Increase font size

Decrease font size

Print

Email

Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons – Victoria Heywood

Are you game? Reliving colonial Australia's culinary past

Robyn Lewis

Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons – Victoria Heywood [©Slattery Media Group]

In this era of glossy cookbooks adorned with celebrity chef photos and ‘food porn’ images to match every recipe, Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons is a trip down our forebears’ memory lane. But don’t be put off by the name – some hidden gems and inspirational ideas lie within.

To collate this modest-looking paperback, subtitled Australian Family Recipes 1868 to 1950, author Victoria Heywood (whose previous books include the sumptuous Vineyard Cookbook) scoured libraries (including the National Library of Australia’s excellent online Trove), archives of newspaper clippings, her friends’ and mother’s cookbook collections, museums and second-hand cookbook shops alike. What fun she must have had.

Far from being a boring collection of fat-laden recipes from the past (although there are many references to suet and lard, both essential in the days of home economy, and before refrigeration to keep butter in an edible condition), Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons is an amusing and insightful look at the food that sustained the building of colonial Australia.

We certainly weren’t settled by vegetarians – who would have perished in their first summer drought, given their apparent lack of knowledge of Aboriginal ‘bush tucker’ – our country was built primarily on beef and mutton.

Few modern Australian cooks could imagine or cope with cooking in the days before electricity or gas – no stove as we know it, no fridge, no freezer, poor transport, no plastic wrap, cryovac or other modern forms of preservation.

The preparation of food was invariably a female domain; they toiled from morning to night, just to keep food on the table for their families. And imagine literally slaving over a hot oven (wood fired) when it was 35C or worse in the kitchen in summer….. no air-conditioning back then, either.

The better off had servants to help, but even planning the week’s or month’s food (depending on your distance to a town with supplies) was no mean feat, let alone creating palatable dishes out of whatever hadn’t run out, and trying to avoid monotony. Cookbooks of bygone days were as much about household management as food preparation and serving itself.

Girls learnt the basics from a very young age, and built up a considerable depth of practical experience, after which some creativity could blossom. There was also considerable thought given to nutrition – indeed, they could teach the current generation a thing or two about healthy eating, and reading Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons provides quite a few insights and many tips still valid today (I might skip the goose-fat face pack, though).

Many of the recipes in Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons assume a basic knowledge of cooking – although the author explains some of this in her introduction – but anyone familiar with a CWA-style cookbook will need no more.

Heywood points out that “half the spice in these recipes lies in the way they were written – old-fashioned spelling, grammar, ingredients and hilarious lifestyle tips included.”

We forget how prescriptive a woman’s life must have been back then: Monday was washday; vegetables should be cooked for a minimum of 30 minutes (a ‘rule’ which may have had its origins in the need to kill bacteria in tank water in which a possum had recently drowned, and/or because many vegetables were far from fresh by the time they were consumed); dinner must be served at a certain time (when the man got home, of course), and no matter how hot the weather, it was meat, meat, meat that ruled the table.

The largely British culinary heritage on which this was based was almost as out of place in Australia as it was in other colonies like India, Sri Lanka or Jamaica, but here at that time there was little local cuisine with it to hybridise (that trend only started in the late 1960s and 70s), so even ketchups and pickles were imported concepts.

One ‘Gourmet’ complained to the Brisbane Courier Mail in 1937 that “Sometimes I think of our cooking as the art of spoiling good food”. Add the fact that in geographic isolation, skills and knowledge can be forgotten in a very short time, and the early Australian repertoire of dishes seems small by our current standards, where we have TV, travel, a multicultural society and the world’s cuisine to call on for inspiration.

However, as early as 1893 Phillip E. Muskett in The Art of Living in Australia recommended that in our semi-tropical climate (the true tropics of our north were still only being settled at that time) Australians should eat more fruit and salads, and lamented that despite being ‘girt by sea’ our forebears consumed relatively little fish (lack of refrigeration notwithstanding).

No doubt the relative cheapness of lamb and mutton played a part: a kilo of chops cost about the same as 2 litres of milk or 5 eggs; two mullet cost more, while a single flathead (hopefully king sized) was nearly double in price. Oysters and crayfish were not hugely expensive however, but were only available near the sea (marrons and yabbies excepted, in some States).

There are many ways with mutton in Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons that would make a cardiologist blanche (Chops in Batter cooked in dripping, anyone?), but perhaps surprisingly, others advocating marinades of the ‘best Mildura olive oil’ dating from a hundred years ago.

Exercise burnt up the kilojoules – young girls are recommended to briskly walk two miles (3.2 km) every day, and dieting was seen as largely unnecessary, except for the indolent.

I particularly like the section on game. Here, necessity was indeed the mother of invention, and cooks were forced to experiment, if only to make the local fauna palatable.

There are recipes for kangaroo and wallaby, very healthy, low-fat meats and still valid today. Kangaroo stew (preserved by bottling) was exported to Britain and won a prize at the Royal Exhibition in 1862, leading the then Prince Napoleon to dream of the introduction of the kangaroo to France. I doubt many will try “Slippery Bob” however – roo brains cooked in emu fat. There are various recipes for rabbit and duck, contributed in Perth’s Western Mail bush recipes competition in 1938.

