What to eat on Australia Day.

The celebration of Australia Day (26th January) always leads to discussions around issues of national identity such as the flag - when are we going to get rid of the colonial connotations of the Union Jack - or the national anthem - when are we going to get a decent one -or even perhaps when is Australia going to become a republic. The Prime Minister however is never asked what she (or he) is going to do about a national dish, about the lack of any defining Australian cuisine. I'm not suggesting that this is necessarily a matter of great national importance and don't intend to get into a discussion of the whys and wherefores of traditional cuisines (fascinating though that might be) but I am intrigued with the idea of what might be, and indeed is being, promoted as the most appropriate meal to consume on Australia Day.

To begin with the notion of a national day. Australia Day commemorates the landing of Captain Arthur Phillip in Sydney Cove in 1788 and the beginning of European colonisation. The anniversary of that event has been officially marked, at least in New South Wales, one way or another since 1818. Not all states celebrated Australia Day, even after Federation (1st January 1901) and it wasn't until 1935 that the 26th January became a day of national celebration. When I was growing up Australia Day was just an excuse for a long weekend and Commonwealth Day seemed a more significant event because, as I remember, it involved a half-day off from school. Having a public holiday on the actual day - the 26th day of January - was only introduced in 1994 and it seems that it is only since then that there has been any significant promotion of Australia Day. Even so it seems that celebrations have less to do with nationalism and patriotism than they do with enjoying a day in the sun and the last of the summer holidays before the new school year commences.

Last year the Australia Day Council ran this advertisement

with the clear message that barbecuing on Australia Day is the right and patriotic thing to do. As the picture suggests in Australia barbecuing involves 'cooking meat on a metal grate directly over the heat source' be it glowing coals, an open gas flame or an electrical element. This however is the definition Harold McGee gives for 'grillling'. According to McGee in America 'barbecuing is the low-temperature, slow heating of meat in a closed chamber by means of hot air from smoldering wood coals. It's an outdoor cousin to the slow oven roast.'  Americans have a very clear idea of what constitutes barbecue and it usually involves smoke and sauces and cuts of meat which require slow cooking. It seems a bit odd then that  the initiation of the Australian enthusiasm for barbecuing should be attributed to American troops who came here during World War II, although it seems that  they probably did introduced the idea that cooking in the outdoors was both socially acceptable and socially desirable.

 Clearly the barbecue (neither the method of cooking nor the apparatus itself) is far from being uniquely Australian - in fact every culture must have some tradition of cooking food over hot coals predating modern kitchen gadgets and the use of gas and electricity as heat sources.
Barbecuing certainly suits our climate and is consistent with a general preference for casual entertaining and a relaxed eating environment. You could also argue that cooking over an open fire appeals to our pioneering instinct, to some sort of desire for simplicity and communing with nature and lets not even get started on the image of the rugged, Australian male wielding the barbecue tongs. (Surely the modern 'outdoor kitchen' has done away with any suggestion that the barbecue is a primitive and impromptu way of preparing a meal and the notion that there is something intrinsically manly about cooking food out of doors?) Even so there is nothing new or traditional or specific about the way Australians barbecue.

None the less lets say we are prepared to accept having some friends around for a barbie could be an appropriate way of celebrating Australia Day what would you actually cook on the grill? Some would argue that the completely charred 'snag' (sausage), which is often the result of over exuberant 'grilling',  is most representative of traditional Australian barbecuing. Certainly the 'sausage sizzle' is a quintessential phenomenon - no school fete or fundraiser, voting day or even trip to the hardware store is complete without the smell of hot fat and  frying onions. Most home barbecuers would opt for something a little more exotic but how many would opt for lamb?

Since 2005 Meat and Livestock Australia has been trying to convince us that it would be un-Australian not to eat lamb on Australia Day.

