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to try Margaret's golden syrup dumplings
I don't always make a New Year wish.
But that year I did. We'd been having an elegant shared dinner with
friends and our hostess insisted that we make a wish as 12 o'clock chimed,
the fireworks went off on the television, the champagne glasses clinked
and kisses were exchanged all round. I wished for a new stove, in a
shiny new kitchen. That might seem a bit odd to you, but to me it meant
the culmination of a long held dream.
I have intimately known many stoves
during my long cooking life, having started my education on a kerosene
stove with a wick that we lit with matches. This was considered to be
relatively safe stove on which eleven year old could cook the potatoes
for tea. My mother would already have cooked the braised lamb or beef
to go with the potatoes, and she would bring it home in a large pot
that she used when cooking on the small primus stove at the back of
our shop. The year was 1950, and the family built store sat squarely
on the corner of a dusty street in Murray Bridge, a small country town
on the banks of the River Murray in South Australia. Our town's economy
was supported by the dairying industry located on the banks of the river
Murray, and the Milk Factory, where condensed milk and cheese were made.
There was also a thriving agricultural industry with fresh vegetables
grown on the red sandy flats above the river, and many glasshouses growing
tomatoes, usually operated successfully by Italian migrants. The town
also boasted a Flour Mill, processing much of the wheat and oats grown
in the surrounding farms. Our shop was situated not far from a railway
crossing on the main railway line, meaning the passing of a great deal
of local traffic. The shelves were stocked with tinned goods such as
soup, baked beans, jam and tinned peas. There were also brown paper
packets of sugar, dried fruit, rice and flour that we children weighed
in the hour or so between school and our evening chores at home. Home
being three doors away from the shop was very handy for our parents,
but sometimes too close for we children. We also sold milk, bread, cold
meats and fresh fruit and vegetables along with other items far too
numerous to mention. Oh! I almost forgot the Penny Lollies such as liquorice
squares, milk bottles, chocolate frogs just to mention a few of the
tempting delights we had to pass each day, not being allowed to touch,
except as an occasional treat.
On arriving home after my shop duties
were done, it was my task to wash and peel enough potatoes for four.
According to mother's instructions, they had to be cut in even sized
pieces, covered with water and put onto the kero stove to boil. Accompanied
by my father's radio, on the shelf in the corner as it banged out my
favourites 'The Argonaut'sand the 'Hit Parade', I would wash off the
dirt, and peel them 'not too thickly' then cut them up and put them
into the pot with water and then onto the stove. It is no surprise therefore,
that sometimes the odour of burning potatoes had me dragging my ear
away from the radio, and leaping to rescue the scorched food. A panic
ensured then to see if the food could be rescued, the saucepan scrubbed
out, more water added to the trimmed potato pieces and the cooking completed.
Sometimes it was just too late, and I had to start all over again, hoping
that the smell would leave the kitchen before mum and dad arrived home,
tired out, and ready to sit down for a meal. I admit to watching the
faces of my family more than once, to see if their expressions indicated
their detection of any burnt offerings. Hunger must have dulled their
senses to the smell of scorched food I think, or perhaps they were just
too kind to mention it.
At about the age of twelve I began
to experiment with the wood stove oven, and this opened an exciting
new vista to me. Getting the wood and lighting the stove were no trouble,
I had seen my mother do it many times before, and it meant I could add
baking to my formidable list of kitchen skills. The silver painted stove
was made of cast iron, had a fire box at the top, and when lit with
kindling and paper it could really roar, and put our pretty fair heat.
It was only necessary then to add a piece or two of larger wood, close
the flue a little and the heat for the oven could be pretty well controlled.
When we were much younger this same stove provided enough heat to warm
us, whilst I took my evening bath in a tin tub in front of the hearth,
then climbed out dripping wet to be enclosed in a warm towel that had
been hung under the mantelpiece in readiness. Then in would pop the
next child for their bath, the water having been topped up from a kettle
singing on the hob.
I began poring over my mother's
meager collection of cookery books for recipes that I thought we had
ingredients for, and Mum possessed a Domestic Science recipe book, a
Green and Gold, a Barossa Cookery book and her own hand written book
of favourites. Other things were later added to my repertoire of foods,
such as carrots, peas and pumpkin, then golden syrup dumplings and custard.
We had also acquired a small griller with an electric coil element,
under which we grilled sausages, chops or pork fillet. That meant that
mum no longer had to cook up a meat dish at the shop. I'm not quite
sure how I managed to survive this experience as more than once, while
turning the meat, the fork came into contact with the coil and I was
given a jolt, or even thrown back across the room, shaken but thankful
that it had not been worse.
