aunt daisy

Post-war sophistication in New Zealand

from No Pavlova Please: Images of Food and Drink in Twentieth-Century New Zealand.
The sound files page has some great samples from these distant lands.
The Fast Lunches extracts were good, but Aunt Daisy is the star.
Listen to the scrapbook piece 'Married Life' before the recipe for Beetroot Chutney new from England, or this before the cornflower blancmange:

Coming together is the beginning
Keeping together is progress
Thinking together is unity
Working togther is success

and then someone wanted to know…she said she can never make a cornflower blancmange properly she said she generally makes them too stiff and what do you do about them and how much should you put in

Aunty Daisy took boynton straight back to some of the scary ancients who presided over her early education, and her tone produces a reflex squirm in either homily or recipe mode.

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Comments: aunt daisy

Aunt Daisy has one of those jolly fierce voices. Who would dare not be in her "daisy chain"? I can still hear those scary ancients to whom you alude...
"Hey you!(pointing vaguely in your direction) Yes YOU!! Are you listening?? Didn't think so...GET OUT!!!"
Posted by nora at November 10, 2003 04:37 PM

Just listened to another of her recipes...That voice...I'm feeling the need for recovered memory therapy...
Posted by nora at November 10, 2003 04:43 PM

They mentioned the opening of Chinese restaurants in the 60s as being important & I immediately thought - all those country town Chinese restaurants in Aus - we're obviously culinarily far superior (well as far superior as MSG & cornflour glug can make you).... but I can't come up with any proof (just googling) that this was so. Were Chinese restaurants around earlier than this?? Does anyone know? I just can't remember back that far. ( & the country town I lived in in the 70s didn't even have proper hamburger buns - we had to go to Dubbo - the big smoke - for such sophistocation)
Posted by wen at November 10, 2003 08:57 PM

i sent the url for the ski photo restaurant to my friend shiralee who comes from new zealand. this is what she sent back:

"Hey that's the first restuarant I ever went to that you're making fun of!"

i think she is too scared to play the audio grabs.
Posted by David Tiley at November 10, 2003 11:09 PM

and wen..

i think chinese restaurants in country victoria go back as far as the goldfields. it was either cook or get your pigtail chopped off by some mean mean goldminers..

and while we are on the general subject of grub, riverbend has started posting recipes at Is Something Burning?.

the goil has a sense of humour too..
Posted by David Tiley at November 10, 2003 11:15 PM

thorry....

http://iraqrecipes.blogspot.com/

now i will thend
Posted by David Tiley at November 10, 2003 11:16 PM

Nora: I know the exact ancient you mean.
Wen: interesting point re chinese restaurants. Had me googling - stand-by. Maybe country Vic was superior to country NSW in the quality of Hamburger Buns? Best hamburgers I ever had were from rural locations: San Remo and Moe.
David: I'm sure I would have thought skis created a sophisticated ambience too. And equally sure that there are comparable photos on line to show that Aus was just as sophisticated. I've got a few books of the era that demonstrate this, but it seems that NZ's digital history is more advanced than ours?
Posted by boynton at November 11, 2003 12:16 PM