand name it is likely that this pudding recipe also had its origins in commercial advertising. The similarity of Later recipes, which incorporated bread or biscuits crumbs, Weetbix, and even Rice Bubbles, bear a striking similarity to the one above from 1927 suggesting that these were more readily achievable and perhaps more economical versions of some published original.[16]

Truly original recipes, that is those which do not appear to be just some reinterpretation of an already published idea, were few and far between. A few recipes attempted to produce a decorative result emulating the layered pudding suggested by Raffald.[17] Mrs Dunham of Launceston was one who saw potential in a more attractive appearance: 

Make up a pint of lemon jelly and pour to depth of half inch in the bottom of a damp mould. On this arrange a pattern of seeded muscatels and fill in spaces with blanched almonds. Put on top of ice to set firmly. Into remaining jelly mix ¼ lb stoned muscatels, 3 oz roughly broken walnuts, 2 oz chopped candied cherries, 1 oz chopped candied figs, half a grated nutmeg, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¹/₈ teaspoon spice. When this begins to jell, pour into the prepared mould and set firm. Serve with whipped cream.[18]

Marshmallow Plum Pudding involved layering marshmallows with a mixture of raspberry flavoured jelly, raisins, sultanas and lemon peel.[19]

Although the jellied pudding itself was suggested as ideal for the climate, there seems to have been little enthusiasm for giving the pudding a distinctive Australian flavour. Aside from the pineapple recipe already mentioned, the only other non-traditional ingredients were coconut (which featured in only three instances)[20] and bananas. 

An early banana version also involved the use of grated raw carrot:

Mix together equal parts of seeded raisins, sultanas, grated nuts, grated raw carrot and chopped figs. Blend well with 2 ripe mashed bananas and a little honey, stir in 1 cup unset jelly (and a little wine if desired) and put away to chill in small wet moulds. Turn out onto sweet dishes and serve with spiced egg custard, clotted cream or any fancied Christmas sauce (cold).[21]

Bananas were an ingredient in a later recipe for cold plum pudding published by Davis Gelatine: 

Australian Women’s Weekly, 29 October 1958, p. 81. [22]

If the number of published recipes is a guide, interest in jellied puddings for Christmas declined after the 1940s. Of the 170 recipes surveyed here more than 75 percent were published between 1923 and 1949. Of the four recipes sourced from the 1970s, two were repeats of the David Gelatine recipe above,[23] and two were a more sophisticated reworking of a familiar theme from thirty years earlier, published in the Weekly:

Jellied Christmas Pudding
8 oz raisins, 1lb sultanas, 4oz currants, 2 oz mixed peel, ¾ cup sugar, 2 cups water, 2oz glace cherries, 2 oz glace apricots, 2 oz toasted slivered almonds, 1¹/₃ cups water, extra, 3½ tablespoons gelatine, 1 cup sweet sherry, ¼ cup brandy, ¼ cup lemon juice, 1oz glace cherries, extra.
Chop raisins finely; combine with sultanas, currants and mixed peel. Wash thoroughly, drain. It may be necessary to wash fruit several times so that it is completely clean; this will ensure a beautifully clear, jellied pudding. Combine fruit, sugar, and water in saucepan, stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved; increase heat slightly; simmer uncovered 10 minutes. Drain, reserve liquid, strain liquid through fine cloth. Place fruit and strained liquid into large basin, add finely chopped glace cherries and apricots. Add gelatine to extra water, stand 5 minutes, dissolve over hot water, add to fruit mixture. Add almonds, sherry, brandy, and lemon juice, mix well. Take 1/3 cup liquid from the fruit mixture, pour half over base of oiled 8 in. baba tin or 3-pint mould; refrigerate until partly set. Quarter extra cherries, arrange decoratively in jelly, pour over remaining liquid. Refrigerate until set. Top with fruit mixture.
Refrigerate overnight.
Unmould carefully. This pudding is best eaten within three days of making.[24]

