Though the family had little money during the depression and war years of the 1930s and 40s, they never wanted for essentials. Sheep too old to grow their quota of wool ended up on the dinner table--like most local farmers Ian was a capable butcher--and there was always a roast chicken for special occasions. The occasional Sunday afternoon shotgun sorties around Gittins' salt lakes often yielded wild duck.
Roasted in the whitegum-fueled iron stove, these meats had a splendid solidity and strength of flavor. In the case of mutton, the solid texture might have been due in part to the practice of slaughtering the sheep at dusk and leaving the carcass outdoors, hauled up high out of the reach of flies, and propped open with a stick to allow free circulation of air so that the meat set firm overnight. As for chicken, the poultry were to an extreme degree what nowadays would be called Free Range, with all that term implies about eating quality and the difficulty of catching the quick and wily critter in the first place. The flesh of the local wild duck had a dense consistency and a mahogany color when cooked by Blanche or Maud Gittins. It never occurred to them to stop the cooking at a deep rose color, so that what might have been the gustatory experience of a lifetime was lost through inattention.
Milk, butter, eggs, onions and other vegetables in season, and fruit were also produced on the farm.
In summers Ian always made a vegetable garden in one or other of the damp sandy spots, or "soaks" on Gilella. These gardens produced plenty of pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers and greens like silverbeet (US Swiss chard). Ian’s approach to gardening was in some ways unconventional. For example, when planting cucumbers, he would always put in a handful of salt along with the seeds and superphosphate. This, he explained, was to save the bother of putting salt on the finished product.
The orchard on Riverview produced quince as well as apricots, while the one on Gilella, though far past its prime, still produced an abundance of mulberries. One Christmas day Ian ate a hundred mulberries as a post-prandial snack, a feat of gluttony subsequently emulated by each of the children as soon as they learned to count that high.
Despite this apparent abundance of food, in light of subsequent science it is clear that the family’s diet was not particularly nourishing. Except in spring and early summer it was low in the plant-based nutrients that are needed to maintain good health, and overall it contained in harmful excess the protein and fat of animal products such as meat, eggs and milk. The most noticeable sign of defective diet was the prevalence of the condition known locally as "Barcoo rot," where any break in the skin developed into a sore that was slow to heal, and left a scar. Doctors thought it might be due to iron deficiency and prescribed a "tonic," but like most popular medications of the time it was totally ineffective.
Blanche’s attitude to cooking, and to food in general, was one of mild distaste. She had a small repertoire of dishes that she prepared well: roast leg or shoulder of mutton with potatoes, potato pie (leftover mutton ground with onions, topped with mashed potatoes and lightly browned), creamed potato and onions, sponge cake, and a yellow sultana cake called, for reasons unknown, "railway cake." She cooked without enthusiasm, in the manner of a deaf person playing the piano, and she had little patience with Ian's more exotic preferences. At breakfast she made a slice of toast and a cup of tea for herself and left Ian to do his stuff with bacon, pancakes, eggs, and on the morning after slaughtering a sheep, brains.
Brains browned in rendered mutton fat was Ian’s most refined preparation. His method was simple. Since he killed the sheep by cutting its throat rather than by hitting it on the head, the brains did not need washing to remove blood. He simply kept the head in a cool place so the contents set overnight, split the head with an axe, scooped out the brains and cooked them without ado. Probably because the brains were already well set, no preliminary poaching was necessary. Mmm, mmm--delicious! Not so delicious, however, after one morning the freshly cleaved skull was found to be infected with nasal bots, worms that enter the animal's skull by way of the nasal passage and take up residence in the brain. An unappetizing episode indeed, but not unappetizing enough to erase affectionate memory of a dish of which it may be said, as W. C. Fields said of sex, there are some things better and some things worse, but the's nothing quite like it.
Continue reading: 3.2.2 Named Animals
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3. Ian and Blanche (1929-1975) Blanche (-1988)
3.2 Vignettes of Life on Gilella
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