I have asked my family to provide memories for this record, as well as requests for recipes to be included. Here are some from my sister, Jan.
Dorothy’s Delicacies?
Memories from childhood and more recent times of food that was both family fare & special occasion; always prepared with care, attention to detail and presented in an attractive manner for the pleasure of all.
Evening meals meant all of us around the table, eating properly with our knives and forks – no elbows on the table (would there have been room anyway?), chewing with our mouths closed etc…….At the end of the meal always a “please may I leave the table” request.
Thinking about all this now two things were missing. The first I think had nothing to do with Dorothy. It was the eating in silence because the radio news broadcast was on. Who decided that the family mealtime was to coincide with the Macquarie Broadcasting Service News Bulletin? I think the person responsible is no longer present. (Note from the Editor: I recently asked Mum about this. She said the idea was that it kept us quiet so that we would sit still and eat, rather than mucking up. Not sure about anyone else, but can you imagine mucking up at the dinner table?) The second thing is that seldom did we compliment our Mum on a wonderful meal or even say thank you. Just as day follows night we took for granted the nutritious and wonderful meals she prepared. For that oversight I am sorry but I can say that the love of caring for food and preparing it for others is a craft that has passed from Dorothy and on down to my children. All four love to cook for others and take an interest in all manner of food.
- Roast Dinners – usually prepared on a Sunday and most often was roast lamb. Note that roast chicken in the 50s & 60s was something special and experienced only at Christmas & Easter. I remember a period of time when Aunty Elsie obtained the chicken that we eventually ate. Over the years Dorothy experimented with various versions of roast potatoes – recipes and methods I do not have.
Lamb leftovers – chopped leftover roast lamb mixed in a batter and fried into a patty? We usually put tomato sauce on these. Were they called croquets?
I have to say that my better memories from the 50s & 60s are of the desserts & cakes. Evening meals were always two courses – the second one being dessert and yes we had to eat all of our main meal before we could eat dessert – no exceptions. Mum, it is your fault I eat everything on the plate regardless of how full I feel. (Couldn’t you have been just a little bit French?) The desserts were very often milk or egg based, as Dorothy was a good Mum and nutrition was always part of the food planning.
Desserts I remember:
- Baked rice Custard
- Rice Pudding – cooked in the large oval shaped pyrex dish and often served with sliced peaches out of a tin I think.
- Junket made with junket tablets dissolved in milk. I don’t know what junket is and if anyone eats it now.
- Jelly of course and served with custard not ice-cream. A note to the younger generation – refrigeration in the 50s and early 60s was relatively new and home refrigerator’s had a freezer only large enough to make ice cubes in an ice cube tray. Alas no room for a tub of ice cream. However I do recall Dorothy making us ice-cream and freezing it in the metal ice cube trays minus the dividers that formed the cubes. The technique was laborious and she didn’t make this very often.
- Lemon Meringue Pie with lovely crunchy meringue and the lemon curd made with eggs and butter
- Various steamed puddings served with custard. I remember one in particular that had jam in it.
- Bread & butter pudding
- Another one was called something like Queen Pudding. It wasn’t my favourite as a child but I now wonder what it was.
- Then there were cream puffs for special occasions. Dorothy mixed up the choux pastry and cooked these beautifully. We now call these yummy things profiteroles.
- Lamingtons and snowballs – I can recall helping Mum make lamingtons on a Saturday afternoon. Wintertime and Dad would often go to the Cricket ground to watch a game of Rugby league. So with the radio on in the kitchen, Frank Hyde calling the game, Mum and I coated the sponge squares in runny chocolate icing and then dropped the cake into coconut and then drained the cakes on the cake rack sitting over greaseproof paper (to catch the drips) Yum.
- In the 60s Mum began creating puff pastry cream horns. These became famous in Leichhardt and she made dozens and dozens for church cake stalls and the St Fiacre’s fete. They were very popular when Fr Albert and the other Capuchin priests visited us.
- Cakes were always fabulous and they were baked regularly because we always had a slice of cake in the lunch box for recess. Cinnamon Cake with lemon icing was a favourite of mine; also apricot cake, aunty Hilda’s chocolate cake. For birthdays we could request a cake. I always chose boiled fruit cake- yum. Diane often had sponge cake.
Mains:
Saltimbocca
Beef olives
Chicken & Almonds baked in the oven wrapped in foil I think
Steak & kidney pie
Steak & kidney pudding. I don’t like kidney but the pudding had an interesting flavour
Shepherds Pie
Great schnitzels known as crumbed steak.
Then we had the cheesecake – especially the lemon one
The jelly mould the one done with something white and port wine jelly
More recently the magnificent almond biscuits at Christmas
Aunty Elsie’s shortbread
The Xmas cake – like no other
The detail of those chocolate colettes
Sometimes things didn’t go as planned. It must have been lasagne but I will never forget our reaction when we kids decided that the kitchen smelled like VOMIT. Dorothy produced the meal from the oven and I think that none of us could eat it. We were so overcome by the smell of the sick room. Mum, what happened to that meal?
Another time, a case of tomatoes arrived probably from Hay. Anyway Dorothy put on a batch of tomato jam – well the jam caught and the smell of the burnt tomato jam filled the house for…..quite some time.
Wait I remember more:
Lattice biscuit slice
Slice with a firm base and a marshmallow top
Chocolate deluxe slice
Rum fudge slice
Danish pastry
So much love ..so much care
The cakes that when mixed still left mixture clinging to the side of the bowl so that each of us could scrape the bowl. “Can I scrape the bowl?” was a very very common request. The funny thing is that there was always something there to be scraped.
I am looking forward to the book!