How many families did, or do, enjoy a jellied plum pudding at Christmas is a moot point, but it is true to say that the concept has not been widely adopted. Why? There are any number of reasons but surely no amount of cocoa or breadcrumbs or brandy could make a jellied plum pudding taste or eat like a traditional plum pudding. Perhaps most importantly a shiny, wobbly brown jelly studded with fruity lumps was never likely to look as appetising as traditional plum pudding, boiled or steamed, although, as this photograph from the Australian Women’s Weekly attests, plum pudding, in any of its forms, is perhaps not as Instagramable as it might be.

Australian Women’s Weekly, 2 December 1970, p. 13.

 

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[1] ‘A Lady’s Letter from Sydney’, The Mercury (Hobart), 29 December 1891, p. 3.

[2] The following discussion is based on 170 recipes, sourced from Australian newspapers and the Australian Women’s Weekly via the National Library of Australia database Trove, covering the period from 1920 to 1980. Recipes were variously titled Jellied Christmas Pudding, Jellied Plum Pudding, Gelatine Plum Pudding, Chocolate Plum Pudding, Cold Plum Pudding, Cold Christmas Pudding, etc.

[3] Weekly Times (Melbourne), 10 December 1921, p. 69.

[4] See also advertising Country Life Stock and Station Journal (Sydney), 31 October 1924, p. 5

[5] ‘A.D.F.A. Recipe Competition’, Argus, 4 July 1923, p. 20 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2015700?searchTerm=sunraysed

[6] More than 60 percent of the recipes in this survey used gelatine in combination with milk and/or cocoa and chocolate. For recipes included in ADFA publications see Sun-Raysed Dried Fruit and Raisin Recipes (Melbourne: Australian Dried Fruits Association, 192?), under the title Chocolate Plum Pudding, and in the Australian Sunshine Cookery Book  (Melbourne: Australian Dried Fruits Association, 194?) as Jelly Plum Pudding. 

[7]  Cold Plum Pudding, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 27 November 1949, p. 60. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248155577; Jellied Christmas Pudding,  Australian Women’s Weekly, 2 December 1953, p. 40, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article41080177

[8] Chocolate Plum Pudding, Mount Barker Courier and Onkaparinga and Gumeracha Advertiser (SA), 31 October 1930, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article147849547; Jelly Plum Pudding, Table Talk (Melbourne) 17 December 1931, p. 31, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article147417153.

[9] Iced Plum Pudding, Mercury (Hobart) 25 November 1936, p. 14, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article30124716.

[10] Cold Plum Pudding, Daily Telegraph Sydney, 27 November 1949, p. 60, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248155577.

[11] Jellied Christmas Pudding, Australian Women’s Weekly, 14 December 1955, p. 73, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48072238. Ingredients: One tablespoon cocoa, 2 cups milk, 1 dessertspoon coffee essence, ¼ cup minced peel, ½ cup chopped raisins, ¼ cup chopped sultanas, 6 tablespoons sugar, 1½ tablespoons gelatine dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water, ½ cup evaporated milk, 2 oz crystallised or glace cherries, 2 tablespoons brandy or sherry, trinkets or threepences, holly springs, whipped cream sweetened and flavoured with brandy. Method: Blend cocoa with milk, bring to boiling point. Add coffee essence, peel, raisins, sultanas and sugar. Simmer 5 minutes, allow to become cold. Fold in dissolved gelatine, evaporated milk, cherries, brandy, and trinkets or threepences. Stir occasionally until mixture begins to thicken, then spoon into individual moulds or recess-tins. Chill until set. Unmould and serve topped with a spoonful of brandy-flavoured whipped cream, decorate with holly.

[12] Golden Circle advertisement Cold Christmas Pudding, Australian Women’s Weekly, 11 December 1968, p. 51, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45650025.

[13] Jellied Plum Pudding, Australian Women’s Weekly, 3 December 1938, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55464709.

