How did Tim Tams get their name. Who invented the Chiko Roll? My book A Timeline of Australian Food: from mutton to Masterchef chronicles 150 years of Australian food, from the first Australian cookbook in the 1860s to MasterChef in 2010. It’s available online now or your bookstore can order it for you.
This is the story of a family business that began with one small shop, opened by a Scottish baker in Adelaide’s rough and ready colonial days. I wrote the company history for Balfours in 2018 but the full text was never published. There’s a link to it below.
Camp Pie probably isn’t uniquely Australian. At least in its tinned version it is recorded in Britain long before being manufactured here. But for many years it was one of our local specialties.
“I’m grossly offended by the insinuation I have some personal agenda in interfering with your personal life,” So began the letter I found concealed within a book from our apartment building’s book exchange. I had to know more.
For decades, footy food mainly meant pies. In Victoria, it was a relationship assiduously fostered by the state’s best-selling brand, Four ‘n Twenty. And it took a long time to change.
Messrs. Elliott and Lindsay acquired the Excelsior Brewery in Hay in 1873, renaming it the Red Lion Brewery. Elliott went on to open several breweries under the Red Lion name, but came to an unfortunate end on Cup Day in 1895.
In the 1950s it wasn’t quite dining as we know it – only a select few Melbourne restaurants were legally able to serve a glass of wine with your meal. And you might come across the odd singing waiter.
Australians’ relationship with the pie goes back to early colonial times. We’ve seen roving pie sellers, pie floaters, footy pie nights and all-night pie cafés, and a day at the footy wouldn’t be the same without one.
In the 1840s and 1850s, there were Sydney restaurants offering French and Italian dishes. But many establishments proudly trumpeted their rejection of such fancy food in favour of solid English fare.
Broken Hill may be a town associated with blue singlets and heavy-drinking miners, but in 1932 the local citizens knew how to celebrate Christmas in style. The following article appeared in the Barrier Miner on the Wednesday after Christmas.
Back in 1967, at the Swiss Inn in Sydney’s King’s Cross, you could enjoy “a set 4-course OYSTER and CHICKEN Dinner for $1.30, with a large bottle of Penfolds Riesling or Claret for 70 cents”.
This column was written back in the noughties when we lived in Bungendore. It was planned for the fourth issue of Regional Food Magazine – the truffle issue. Sadly, the magazine folded and it never happened. Also sadly, there are rarely truffles in our fridge these days.
Our first visit to Hostaria al 31 (fondly dubbed Al’s) was in 1990, the second in 2001. And when we visited again in October 2018, we found that very little had changed over nearly three decades.
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