Posts in the category: Recipes

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 →

Eating empire: shipping news 1825

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Chinese export ware punchbowl featuring a scene of Sydney Cove before 1820 (detail).

Chinese export ware punchbowl featuring a scene of Sydney Cove before 1820 (detail). State Library of New South Wales: XR 10

In a world where the internet gives us access to the world twenty-four hours a day, and imported commodities arrive from across the globe by air and sea on a daily basis, it may come as a surprise, especially for our younger audiences, to know that a new ship in the harbour caused more than a ripple in the colonies of New South Wales. Each new arrival brought news from afar, fresh people to mix with in society, and coveted trade goods such as textiles, household items and ‘exotic’ food items that we now take for granted.  Continue reading →

1950s spinning sugar cake

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Photograph of the 'spinning sugar cake' from Australian Home Beautiful, January 1951.

Let's bake a cake, Australian Home Beautiful, January 1951, p58. Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Sydney Living Museums

This recipe originates from the 1951 January issue of The Australian Home Beautiful magazine, held in Sydney Living Museums’ Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection. Eat Your History project intern Elizabeth McKinnon decided she’d road test it as part of her Museum Studies internship – and it wasn’t quite as smooth a ride as she’d hoped… Continue reading →

A convict’s breakfast

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Cooking over the fire at 'Redcoats and Convicts' at the Hyde Park Barracks.

Cooking over the fire at 'Redcoats and Convicts' at the Hyde Park Barracks. Photo © Leo Rocker

Breakfast at the barracks

While Sydney’s ‘toffs’ tucked into a leisurely breakfast – anything from freshly laid eggs to kedgeree, smoked ham or cured tongue, sometimes as late as 11am, the convicts at the Hyde Park Barracks would have had to settle for a dish of dreaded hominy, a porridge made from maize, or corn meal, doled out in the mess halls just before dawn (see recipe below). Continue reading →

I dined this day with relish

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Oil painting of Tarmons in a landscape with blue and pink sky.

Tarmons, Woolloomooloo, Sydney, Residence of Sir Maurice O'Connell (detail), George Edwards Peacock, 1845. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW: ML 148

June 29, 1846
I dined this day with my respected chief, Lieutenant-General Sir Maurice O’Connell, at his beautiful villa, Tarmons… there were brisk coal fires burning in both dining and drawing-room, and the general appliances of the household, the dress of the guests and the servants, were as entirely English as they could have been in London… Continue reading →

A gentleman’s dinner

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The Cook and the Curator set a table with china and silverware.

The Cook and the Curator set the table for a Macleay dinner, at Elizabeth Bay House. Photo Alysha Buss © SLM

Famous for ‘evicting’ his mother and father and unmarried sister from Elizabeth Bay House in 1845, William Sharp Macleay (1792-1865) remained as master of the house for another 20 years. Continue reading →