[14] Jellied Christmas Pudding, Examiner (Launceston), 3 November 1937, p. 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52167823; Jellied Plum Pudding, Age (Melbourne) 27 November 1947, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206055697.

[15] Jelly Plum Pudding, Chronicle (Adelaide) 24 December 1927, p. 73 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90084124. Grape Nuts was an imported breakfast cereal, its various uses were promoted with recipes in newspapers and recipe booklets, for example Daily Telegraph 29 June 1907, p. 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238042693.

[16] Iced Jelly Plum Pudding, Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 15 December 1929, p. 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article97660385: Dissolve 1 packet lemon jellex in 1 pint boiling water, and while it is still hot stir in 1 cup coarse dried and browned breadcrumbs, ¾ cup of stoned raisins, ¾ cup walnuts, ¾ cup cooked prunes, and ½ cup citron peel, all cut finely, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon cloves and salt to taste. Mix and let harden. Stand on the ice, and when required slice it; serve with whipped cream or pudding sauce. For White’s jelly crystals and rice bubbles, Jellied Plum Pudding, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46461995, AWW 15 February 1936, p. 16; (The Times and Northern Advertiser (Peterborough, SA), 18 December 1936, p. 4). For Weetbix, see Jellied Plum Pudding, Longreach Leader (Queensland),18 December 1953, p. 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article124264240.

[17] A layered result may have been the intention of this recipe from a Brisbane newspaper, although the instructions are not explicit: Two pint packets of yellow or red jelly crystals as preferred. Melt the two packets of crystals in a scant pint and a half of boiling water. Wet a pudding basin. Pour in a thin layer of jelly. Cover with a layer of prepared fruits, then a layer of jelly. Continue until all material is used up. Then put away to set. The prepared fruits are ¼ lb of seedless raisins, ¼ lb currants, same of sultanas, 2 oz crystallised cherries, 1 oz blanched almonds, 1 oz walnuts. To prepare wash the fruit and cover with boiling water. Let stand 10 minutes and then dry thoroughly. Plum Pudding in Jelly, The Telegraph, 16 December 1935, p. 20, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article179944348.

[18] Jellied Christmas Pudding, Examiner (Launceston, Tas.), 3 November 1937, p. 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52167823

[19] Marshmallow Plum Pudding, The Land (Sydney), 6 December 1946, p. 22, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article105700572.

[20] Jellied Plum Pudding, Truth (Brisbane, Queensland), 20 December 1931, p. 24, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article203925870; Jelly Plum Pudding, Macleay Argus (Kempsey, NSW) 24 December 1952, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article234663173; Christmas Party Plum Puddings, Australian Women’s Weekly, 25 December 1968, p. 38, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46240751.

[21] Jellied Christmas Pudding, Labor Call, (Melbourne) 8 December 1938, p. 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article250006231. This recipe won a prize in the Australian Women’s Weekly, 11 December 1943, submitted by Mrs D. L. Paul, Adelaide. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46936685 and was repeated in Chronicle (Adelaide), 6 December 1945, p. 26 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article93338535. Dried bananas had at one time been suggested as an alternative to raisins, see Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 14 January 1899, p. 15. 

[22] See earlier advertisement in Australian Women’s Weekly, 17 November 1945, p. 32 and reader’s contribution Jellied Christmas Pudding, Noosa News (Queensland), 10 December 1970, p. 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article260498196.

[23]Jellied Christmas Pudding, Noosa News (Queensland), 10 December 1970, p. 8. Noosa News (Qld.) 10 December 1970, p. 8 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article260498196. Repeated 7 December 1972, p. 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article260579566

[24] Jellied Christmas Pudding, Australian Women’s Weekly, 2 December 1970, p. 13 supplement “the old-time Christmas cook book’, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43600527. Repeated in Australian Women’s Weekly, 15 December 1971, p. 72 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43600527.