The recipes range through to the more unusual bandicoot, galahs, flying fox (apparently delicious once the wings are removed), emu (requiring “a sailor’s digestion”), and of course possum, roasted (“delicious and beats all mutton joints”), stewed and in a pie, and even ibis (smelly until skinned).

Now on the protected list but which Australia’s pioneers enjoyed are small sea birds, wild pigeons and goose, black swans (“eatable”), wombat, and goanna tail, although I am sure that Aboriginal cooking methods might prove better than parsley sauce!

One of the few other references to bush tucker comes in the recipe for Emu Liver Savoury, in which quandongs are fried and used as a garnish. Perhaps early settlers did eat other native fruits and vegetation, and simply did not record the fact; we may never know.

Beer and wine were used in cooking, along with sherry, brandy and other spirits for those on a less stringent budget. One of the cookbooks quoted in Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons is An Unusual Cookery Book, Embodying Recipes for Lovers of Great Dishes, published in Melbourne in the 1930s, which turns out to be a sort of anti-temperance pamphlet, but which nevertheless points out that “more people die from overeating that overdrinking”. I like the sound of Wine Cake and will try it out soon.

Fashions return and as now, in former days many grew their own vegetables, at least in the more temperate zones. Some recipes still have a place today, or allow for modern adaptations.

Pre World War I there was a ‘Neoveg’ movement (‘neophyte vegetarian’), whose members renounced “flesh, fish and fowl (and are) now ready to eliminate… tea, coffee, cocoa, (alcohol), cordials, … pulses, asparagus, mushrooms, eggs, … oatmeal and bran”. One wonders what they actually ate. There is little for the modern vegetarian in Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons, at least in the starters and mains.

You can see where the Australian love affair with desserts began – after the ‘mutton-otony’ of mains and overcooked vegetables, there was occasional respite in the sweets, even if they were largely steamed puddings (more hours toiling over a hot fire, anyone?). Some have survived until today, including lemon meringue pie.

Then, there are the cakes. Many of the cake recipes in Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons have been lost until today, and some are well worth reviving. The media release says that the book will “appeal to the same audience as the successful cookbooks from the Country Women’s Association”, and indeed CWA ladies or anyone into cakes will find some real treasures here, and in the pickles and jams section.

However there is much inspiration for any creative cook looking for new ideas, including hopeful chefs and even professionals looking for a way to make dishes that are more distinctively Australian and less of reproductions from Spain, Denmark, Vietnam or California. A chef might wish to change the technique, but some of the flavour combinations and ideas may surprise and delight.

Then there is the economy. It seems that many families today think nothing of paying considerable amounts for pizzas, fish and chips and other takeaways, then wonder why they have no spare cash. Ditto those living alone, who often find it difficult to eat well. Now that home economics is no longer taught in school, and already a generation of mothers have never been taught the basics of household management, there are tips in Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons that could come in handy, for those prepared to study it. You might look at pumpkin shoots in a new light when you learn how to cook them.

Indeed, the book reads almost as well as a novel – a historical delight, that brings to vivid life the daily hardships and cultural strictures facing our female forebears in particular. No wonder they needed remedies for exhaustion and nervous headaches, and tips on ‘how to rest’!

The well-known Mrs Lance Rawson of North Queensland (the Margaret Fulton of her day, and a forebear of mine) gave much sound and kind advice in her Australian Enquiry Book of Household and General Information: A Practical Guide for the Cottage, Villa and Bush Home, published in Melbourne in 1895, but warned that girls should not neglect their appearance after marriage (in their spare ten minutes per day, no doubt!). Somehow, in their overworked state (by the 1920s most people had to do their own housework, without modern appliances) they also needed to maintain their health, and cheery disposition.

A worse fate awaited women who remained ignorant of cooking and who were unable to “make correct use of the good foods produced in Australia” according to the Chairman of the Australian Wine Board, Mr L.N. Salter, who pronounced at the rather interesting venue, the 1937 Viticultural Congress, that “bad cooking led to indigestion and indigestion to the divorce court…. With good cooking and attractive meals, at which wines were served (of course!), there would be fewer divorces.”

Victoria Heywood has done a wonderful job in pulling together all the disparate recipes, tips and anecdotes into a thoroughly readable, insightful and amusing ‘cookbook’, and in so doing preserving these for us and future generations to enjoy.

Many of the recipes in Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons you will never even think of cooking – but then, that applies just as much to celebrity chef cookbooks, whose recipes are often beyond the capability of the home chef. They are dream books; this is nostalgia, touching and often hilarious, but with enough real substance and practicality to make it a useful addition to your Australian cookbook collection – it may well become a collector’s item in itself.

Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons by Victoria Heywood is published by Slattery Media Group (2011, Melbourne, Vic; sc 384 pp) and retails in Australia for RRP A$25.

Subscribers and Members of VisitVineyards.com and Winepros Archive can purchase Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons from our book partners Seekbooks at 12.5% off RRP (postage extra) here »

Regions

• Melbourne (VIC)

Subscribe now - for news and reviews, our newsletter (optional), to join our forums, and more.

Enjoy exclusive experiences and benefits when you visit cellar doors, restaurants, provedores and more. Become a VisitVineyards.com Member today »

Browse

Advertisement

Jancis Robinson introductory discount offer »

Jancis Robinson

Le Figaro calls her "the undisputed mistress of the kingdom of wine". Receive an immediate introductory discount on Jancis Robinson's exclusive 'Purple Pages' membership »