 Sheep of course are not  indigenous but  they have been here since 1788 and after all what we are celebrating on the 26th January is the arrival of the first Europeans. Kangaroos are an indigenous animal but eating them and more specifically promoting their consumption is always somewhat controversial - there are those who would consider that eating them was more un-Australian than not eating them.
The assumption in the Meat and Livestock advertisements is that the meat is destined to be barbecued. Lamb is a good choice for the barbecue be it cutlets, chops or a butterflied leg and, although the price fluctuates a bit, good lamb seems to be available here all year round. What's more eating lamb, as distinct from pork or beef, is acceptable to a large percentage of the population, vegetarians excepted of course.  Lamb figures in many of the traditional cuisines of the 25% of the Australian population who were born overseas to say nothing of the household traditions of the 20% of Australians who have at least one parent who was born overseas. So whether you can trace your ancestors to the First Fleet or you arived here yesterday chances are you could celebrate Australia Day by barbecuing something lamby which would both suit your cultural tastes and demonstrate your Aussiness.

Overall then, as Sam Kekovich so eloquently puts it, it does make sense. But as Mark Thomson points out, barbecuing in Australia is not so much a style of cuisine as a form of behaviour. It might well be possible to suggest a tradition of barbecuing lamb on Australia Day, and  some of these advertisements do state explicitly that there is a 'custom' of eating lamb on Australia Day, but it would indeed be un-Australian to try to proscribe how that lamb should be prepared - this year it might be a butterflied leg spiced up with chermoula and then maybe next year souvlaki or kefta or perhaps cutlets marinated in a spicy tandoori paste.

The Meat and Livestock campaign might be clever and entertaining but I think perhaps it might be advertising eating lamb on Australia Day which becomes more traditional than the actual practise.
And finally, I can't resist this image from the newspaper

The young man in the photograph was fined $800 for careless riding.

To read more about the history of the celebration of Australia Day see here

To see the 2011 Meat and Livestock Australia Australia Day advertisement see here
To read more about careless riding see here
For more on Australian barbecues read Mark Thomson's Meat, Metal and Fire (Harper Collins, 1999)
The quotes are from Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking.

Chocolate Wars

This time last year I read the news that Kraft had taken over Cadbury. How could this be? How could such a thing be allowed to happen? I don't know quite why I found this news so appalling but I guess it had something to do with the end of an era, with the notion that I had grown up with that Cadburys was something fine and British which stood for more than merely chocolate. No doubt my English heritage and a certain jingoistic streak in my parents contributed to this somewhat exaggerated notion of the righteousness of the Cadbury  family company, still I had a profound sense that something was being lost now that the business was being subsumed into Kraft.

       Many moons ago I was paid to spend long hours with chocolate coated almonds and sultanas - watching them tumble backwards and forwards in the large copper kettles, checking the temperature and humidity in the room and experimenting with different glazes to give the finished product a healthy sheen ( in those days we used a gum solution). I most remember going home at the end of the day smelling like warm chocolate (which was better than smelling of peppermint, but that was in the chewing gum factory which is another story). Reading Deborah Cadbury's Chocolate Wars. From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry (and yes, Deborah is one of those Cadburys) reminded me of those days and other confectionery memories. My father used to bring me home Rowntrees fruit pastilles and fruit gums which I adored. Once I started on the pack I couldn't stop - always leaving the black ones until last. Whatever happened to the fruit gums which were actually shaped like fruit - little orange and lemon segments, and little limes and strawberries? And wasn't there a wonderful Fry's dark chocolate bar full of peppermint cream? Sadly the sweets and the companies which manufactured them are no more.
      In Chocolate Wars Deborah Cadbury tells the story of the Frys and the Rowntrees and the Cadburys, all Quaker families, who started their enterprises in the early years of the nineteenth century and prospered
thanks to a mixture of sensible business decisions and a bit of good luck. When John Cadbury began selling a fatty, unappetising beverage at his tea and coffee house in Birmingham in 1824 no one had any notion of the true potential of the cocoa bean or any thought of mass produced confectionery. Deborah Cadbury traces the fortunes of her own family and along the way introduces lots of other chocolaty characters such as Randolphe Lindt, Coenraad and Casparus van Houten, Jean Tobler, Milton Hershey, Domenico Ghiradelli, Forrest Mars, Henri Nestlé, describing the technical achievements and personal rivalries which resulted in their respective chocolate empires.
     Consumerism really got going in the late nineteenth century - an urban population  largely cut off from the means of producing necessities for themselves, an increasingly affluent middle class seeking novelty, changing eating habits (earlier breakfasts and later diners) and advances in the mechanisation of all aspects of  manufacturing, developments in packaging, distribution, retailing (think motorised transport, advertising, the grocer's shop) all came together to make fortunes for the likes of the Cadburys. Many of the names we still regard as mainstays of food manufacturing ('industrial food' as Jack Goody calls it) began around this time -

