SEEKING COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS
Food can be emblematic of a family, embedded within its core – a go-to staple, the dish for family celebrations. A recipe is mobile, travelling with a family over great distances and down through generations, to the Coal River Valley. The discovery and use of an old recipe can bring its long-lost owner-maker to life – as if they’re ‘here with me’ – sensory – taste, smell, texture, appearance.
EXAMPLES
The format of the New Richmond Cookbook is threefold: a story, a picture, and the recipe. Recipes selected for inclusion will be accompanied by the story of how it fits within family meals, celebrations, and history. The story will explain how the recipe came into the family, who is famed for making it and how it travelled the country or globe as it passed amongst family and friends, and how it is enjoyed by the family – from ‘go-to’ staple to special events. The picture can be of the original family member who is revered for making it part of the family’s sense of self, of the old handwritten version that is lovingly cared for in its aged state, or even of the family coming together to enjoy a meal together. And thirdly, the recipe itself, which will detail ingredients, preparation and serving suggestions.
THEONA’S EXAMPLE
(Having discovered her grandmother’s damper recipe)
Theona was sorting through her recently deceased mother’s things and found a worn recipe written by her grandmother. It was for damper – a very simple bread. What made the recipe interesting, along with how Theona discovered it, was that it started with grinding the wheat into the flour needed for the damper. This simple recipe takes on a much greater significance when one is reminded that even simple foods entailed considerable work, prior to mechanised production methods.
MOLLY’S EXAMPLE
The Dulcot Christmas Pudding Recipe
I was 16 and the eldest of five, when my mother died suddenly, 41 years old, in December 1946. That first Christmas without her is something of a blur now but the generosity of neighbours – country folk of modest means, just like us, kept us going.
Many will have noticed the abandoned red brick cottage on the hill at Seaton, opposite Malcoms Hut Road, on Richmond Road. In 1946 the Davis family lived there. Mrs Davis gave us a Christmas pudding and a fruit cake after mum died, assuming we didn’t have them. I’ll never forget that kindness. Puddings have held a special place in our family since then.
This recipe is based on the one we were given in 1946 and has been made by for our family for many decades, and always with thoughts of the importance of family and neighbours in times of need. Each year, a few weeks before Christmas I gather my children, and now my grandchildren, to help prepare and cook the ‘puds’. We tweak the recipe a little from time to time, no more threepences or sixpences in the mix for good luck, but it remains the traditional fail-safe Dulcot Christmas Pudding for the Hanslows, Fitzgeralds, Blackburns and Frankhams.
NOMINATE YOUR FAMILY’S RECIPE
PO Box 258 Richmond Tasmania 7025
The Richmond Cookbook is a Bicentenary community project seeking contributions from residents of Richmond and Coal River Valley, Tasmania. Nominated recipes will be gathered over the coming months to gauge interest. If you have a recipe that your family holds dear, please nominate it for inclusion within the Richmond Bicentenary Cookbook. If we secure sufficient contributions, a cookbook will be published.
Nominations can be brief – the family story is key. We’ll contact you for more information.