As it’s International Women’s Day 2021, this year I pause to reflect on cooking through my life time- in particular the Carlingford mums. I cannot remember my grandmother or my Nanny’s cooking but I remember my mother and her journey through domesticity.
I’m pretty sure she was a Commonsense Cookery type of girl as my mum presented me with an updated version of the cookery Bible when I married in 1977. As a kid I like to cook and I watch and sometimes cringed as her specialty was whipped up yet again for weekend visitors or Sunday picnics buts that’s the way it was.
The date and orange ring cake recipe
The school lunches were sultana cupcakes… every week. Oh what I would’ve given for a marshmallow biscuit or an iced Vovo at the time. I am ungrateful! Assorted creams biscuits were rare at our house but the ring cake tin turned out plenty of date and orange cakes. Of course they were housed in the newly purchased Tupperware container- a must for every kitchen.
We were a Sunday roast after church family. Lamb roast and then from the days of the frozen chook that was the popular roast for families. Moving away from the “norm” wasn’t done. When I’m first married I learnt what other families had such as about plum pudding, leg ham and mince pies at Christmas.
In the early days of living in Carlingford, shopping was done by public transport from the Eastwood shops. There were some home deliveries of bread, milk and eggs and everything came into the house once a week via the weekly shop.
Looking through Mum’s old cookbooks I note they were hand written collections and attributed to Mary, Joy, Betty etc. The faithful exercise books were filled with glued or sticky taped can labels, recipe flyers and clippings from the New Idea, Women’s Day or snippets from the Sunday paper.
They reflected trends and advancements entering the kitchen. Cheesecakes were now taking over from Trifle with the you beaut springform pan. Then came the pizza tray and the invention of all inventions- the loose bottom Quiche pan . This had the mums cooking “foreign” food and reaching new heights in the neighbourhood cookery prowess.
As years wore on meat and three veg dinners became “veal cordon bleu”, Crown Roast and seafood crêpes finished off with Gateau Ganache ot Tarte Tatin. In the exercise book I see Flo’s pumpkin scones recipe and Fresh Fruit Flans became the rage. Who can forget the Peach Kuchen made with Golden Butter Cakemix?
Over the years mum and her friends contributed to the fundraiser successes the “Saint Gerard’s Catholic School Recipe Book” or the “Our Lady Help of Christians Epping Womens' Auxiliary Cookbook”. All the mums contributed their specialty Casserole, Mornay or something that ended with “mexicano” if it had the slightest of taste other than salt and pepper.
The ladies all banded together for this school fundraiser
Food processes and the kitchen whiz were popular in the late 70s and the resulting dips for parties replaced Jatz savouries and squares of cheese and pickled onions on sticks. By then kitchens also supported electric knives, mix masters, stick blenders and crockpots. Mum loved to stuff a breadstick with yummy feelings, freeze and slice them for parties and her triple layer sandwiches were to die for.
When my husband came along he loved her experimental style compared with his mother‘s chops and bacon. His eyes glowed at Layered Meatloaf with gravy and Beef Bourguignon.
As years progressed she in turn collected recipes from me, my sister and incoming in-laws.
Did I mention that it was very mod to cook with wine or garlic? Later in the eighties the microwave became a popular must have in the kitchen (it took a while to get the cooking tips right) but so handy for the newly working mum.
The back page of her recipe book features the old ginger beer plant. Who can remember feeding the ginger beer plant and all the antics of the exploding bottles? Now it would be a recipe for concocting Gin cocktails in the Thermomix.
Recipes were sourced from newspapers and packaging and word of mouth for the ginger beer plant!
My Mum, Marlene Kerr died in 1992. Her last recipe was the Spinach Dip in the Cob Loaf. Has it really been around that long?
The ingredients of the spinach dip- mix together and fill a hollowed out cobb loaf
Happy International Women’s Day
mums of Carlingford past and present. Keep
following the trends. xxx
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