William Arnott opened his bakery in Hunter Street, Newcastle in 1865

Joseph A. Campbell began his preserving company in 1869

Henry Heinz began bottling in 1869

Dr. John Kellogg produced his first 'granola' in the 1860s

Thomas Lipton began his grocery shop in Glasgow in 1872

and even the demon Kraft, James L. to be precise, began a wholesale cheese business in Chicago in 1903

The Australian version of the Cadbury story is that of Macpherson Robertson who began his own confectionery business, Macrobertsons, in Fitzroy, Melbourne, in 1880 (which was eventually taken over by Cadbury Schweppes).

    Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Cadbury story is the approach the family took to business. As Quakers they were not solely interested in personal gain, wealth-creation was not an end in itself , any bounty was for the benefit of the workers, the local community and society at large. They believed that everyone was equal and that they had responsibilities and obligations to all those who worked for them. According to Deborah Cadbury the factory was a world in miniature and 'an opportunity to improve society'. George Cadbury's vision of a perfect little world came to fruition at Bournville and their legacy continues in the trusts they established . Philanthropy however was not confined to Quakers - of the chocolate manufacturers both Milton Hershey and our own Macpherson Robertson made significant and long lasting contributions to the community.
      George Cadbury and his brother Richard had spent time on the factory floor themselves, they knew their employees personally and they understood what they made and how they made it. Now, one hundred and thirty odd years since the brothers established Bournville, Cadburys is just another division of a huge industrial food manufacturer, making money for nameless and faceless shareholders who know little or nothing about what the company makes and give little thought to who makes it.
It could perhaps be argued that Deborah Cadbury presents a rather too rosy picture of the Cadburys and their motives and ideals.  Whilst she is very good on the who, what, where and when, she is a little sketchy on how the brothers reconciled their Quaker beliefs with, for example, advertising their products and although she does suggest that they were criticised at the time for paternalism she doesn't expand on this.  Bournville sounds like a workers paradise but  we don't get to hear much from the workers themselves. But this is rather churlish criticism of a thoroughly interesting and entertaining book; the story moves along at a good pace, there's enough but not too much technical detail and Deborah Cadbury manages to make her main characters come to life.

 Her final paragraph sums up exactly what I was thinking this time last year -

Will Kraft act for the betterment of the world - not just the top management? Will it be a tangible force for good in our global village? It is difficult not to feel sceptical. And that is why, despite all the benefits of globalisation and the excitement of giant takeovers, it is hard not to believe that something irreplaceable and immeasurable in the neat columns of a balance sheet have been discarded as effortlessly as a sweet wrapper.

And any scepticism is well justified -  Kraft have ceased production at the Somerdale plant (originally established by the Fry family one hundred years ago) which will close completely in March and do not intend to officially mark the closure with any sort of celebration of the contribution the factory and the workers have made to the success of Cadburys or in recognition of the significance of the factory to the workers and to the surrounding community.

To read more about the Kraft takeover see here.
For Jack Goody ' Industrial Food, Towards the Development of a World Cuisine', see C. Counihan and P. van Esterik, Food and Culture. A Reader, Routledge, New York, 1997.
To learn more about Sir Macpherson Robertson see here.
To find out about Bournville today see here.                             

Meeting Mrs Beeton

Usually the Christmas wish-list includes at least on recipe book but I really don't have room for very many more and I am certainly not prepared to part with anything to make space so I am trying hard to resist more recipes - surely I must have enough inspiration already? That does not of course mean that there is a moratorium on all books and it certainly doesn't mean a ban on food-related books.
The summer holiday reading so far has been almost entirely food related.
I started with Mrs Beeton  - The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton by Kathryn Hughes. I'm a great fan of biography and a firm believer in fact being both more interesting an infinitely stranger then fiction. I also have a bit of a fascination with the Victorians. The mid- to late-nineteenth century really saw the beginning of life as we know it, the beginning of the rise and rise of the middle class, and so often sounds like a gas lit version of the late twentieth century. The Beetons - Isabella and  Sam - were first and foremost middle class entrepreneurs, on the look out for new ideas and ways of making money and a name for themselves. The gorgeous irony in Mrs Beeton's case is the contrast between the reality of the young woman and her limited experience and knowledge of household management, let alone cooking (Isabella got most of her material from other sources) and the authority which has been attached to her name. Although of course by now we are used to the idea that credentials or expertise of some sort  are no longer a prerequisite for fame or at least notoriety.