Pastry making was pure pleasure
and, I followed the lead of my grandmother who was an expert in this
art, and very skilled in the making of jam tarts with pastry decorations
on top. Jam and sultana Roly Poly was another old fashioned favourite,
and so easy to make. Unfortunately, whilst checking the tarts during
the cooking process, one day after school, the wide oven slide slipped
forward, upending a tart full of boiling fig jam onto my foot. I didn't
have time to worry about the mess that the hot jam made on the hearth
in front of the wood oven, being too worried about my foot. Mum came
home to find a sad and sorry mess in the bathroom as well as the kitchen,
with me clutching a damp towel around my very red foot and one huge
blister. No wonder my mother worried about what I was doing, while she
was busy working in the family shop until quite late. I loved cooking
in the old wood stove though, as it was so easy to create enough heat
for baking and I can't ever remember burning very much food, so we really
had quite a few treats that we would not otherwise have had. We children
certainly had plenty of patty pan cakes, or as my younger sister called
them 'Jenny Muir Cakes' after a fellow pre-school student who had little
currant cakes in her pre-school lunch.
Eventually as the business prospered,
and to my mother's delight, the kitchen was renovated and the old wood-stove
was replaced by a neat little cupboard for storing the saucepans, on
which we then had a primus stove to be used for cooking. It was such
a modern piece of equipment for those times, and so quick at cooking,
especially for a girl who was more interested in the hit parade than
watching the cooking vegetables. In reality it was a bit of a monster
that required a small amount of methylated spirit to be poured into
a small bowl at the base of the burner. This was lit with a match and
when it was almost burned away, air was pumped into the kerosene tank
and the knob turned to send the kerosene vapour to the burner. I had
many a close shave and some singed hairs through using that methylated
spirit. Then my father bought mum a lovely little electric oven that
sat on the bench top, and in which she made the most wonderful sultana
cakes. This was her new toy, and I was not allowed to cook in the oven,
being considered too young to manage the electric controls. We had by
that time acquired a two hot plate electric bench top cooker, eliminating
the need for such dangerous things as spirit, kerosene and matches.
Marriage in 1960 brought with it
a home of my own, and my very own stove. It was back to an old faithful
wood stove, but it kept the high ceilinged kitchen warm in winter, as
well as providing a means of preparing slow food such as Baked Beans,
boiled corned beef, apricot jam and the preserves in the old fashioned
rectangular preserving pan. With its ability for drying damp nappies
brought in from the clothesline, and for airing off the towels and sheets,
it was a multi-purpose piece of equipment. All the stove required in
return for faithful service, was an occasional painting on the front
with silver paint, and for the hot plates at the top to be painted over
with black lead. Our home may have been humble but we had the essentials,
warmth, shelter and food. When the children began school I had a weekly
baking day to provide cakes, biscuits and slices for school lunch boxes
and trading tables. Patty cakes with icing and cherries on the top were
favourites. The old wood stove took a second place when the electric
frying pan came on the scene. It meant instant heat for fried sausages
and onions, or an ideal container for preparing that 'meal in the pot'
such as braised chops or savoury mince and rice. My first Asian stir
fry meal was cooked in that frying pan under the tuition of a friend
who had lived in Canada, and had more advanced cookery ideas than I
had learned.
We moved to the colder South East
of the state in 1975, making efficient cooking and heating a necessity
for the family home, and I was thrilled to have a modern electric stove
with an efficient oven and four hotplates, as well as two wood burning
Pot Belly stoves for room heating. Providing heating for several rooms,
the pot bellies also meant the ideal environment for proving bread,
and many an evening was spent in mixing the bread dough, watching it
rise, and making up the loaves and rolls ready for baking. The yeasty
smell of the rising dough was better than air-freshener, as were the
cooking smells that came from our kitchen on Saturday, our weekly baking
day. The children became willing helpers with the Sawa biscuit maker.
In case the reader is not familiar with this piece of equipment, it
was a metal tube into which one would put a portion of biscuit dough,
then attach the lid on which was attached a ratchet that pushed out
a measured amount of dough through a fancy shape at the bottom, thus
creating many wonderfully shaped biscuits. With a dab of icing in the
middle two biscuits could be sandwiched together making our own elegant
home-made biscuits.
A move to Mount Gambier a prosperous
timber town in the South East also, meant a different home and a kitchen
renovation, so we purchased a large second hand gas stove. It was extra
wide, with plenty of capacity for cooking large family meals, as well
as for entertaining. Cooking with gas was a wonderful experience. The
heat was instant, and it gave me the opportunity to develop the skill
of making Quiche and egg and bacon pies. The quiche became the featured
dish of a coffee shop that we bought. My ambition was to present good
wholesome food to the public, the previous proprietors having served
up hot chips, pies, pasties and sausage rolls all with tomato sauce,
pretty ordinary coffee and yeast buns. After a quick make-over for the
premises, that included painting walls, new lace curtains, new bench
tops on counters, brightly coloured seat covers and backs for the chairs
together with some little vases of flowers for the tables we opened
for business, christening the business "Polly's Pantry.' Polly's
Pantry was soon in a enviable position of having insufficient seats
at lunch times for those who came to enjoy the food. Everybody was won
over by the new cuisine of quiche and salad, fresh whole meal scones,
jam and cream and real cappuccino. I had a wonderful relationship with
the stove, and the whole life of the business undoubtedly revolved around
it. Without that oven we would have been nothing more than any other
ordinary deli.
