Constance Berryman reminiscences re food in 1920s nort-west, undated

Scans

• 
• 
• 

Transcription

The preparation of food is always with us, but as I move from refrigerator to gas stove to stainless steel sink, I think back on the days when we lived in the North West, when housekeeping was no easy matter. In the early 1920s we were in the Roebourne district, a 1000 miles north of Perth, and it is easier to tell you of the things we had, rather than those we didn't have. All groceries had to come up by boat and, except in the winter, all vegetables as well. Meat was plentiful and cheap, but keeping it without refrigeration was a problem, in the summer, and summer lasted for about eight months. What could not be eaten on the day after killing had to be either dry salted or corned, a regular chore for my father, and the smaller the household the longer the salt meat lasted. There is not much that even the most ingenious cook can do with it, beyond boil it and serve hot or cold. For part of my childhood we lived in the town, and this meant bakers bread, regular fresh meant, and green vegetables and fruit when available. We lived to the rhythm of the coastal boats - does any one listening remember the old Charon, the Bambra, the Gorgon, the Minderoo? They brought us mails and all the necessities of life, and I remember the feelings a-roused when the lumpers in Fremantle went on strike and the boats were held up, with all our precious supplies. If only they had struck when the boats came down from the North and not when they were ready to sail again.

Later we moved to a station on the edge of the "open country" as the unfenced land was known, and here Mother's problems became legion. We were the last station on the mail run, and how we came to welcome Bob Brooker and his old, battered, hoodless car, bringing us the mails, the butter done up in a billycan sewn in hessian and dipped in water occasionally, and all the gossip of the district. Our stores came by wagon twice a year, a wildly exciting event. Once it was the legendary Treacle Dick with his camel team, but the rest of the time it was in a wagon drawn by donkeys, with the spare animals and the foals trailing after. Then the little store room was opened up and the new supplies checked in, the bags of sugar and flour, the cases of jam, pickles and condensed milk, and the big chests of bulk tea, one of the prime necessities of life to the outback. Everything smelt so good and we were go glad to see the last of the weevily flour and the lumpy sugar. Sometimes the wagon was late, held up by rain or the teamster's not being able to get past the Whim Creek hotel, and then we would get news of him by bush telegraph and possess our souls in patience until the cloud of dust down by the boundary gate told us that all was at last well.

On the station bread had to be made by the cook, a long and tedious business, starting with some potato peel, sugar, water and hops for yeast, and Oh the bliss when we managed to get a good break maker, you have no idea of how bad bread can cloud ones outlook on life. When the loaf tins had been filled there was some dough left over for the "brownie" which is made by adding sugar, candied peel and raisins. The raisins of course had to be washed, & seeded first, no nice seeded fruit in packets then. When the bread was baked the heavenly smell of it was all over the homestead and we had hot buttered brownie for morning tea. Every now and then we had the bad luck to get "ropey" bread, when it gets a dis-

Page break

gusting flavour and you eat it only because you must. There seems no cure for it, and all the tins and basins and bread box must be scalded out and disinfected as best one may.

In summer our vegetables were the inevitable potatoes and brown onions and ironbark pumpkins, helped out by haricot and lima beans boiled with a little bacon rind. We also had plenty of dried fruit, soaked over- night and boiled in syrup, peaches, plums, prunes, apricots and apples, the chinese gelatine - the ordinary sort would not set in the heat. The Chinese variety comes in lengths rather like drinking straws and has a flavour all its own..

The only way of keeping food cool was in the huge old Coolgardie safe, its legs set in a shallow tin of water and water dripping down the hessian sides from another tin on top. It wasn't very efficient but it was the best available. Water was always in the water bag on the verandah, drunk from a tin mug tied to it.

We ate very little beef as the station carried sheep and there were a few cows for milking when there was some feed about. We had a terrible drought one summer, when the poor cows had to be helped to their feet when they got down, the working horses were fed on chaff and the sheep were too thin to kill. Then we had a good deal of kangaroo and an occasional side of beef from Bob Brooker from the Pilbara.

There were always plenty of natives to feed. They came to the side window of the kitchen and were given an enamel plate of meat and damper and a pannikin of tea. I really believe that it was the awful diet that forced them to go walkabout at intervals, when they could eat their own food and live off the land for a while.

Looking back now, I cannot understand why no tropical fruits were grown up there. There was plenty of water available and the soil was in many places excellent. A few bananas and cocoanuts were grown on the Tableland, but that was all. The tropical gardens at Carnarvon have since shown what possibilities there were.

They tell me that the North is a different place these days, mostly due to that modern miracle, refrigeration, and to the aeroplane and the transport trucks. Some day I'll go back and see for myself.