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I haven't forgotten my Biblical Food series but have been inundated with work and haven't had a chance to do some proper research so shall take a little side road and post a recipe we tried the other day from my grandmother's trusty CWA 1960s cookbook.

My older son had a friend came around to play so I asked the kids if they'd like to make a mess. They did, so we did as you can see from the photo.

The melting moments were lucky to last 10 minutes out of the oven, but it was a fun activity for some active kids on a rainy, wet day.

Ingredients
1/2 1lb (250g)

Melting Mess

butter
2 Tb cornflour
2 Tb icing sugar
7 Tb plain flour

Method
1. Cream butter and sugar, add cornflour and mix thoroughly.
2. Add plain flour and mix thoroughly.
3. Press out and cut into shapes.
4. Bake on a greased slide (or use baking paper) in a moderate oven for 15 mins.

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Posted By: Samantha Elley - Category: No Category

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Biblical Food Part 1

June 14th 2009 06:41

biblical food

I thought with this and following posts I would go vintage to the extreme as far as food was concerned and check out what the bible has to say about the culinary world.

There are many references to food in the bible, even as to what is good and what is bad for you. There are cultural references to food and some have even gone so far as to make recipes from biblical ingredients.

There is an interesting story in the Bible about a young man called Daniel. When the Israelites are captured by Babylon, as part of the Israelite royal family Daniel and a few friends were brought to the Babylonian king's court and told to eat the royal food and drink the royal wine. Daniel and his friends, however, refused and asked them to test him and his friends for ten days only feeding them vegetables and water.

The results speak for themselves:

"At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food." Daniel 1:15

It seems the benefits of a high fibre diet were obvious even back in biblical days. We don't know what type of food and wine the royal court served up but my guess is it would have been highly seasoned and possibly refined for easy and large consumption

My next post I will endeavour to create a dish made from some of the ingredients in the Bible. Wish me luck!

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Australian Cookbooks: An Exhibition

June 4th 2009 09:41

The 'War Chest Cookery Book' published in 1917

Our local paper revealed an exhibition that starts today (June 4) at Casino library (northern NSW) until June 12 of a collection of Australian cookbooks held by the State Library of NSW.

It's a vibrant and fascinating culinary story tracing food trends and curiosities from the 1860s to the present.

"The first known Australian cookbook broke away from the traditional Englishfare with a mix of some wonderful localised dishes, using ingredients like black swan, emus, kangaroo and wombat," said Pat Turner, curator of the show.

A rare edition of the book 'The English and Australian Cookery Book ' (1864) by Tasmanian parliamentarian, Edward Abbott is held by the State Library.

"Cookbooks are a fantastic social record of the time. They document the impact of food on war, celebrations, the Great Depression and migration and of new technologies, such as fridges and microwaves," Ms Turner said.

"For example, war cook books had recipes for meatless dishes because of meat rationing and during the Depression cookbooks emphasised fruit preserving and jam making, because people were growing so much fruit in their own backyard."

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Spiced Apple Cake!

May 28th 2009 02:10

My son's Spiced Apple Cake with face.

My young son has struck again in the kitchen. He loves cooking with mummy and insisted that we bake a cake.

I discovered this simple recipe in one of my 'not so vintage' recipe books, but to him it would have been considered so. Plus we had all the ingredients, so it was definitely a goer. As you can see my son added his own creative signature to the final result

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Why our Great-grandparents were happy!

May 21st 2009 07:47

A bottle of Bayer's heroin

I was recently sent this email and thought it would be an interesting look into the world of medicines used around one hundred years ago. Have we come along way? I wonder how many medicines are on the market today that will be made illegal or restricted in another hundred years.

The picture above shows a bottle of Bayer's heroin. Between 1890 and 1910 heroin was sold as a non-addictive substitute for morphine. It was also used to treat children with a

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Our Oven Blew Up!!!

May 17th 2009 11:22

Blown!

I couldn't believe it. I had just finished cooking poached chicken and fried herb potato and onion dish (going on my Lifestyle Cooking website as it's not vintage enough for here) when I leaned over the hotplates to check the chicken.

Then suddenly there was a huge bang and a large blue flame. I screamed and jumped back instantly. No harm done, other than I scared the crap out of my two little boys and my husband. I wasn't too calm seconds after our little explosion either

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Shortbread for Dummies

May 8th 2009 04:06

Our afternoon tea

The title is simply because sometimes I can feel like a dummy in the kitchen but I love making shortbread, because it is a yummy biscuit and so easy to make.

If you think shortbread, think Scotland in mediaeval times as it seems that this is where this delightful piece of baking came from. According to englishteastore.com because butter was the main ingredient, the name derived from shortening, hence 'shortbread

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Our Gingerbread Man day

April 29th 2009 12:37

Our gingerbread men

This vintage recipe idea was my four year old son's. He loves being in the kitchen with me and for some reason had it in his head that today he wanted to make gingerbread men.

So I delved into my old recipe books and found a lovely recipe in the 'Carry On' cookery book. While my son's idea of creaming butter and sugar is a little different to mine (He called it munching) we eventually got a good mixture together

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What's in a Pandemic?

April 28th 2009 08:14

Spanish 'flu in 1918

With the news of swine 'flu sweeping the globe, seeming to be closely followed by the virus itself and with the word 'pandemic' being liberally bandied around the media, I thought I'd take a look at history in regards to pandemics.

According to the World Health Organisation there are three conditions that have to be met before it can be considered a pandemic. They include: the disease being new to the population; the disease infects the human population causing serious illness and it spreads from human to human

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Golden Crunch biscuits aka Anzac bikkies

April 22nd 2009 11:47

Golden Crunch aka Anzac biscuits

The food editor where I work advised me the other day, in the middle of holding an Anzac biscuit competition from our readers, that the reason these particular biscuits were sent to the soldiers overseas was because, with all the ingredients in them they would be able to keep on the long trip overseas.

This indicated to me that Anzac biscuits must have been around for some time before and after World War One but in disguise. Sure enough, in my 'Carry On' cookbook, published AFTER World War Two (1949), I found a recipe for 'Rolled Oats Parkins'. It had all the same ingredients as Anzac biscuits although the amounts were a bit different

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July 2009

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