In 1987 we bought a disused farm,
once part of mining lease, in the Adelaide Hills near a little village
called Kanmantoo (an aboriginal name I think). Coincidentally, my mother
was born in a little cottage in this village, in a building that had
formerly been an hotel in the time of horse-drawn carriages and copper
mining. The farmhouse had not been inhabited (by people, that is) for
about twenty years. It had four main stone rooms, in amazingly sound
condition, with a lean-to at the rear that housed the laundry and bathroom
that were badly in need of re-building. The amenities and the roof were
in appalling condition, so we began by removing the entire roof, shoveling
up the decades of dust and possum droppings, and replacing the iron.
The kitchen must have been very modern for its day with built-in cupboards
and wonderful enamel fronted, St. George slow combustion wood stove,
with two ovens, one for cooking and one for warming. It was with a real
sense of adventure that I cleaned out this ancient creature, and lit
it up for the first time. To my utter amazement it went like a charm,
and there was simply no need to use the mouse infested electric oven,
until it was thoroughly cleaned and sanitized.
As we both lived and worked in
the city, the farm was a weekend retreat for us, as well as means of
making a little bit of extra money from the sheep we ran on the property.
Running sheep means shearing sheep, and the sheds were ancient too,
so the cleaning and repairing of the yards and sheds was one that involved
a number of family members. Those who came to visit the farm were promptly
put to work, and in return they had a country experience and were well
fed, courtesy of the slow combustion oven. Shearers need to be fed well,
as shearing is a strenuous activity, if not a backbreaking one. Everyone
was allotted a task on shearing day. One would have to sweep up the
tailings from the floor, one to pick up the fleece and take it to the
grading bench and one to move the sheep from one pen to another, until
they reached the pen adjacent to the shearing floor, where with the
whirr of the motor driving the shears, the shearer would grab the next
sheep, and neatly remove its fleece. I loved the smell in the shearing
shed, the mixture of sheep droppings, not at all offensive, mixed with
the smell of the lanoline in the wool, and the smell of the timber floors
and railings as we brushed against them whilst performing our tasks.
'Smoko' was always at about ten
o'clock, and by then I could have a batch of whole meal scones baked,
and packed into a basket lined with a tea towel, and ready to serve
with butter and home-made jam. Smoko was served on a dusty old table,
in the shearing shed, with all of us using the wool bales for seats,
clutching steaming mugs of tea and coffee. Meals needed to be prepared
in advance, because it was expected that all hands would be on deck
in the shed, so we invariably served cold meats and salad at lunch.
Afternoon smoko would be served in the same way, and then ready to collapse
we would all make our way into the yards to help drench and sort the
sheep before releasing them to the hill again. The farm sat just below
the crest of a hill, with the evening sky sitting right overhead, just
filled with a myriad of stars, and we listened to the plaintive bleating
of the sheep away in the dark. The last task for the night was to bathe
in six inches of warm water, in the bottom of the bath in the ruined
bathroom, and collapse into bed.
A few stoves later I found myself
living in McLaren Flat, where I began making sauces and jams on my kitchen
electric stove, using the windfall fruit from our orchard. We had a
mixture of apricots, plums, pears, peaches, nashi pears, quinces and
citrus, so the potential variety of products was endless. I soon had
a few winery customers, who were interested in stocking local products
for sale, so with the expansion of my cooking activities the kitchen
stove became inadequate, and my husband had become less than enthusiastic
about the commercial activities invading his domestic domain, not to
mention the pungent aromas of coriander, cumin and ginger from my stores
in the cartons under the pool table in the family room. When the brand
'Lacewood 'was born, its cradle was the converted garage at the end
of the implement shed. We had the walls clad in stainless steel and
with two large gas burners and a couple of secondhand jam pans we began
manufacturing such products as Wild lime, ginger and chili sauce, Bushman's
Plum sauce and Dragon's Roar salsa. The aromas in that kitchen became
impregnated into its very walls.
Stoves have always played a large
part in my life, every since as a small child I helped my grandmother
make pasties and cook them in her little cream and green enamel fronted
wood stove. I have just loved the washing, cutting and general preparation
of ingredients, the slow wonderful smell of cooking food, and the pleasure
that others take from the finished dishes. I began to long for a whizz-bang,
stainless steel fronted oven to comfort me in my later years, one that
did not have a temperamental door hinge, or a cranky electric ring.
So, I made a New Year wish for a wonderful new kitchen, complete with
stainless steel oven, gas cook top and a dishwasher that worked every
time.
And do you know what? I am thrilled
to say that two years later my wish was granted.
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