A rather interesting article in the Worker (Brisbane) of 1 April 1890
managed, in a few short paragraphs, to advise the young housewife on the health
benefits of sweating over the stove, on how to feed her family in a healthy but
economical way without giving them indigestion (and especially to tempt those
who are fatigued), to adapt her cooking to the ingredients at hand - AND to get
her husband to buy her a new dress. It even included a few recipe ideas too. It
is all about “ticklers.”
Over
the Stove.
There isn’t anything
more interesting than cooking nice things to tempt tired people with – that is
supposing you have nice things to cook, and really it’s wonderful how
handsomely common-looking materials will repay you for taking a little trouble
with them; I believe a plain rice pudding is as grateful as a pretty girl to
you for trying to make it look pretty. Cooking is hot work, I’ll admit, but
then it’s healthy, in moderation; in fact it’s as good as a Turkish bath and
costs nothing but time and trouble, and you are well repaid for those in the
coin that women best love – kind looks and sweet words. For, preach as you
will, you cant prevent a family with bad digestions from having bad tempers,
and bad digestion will be so long as the mother has no ideas beyond steak and
tea. Is that your plight? Well, drop the tea and try “ticklers” instead of
everlasting steak; you’ll find out the difference the first time you tell your
husband you want a new dress. I’ve been through it myself so I can talk.
But how to get the
ticklers? I can tell you of plenty, but the trouble is I don’t know what
materials you have at hand. Some of you get as much milk and fruit as you can
use “dirt cheap;” others don’t see such luxuries once a month; one is in the
bush eating salt meat all the year round while her sister buys fresh fish for a
song; or again, one is comfortably off and can afford a cupboardful of
groceries while the other has to be sparing in using sugar and tea. The best
thing is to remind you that cooking is not a book or recipes but a knack of
mixing whatever you have to hand; when you have to suit yourself to your
materials treat cooks’ directions as you treat advice – listen to everybody and
take your own way.
Still, one likes hints
and here are a few out of which you can make a backbone for all sorts of
dishes:-
Never be without onions
or garlic in the house. I prefer the garlic and so will you when you have got
over the English prejudice against it. Always cook your onions or garlic for a
long time; it is your half-cooked onion that taints the breath and make the
stew seem coarse; well cooked it is one of the most wholesome vegetables we
have and may save you many shillings worth of medicines.
If you can afford it
always have a bottle of salad oil in the house and use it for your stews; you
will find that it makes them both more tasty and more delicate; besides, the
oil is easily digested and fattening and it is exactly what the children need
as a set-off against the meat and bread diet little Australians get so plentifully.
Mix plenty of
vegetables, or where these run short, plenty of fruit, with your meat stews;
dried prunes and raisins, fresh cooking plums, apples, quinces, even lemons.
Anything with a little acidity draws out the flavour of the meat and helps to make
it tender. Always fry your stewing materials before setting them to simmer; oil
is by far the best frying material, but if economy forces you to use dripping,
clarify it well first; two teaspoonsful of sugar fried with the rest is an
improvement; also lemon juice with a little of the rind is always an
improvement on vinegar when oil is used. Oil is your best friend when meat is
tough; steaks and chops, soaked in oil with pepper and salt for some hours
before cooking, will not have the face to be tough. If you cannot afford this
time, boil them in oil (if possible with fruit or tomatoes) for half an hour,
then let them simmer for another half-hour or three quarters.
When you are making
milk puddings and eggs run short, use a lump of butter or a spoonful of oil
instead. Ground rice, cornflour, [word
not readable] &c. made with milk and a little butter added (say butter
the size of a walnut to a pint of milk) are more delicate than if made with
eggs. Sweeten your puddings with sugar rather than honey, [this seems to be the wrong way around] it gives a peculiar delicate
flavouring of its own besides having medicinal and fattening proportions.
Whenever there is a tendency to sore throats honey should be used as much as
possible.
To wind up with here
there are two practical suggestions which anybody can carry in their heads and
vary according to circumstances. Have you facilities for procuring ripe fruit?
Then take a fruit mixture, [word
unreadable] put plums, bananas, oranges, pine-apple, anything and everything
you can secure (the greater the variety the better) piled together in a deep
dish, breaking the fruits into small pieces so that the juice may run out.
Scatter over it a large quantity of sugar, the quantity must of course vary
according to the sweetness or acidity of the fruit you are using, but it is
best to err on the liberal side; leave the sugar to melt and soak in till the
fruit is floating in syrup. It ought to stand quite six hours before serving.
Pour over and mix in with it rich cream, if you can get it; if not, boiled
custard is a delicious substitute. You will find everybody asking you for the
recipe of your wonderful “fruit salad.”
If you can only get
stewing fruit you will find them much improved y mixing; bananas, insipid when
cooked by themselves, are delicious when stewed with one or more kinds of
slightly acid fruits. If you can afford to stew
fruit in cheap claret or claret and water you will find the flavour
immensely improved.
N.B. – If you cannot
spare time to make boiled custard to eat with fruit and yet have the materials
you will find a raw egg beaten up in milk and sweetened a capital substitute,
only remember, it will not keep.
For a good, cheap
dinner trim two pounds of steak, cutting away all fat or skin. Cut half a small
pumpkin into mouthful pieces. Pepper, salt and flour your steak and let it stew
fast. In about half an hour change places, i.e., put all the pumpkin at the
bottom of the pan and lay the steak over it and let it all stew thus for about
three-quarters of an hour more, during which time the steak is practically
steamed. Results: tender, tasty, and cheap. Any oil over to be kept for another
stew – with which practical remark I cast anchor.
Not
too many recipes for “ticklers’ there after all, were there? I don’t know if
the following idea from the same era is ticklish, but it is certainly strange,
in a scary kind of way. What do you make of it?
Egg Curry.
One egg, two
tablespoonsfuls sugar, half a cup strong vinegar, one teaspoonful butter, half
a teaspoonful salt, one teaspoonful ground mustard, one teaspoonful curry mixed
in cream. Mix mustard, salt, sugar, vinegar and curry, and pour on the
well-beaten egg[s]. Simmer all for ten minutes. This will keep for a month in a
cool place.
Morning Bulletin
(Rockhampton, Qld.) 3 November 1897.
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