Posts in the category: Lost arts

A curious cookbook

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Page from an 1832 cookbook manuscript

1832 cookbook manuscript, author unknown (detail). Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Sydney Living Museums

A mystery manuscript

For some time now I’ve been following Westminster City Archives’ The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies blog. It explores a manuscript cookery book of unknown origin, thought to have been written between 1760 and the 1820s. A team of volunteers have been experimenting with the recipes and researching their relevance in the Georgian and Regency England. It is an interesting project in itself, and I’m very excited by it, as we too, have a ‘mystery’ manuscript cookbook from the 1830s in our collection. Continue reading →

Fish in fashion

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Fish catch with basket and harbour in the background

Fish catch and Dawes Point, Sydney Harbour (detail), J W Lewin, c1813, gift of the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation and South Australian Brewing Holdings Limited 1989, given to mark the occasion of the Company's 1988 Centenary, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Lewin’s painting celebrates the abundance and variety of fish that could be gleaned from Sydney Harbour. With its breathtaking views of Sydney Harbour, you can only imagine that the Macleays would have the freshest of fish on their table at Elizabeth Bay House. Continue reading →

Escapee tea

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Two leaves, of the type used for tea, in a facsimilie copy of the paper originally containing them.

Leaves from Botany Bay used as tea, ca 1791. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales: R807

By 1788 the taking of tea, that very British ritual, was enjoyed universally, even in the poorest households. Although tea was available for sale in Sydney from at least 1792, it was not yet considered a ‘necessary’ and therefore not included in convicts rations for another 30 years. But rather than going without, the early colonists found their own alternative in a native sarsaparilla – testament to their resourcefulness. Continue reading →

Food and fetters

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A map showing the plan of the settlement at Sydney Cove in 1788.

Sydney Cove, Port Jackson. The position of the encampment & buildings are as they stood at March 1788 (detail), William Bradley. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW: Safe 1/14

Early Sydney operated surprisingly freely. It was effectively a jail without walls where, rather than being imprisoned, the convicts were the general population, living as a community in tents at first, then in huts and cottages that they built themselves. Continue reading →