Of Aussie Bush Origin.
Whips:
Australian whips have been sent all over
the world, mainly as curiosities. A whip is really two whips, one is
plaited and another is plaited over the top of the first. The reason
Australian whips have such a good name is I suggest because of the
kangaroo hide they are made from. Kangaroo has a much stronger per
weight ratio than any other hide. The average length of a stock whip is
eight feet (2.5 metres). Some are made up to twenty feet long (6metres)
and there is one recorded as 55foot long (17metres) . What stets apart
the Australian whip from most others is the handle. It is plaited from
leather and the inter-locking keeper as the fixing to the whip itself
is purely Australian. The length of the handle is critical also as it
determines the balance.
Emu eggs:
Emu eggs will keep fresh for eight or
nine months if you seal them with a wax or even fat will do. An average
egg weighs approx one and one half pounds (680grams) and are delicious
eaten as scrambled or even boiled. If boiling, allow half an hour and
turn them over quite often. One Emu egg is equivalent in richness to
twelve hens eggs. There is an old tale as to how to check if an emu egg
is "off" or not. You place three eggs end to end on top of each other,
holding the top and bottom one in your hand. If the centre one spins
it’s OK, if it doesn’t then it’s "off". I suspect a lot of good eggs
were rejected at one time or another. Emus are supposed to be good
weather prophets. Usually they will only lay their eggs just before a
good wet season.
The Billy
Often attributed as strictly an
Australian word , legend has it that it was first used on the Western
Australian gold fields. In those early pioneering days France used to
export quantities of tinned meats to the gold fields. It was labelled
"Boef Bouilli" (boiled beef). Cooking utensils of any sort were in
short supply on the gold fields and the miners put the empty tins to
good use. Wire handles were put on some and used as drinking cups or
pots for boiling water and as cooking purposes. They were called at
that time "bouilli cans. Over time this was shortened to "billy can"
and of course to Billy. It was one of the most widely used articles
used in outdoors Australia, popular among the rich and poor alike.
Swagies often had a set of graduated sized billies that fitted one
inside the other. You would never see a swaggie with a new or shiny
billy. It branded him a new chum, so he blackened it as quickly as
possible by boiling it over a smoky fire until it was a respectable
black.
Damper
Most people take it for granted that
Australian damper originated in the bush. According to the historian
Bonwick, the inventor was a First Fleeter named William Bond,
Australia’s first baker, who had his place of business in Pitt Street,
Sydney. This pioneer died in 1838, at the reputed age of one hundred
and ten.
Probably through lack of facilities for making the common bread loaf,
most of the bread he first made was "damper" which was derived from his
custom of ‘damping` the fire - covering it with ashes so as to preserve
the red coals with which to make a blaze in the morning. The bush
damper is still covered in much the same manner. The pioneers had no
self-raising flours, baking powders or yeast. They had many other
substitutes, the most popular was a handful of white wood ash. In the
artesian bore country, bore water was sufficient to make the damper
rise.
Measurements
Bushies seldom had a set of scales and
more often than not had no ruler of any kind. Corn, bran or anything
else was measured with an empty kerosene-tin which was often very
accurate. Timber was measured by the hand. Bushmen knew exactly the
width of their hands, how far they could span and how many steps they
took to a hundred yards.
The Coolgardie Safe
This invention came from the gold fields
of West Australia. Ice was unheard of over there but the miners soon
solved the problem of keeping food cool and fresh. The principle is a
simple one but a very sound one. A tray of water on top of a food
container was connected to a drip tray underneath the container by
strips of hessian. The water kept the hessian strips damp, and the safe
was placed in a current of air. The process of evaporation lowered the
temperature inside the safe. The water had to be kept replaced in the
top tray to maintain the safe cool.