Mrs Beeton is a big read. At 428 pages (plus notes, extensive bibliography and excellent index) even my eyes glazed over from time to time and I would have to concede that it may not hold the attention of anyone only concerned with how the Book of Household Management came in to being. The author has done an enormous amount of research (both exhaustive and no doubt exhausting) and presents a detailed discussion of both Isabella's life and family background as well as that of her husband, Sam, and their social milieu all of which is interesting if at times a little overwhelming.  The final chapter is a brief analysis of what Mrs Beeton has come to stand for and the myths that have been perpetuated relating to both the woman and her book. Kathryn Hughes organises her material well and her writing is clear and entertaining but this is, I think, a book that might appeal more to history tragics than general readers although that said it is worth reading if only for an insight into how we got to where we are today.
The late nineteenth century saw the benefits and burdens of the Industrial Revolution really start to come in to their own bringing the gradual move towards the mechanised household run by a lone woman in charge of mechanised servants. Mrs Beeton advocated prudence, patience and perseverance. Her book was aimed at effective and efficient management of the home, emphasising system, organisation and productivity. Many of the ideals espoused in The Book of Household Management were alive and well when I was young and were certainly still entirely desirable when my mother was a young woman starting a home of her own.  It seems to me that today we undervalue the work and skill involved in efficient household management - the work of planning, shopping, preparing and serving meals, balancing the family's tastes and nutritional needs, the allocation of resources and finances, washing, cleaning, ironing etc. Whether these tasks are undertaken personally, by the lone housewife, or sub-contacted to someone outside the home, somebody is responsible for the management of the household or at least someone should be responsible for the organisation and monitoring of the household activities. Perhaps we need a latter day Mrs Beeton who could again 'elevate domestic duties so that they became something you could be proud of doing well' (Hughes, p.472).
My great grandmother and her sisters, like their mother and aunt before them, were all domestic servants.  Grangran was born in in 1875 and by the time she was 16 she was working as a general servant. When she married in 1898 she was employed as a cook. I wonder if she owned a copy of The Book of Household Management or whether she had learnt enough from her experiences 'in service' not to need a manual.

The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton
Kathryn Hughes
Harper Perennial, London, 2006
ISBN-13 978-1-84115-374-2

A change is as good as a rest.

If a change is as good as a rest then it must be even better to have a change and a rest.
In this case I have changed the look of the blog, partly because I could and partly because I couldn't work out how to update the old design, and I've also had a rest.
 Rather than risk another Moroccan outcome, in November/December 2010 we spent almost three weeks in France - twelve of those days spent in Paris - and post-Christmas we spent two weeks doing nothing much more than sit on the beach and read.
So now it's time to think about writing again and catching up with everything food related. The garden also looks like a scene from The Day of the Triffids - it is just amazing how plants thrive on rain and sunshine and the various diseases they are prone to thrive on humidity. The tomatoes and zucchinis have succumbed to mildew and the capsicums are a bit unhappy. On the bright side the eggplants look fabulous and there are so many of them that there is a chance we may overdose. The basil is lush and tall and begging to be turned into pesto and the tomatillos and ground cherry have overcome their initial hesitation and now look almost bushy.
If nothing else trying to grow some of your own food makes you much more appreciative of the effort that must go in to producing the abundance in the shops - and how little remuneration there must be for all the work and time involved. And given that farmers have to contend with land which is either parched and desperate for water or literally washing away you would have to question why anyone would consider being a primary producer. Perhaps the inevitable increase in prices as a result of the dreadful flooding in Queensland will make a few people stop and think a bit more about where the food they eat comes from - and perhaps choose not to buy French eschallots imported from Holland or even Spanish red onions from the USA but support someone local instead.