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I thought to start by listing the staple Australian foods of The Great Depression. However, upon reflection, maybe I should specify which Depression! I mean, of course, the depression from 1929 to about 1935. The one where everyone was so scared of losing their money, they all stopped spending, and started saving. All at the same time. Meaning not enough people were buying to keep companies liquid, which resulted in lay-offs. And so the circle goes around.
I think the staples of that era were things one could grow oneself, or find in laneways or up in the town common: rabbits, chokos, rhubarb, lemons, passionfruit, apple cueys, iceberg lettuce, Grosse Lisse Tomatoes, offal (cheap from the back-door of the butchers - especially tripe).
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My rhubarb is growing well - better than anything else I have planted. See what the back of the packet says: 'Start harvesting when the leaves have some colour'. But don't eat the leaves as they are toxic. Only take a few outside stems during the first year.
It has been a strange old summer. I have pulled the lettuce and the baby pumpkin, as they both succumbed to mould. I squash about 10 green grubs each morning from assorted plants. A runner on my strawberry has rooted, and is sending up shoots.
As Kirsten and her family are down the South Coast for a few days, I went over and re-organised her balcony pots this morning. Need to find a punnet of Sweet Williams before Wednesday. Somewhere ... on a bus route.
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6 comments:
That is an interesting list ... most of them are easy to grow. Saw lots of rabbits down at the caravan park. When I see rabbits somewhere in my mind I also think depression ... though none of the stories told by my family ever mention rabbits.
Come to think of it my Mum was the only one that ever mentioned depression as Dad's family were on the land and well provided for. And there are no rabbits in Queensland.
Really? No rabbits in Queensland? Maybe in the greener/wetter parts of QLD. There ARE rabbits in NSW.
The South Sydney league team are the 'rabbitos' because of all the blokes selling rabbits door-to-door during the depression in the working-man suburbs of Sydney.
Being a Henry Lawson fan, the illustrations which often accompany his works, have swaggies with a dead rabbit hung somewhere. For later ...
Ewww - offal.
My mum eats lamb brains, kidneys, lambs fry - she used to try and make my sister and I eat it. Gross.
How's your tomato going? Mine has gone berko in the last couple of days.
Umm.....what is the last label in your labels list? स्प्रिंग ?!
I had to hold my plant upright with some string because the fruit is so heavy. I have some tommies ripening on the bench right now. For brekkie tomorrow on toast, with pepper and salt. Yummie.
That label - only you would ever notice it - was when, ages ago, I did not realise that I needed to turn a particular setting off. Something to do with transliteration or somesuch gobbledygook. I think it says 'other', or even perhaps 'stuff'.
It's pretty hard to kill rhubarb once it is established. Shortly after we got Lindy, I saw her walking around the yard with a limp piece of rhubarb with the LEAF attached, so I bought two huge, heavy concrete pads to put over our two rhubarb plants. One plant succumbed because it was in a completely flat spot, but the other piece of ground was lumpy, so rhubarb continues to grow sideways out from under the concrete. Lindy, however, has lost interest in rhubarb. Whew!
You know what is scary about blogging, Julie? I find I've reached the age where I have a story about almost every subject other bloggers introduce. Very scary: I'm turning into my grandfather.
You put concrete shoes on rhubarb plants!!
Wow ...
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