Salami
Todays word that came to mind on wakening was ‘salami’.
With my conversion back to white bread from whole-meal, it brought back memories from way back. My mother making sandwiches for my three brothers and one sister going to school in Australia. It was part of the ‘New Country’ that schoolkids did not come home for lunch as schoolkids did and still do back in Holland. Instead they would stay at school and have a lunch made by mothers. Sometimes, but rarely by fathers. My dad never made a single sandwich but did excel in pancakes with golden syrup.
Of course in the heat of summers and in mid flight, the opening of hundreds of lunch boxes simultaneously, created a stench that over the years impregnated the class rooms, the walls and indeed, the whole building. I can walk-by any school today and get an instant re-call of banana sandwiches, spaghetti sandwiches and the essence of any lunch box; Devon with tomato sauce. It is now thought that the Devon sandwich with tomato sauce started school bullying. In England the Devon was called luncheon meat or Spam.
My mother was at her wit’s end trying to find interesting filling for my brothers’ and sister’s sandwiches. Australia was very sunny and very spacious but as far as sandwich fillings, back in the fifties and sixties, it was a dark unforgiving place. I mean, I can still taste the tinned spaghetti with Tom. sauce sandwich. Is it of any wonder that failure followed so many that went to school?
Till the late eighties and at social adult gatherings, it was the pickled gherkin surrounded by Devon or in some rare cases ham, pierced by a toothpick’ that would brake the ice and get things rocketing and moving. Men with beer around the barbeque and the girls in the kitchen. If a man dared to move to the kitchen he was suspected of being a bit of a poofter.
It was left to the genius of Barry Humphries of the Edna Average fame to make this famous quote of someone quietly farting on entering the lift on the ground floor filling up with lawyers of Madigan and Madigan Ltd (solicitors and family lawyers) suffering all the way up to the 26th floor;… “Who opened their lunch box?”
It was some years after that Italian salami, prosciutto and non plastic cheese came to the shelves at David Jones delicatessen, soon followed by olives, real coffee and anchovies. I remember the advertisements on TV ’43 beans of coffee in every Nescafe instant coffee. In the late seventies coffee lounges opened up in Kings Cross and garlic made its entrance. It was a true revolution.
Look at me now.
algernon1 said:
Fortunately we only ever ate Devon rarely, family members with food allergies put paid to that. Cold meat leftovers were more the go for us. Devon is bland.
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vivienne29 said:
Well we all have our own experiences. My sandwiches were rather good – leftover over corned beef minced with the addition of tomato sauce, mashed brains, cold sliced roast lamb and pickles and yes, vegemite and cheese. A slice of homemade chocolate cake and a piece of fruit. Later we had a tuck shop and I had a nice little assorted salad including grated carrot, savoury meat slice – all neatly wrapped up in grease proof paper.
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gerard oosterman said:
Well, a miracle we all survived despite or because of all our sandwiches and caring mothers. Sadly, some kids go to school with packets of chips and a ‘treat’ for lunch.
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vivienne29 said:
I made my daughters very edible sandwiches when in primary school and once a week let them order from the canteen. But hitting high school was different and after a short time I made sure they had a big cooked breakfast and just sent them off with fruit, biscuits and juice. We had to get up earlier to get all done and then to catch school bus. It became a time management thing. Always a nice snack ready when they got home to have before dinner. Growing girls and all that.
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Hung One On said:
Cheese and vegemite, yummy. I agree anything with devon in it would cause mental health issues. Down here they call it fritz.
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vivienne29 said:
Adelaide fritz is forty times tastier and better than any shit devon. They are not the same.
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gerard oosterman said:
Didn’t someone in P. Roth’ Portnoy’s Complaint pull the pudding in his hat while in the dark cinema ? If I remember right, earlier on in the book Devon sandwiches were discussed with sliced liver.
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vivienne29 said:
Growing up in Melbourne I never heard of devon let alone eat it. We always had cold lamb etc. We frequently had Adelaide fritz as rels visited and it was a requirement they bring a whole fritz with them. I adored it. I can get something still very much like it here – made in the Barossa.
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gerard oosterman said:
Indeed. We are now more cosmopolitan than gay Paris or Vienna. Did you see Milo on possum watch? He will sit there all night looking up, making sure the possums don’t come down from the trees. The possums mate and grunt like mad in the trees, another reason for Milo to be miffed. He has been castrated!
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Big M said:
Our Fergus defends the property against errant, rutting possums, too. He can go from a deep sleep, to a full sprint out the doggy door, barking all of the way, in response to any native animal sound, then back inside and asleep in less than two minutes.
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Gez, as you so often do – you’ve tapped a rich vein of food memories. YAY !
My Mom hit the bottom of the sandwich barrel with tomato sandwiches. Dad and I secretly referred to them as “soggy sandwiches”. They were truly a texture and taste nightmare. A hot and dusty Panania Public lunch time ….. oh, God, take me now ! 🙂
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gerard oosterman said:
Emm; Do you remember the Devon Demons at Revesby High. They used to get bullyed by the egg&bacon mob ( Porkers) who used to delight in tormenting many kids from down River Rd which was a poorer neighbourhood.
They used to pull pants from the Devon Demon boy and smear egg all over their privates. A kind of school prefects speciality. The mothers of the Devon sons had great trouble believing their boy’s story when washing their underpants. Sad really.
Of course the Porker’s mob often had money to go and buy richly warm sausage rolls from the tuck shop. The tuck shop was run by mothers with big floppy arms but also with even bigger hearts who sometime used to hand out sausage rolls to the Devon Demons.
There is enough material on school tuck shops alone to fill an entire blog.
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Don’t get me started ! 🙂
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Big M said:
I had different ideas about what to do with salami, this morning, on awakening.
Yes, school lunches, some mums stuck to bread and jam, whilst others were right on the edge with fillings of tinned spaghetti, meats that weren’t devon, and so on. Then, as you point out, the natural progression to entertainment, bits of cheeses wrapped in devon, or other finger foods involving bacon. In our house the progression was towards the use of exotic foods, like avocado in salads, or ‘genuine’ Indian curries of minced beef, celery, onion and curry powder. It took me about twelve years to try curry after I left home!
Nice word order, Gez, hasn’t Australia grown up?
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gerard oosterman said:
Big M;
Keen’s curry powder. Now there is another item ripe for endless ponder and wonder.
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Big M said:
Yes, Keens, no chillies, no exotic spices, just Keens.
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hph said:
Keen’s curry powder and the sultanas. Don’t forget the dried sultanas, Gerard 🙂
Beef Curry served with slightly crunchy rice every Monday evening at the mine mess back in the ’70s … memories now…
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Big M said:
Yes, sultanas, for that exotic touch!
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Hung One On said:
And pineapple pieces
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Big M said:
It goes from bad to worse, Hung, I couldn’t even try curry until my early 30s, now I make proper curries every week!
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hph said:
Yes, that’s right Hung. I used to pick out every sultana or pineapple pieces and pour in half a bottle of chilli sauce. And that that chilli sauce wasn’t even hot ! it was sweet… grrrr
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Hung One On said:
It’s funny though, Mum would make curried sausages and rice and I liked it. I think it was because it was so different to our other meals which were very plain, you know, meat and three veg.
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hph said:
I like curried sausages too, but without any sweetness. What I really like is another dish, Hungarian goulash. Add a couple of drops of Tobasco sauce and – yum yum…
🙂
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Hung One On said:
You like spicy food hph?
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hph said:
I certainly do, Hung. I don’t care much about sweets and desserts. But I can sit down and eat a whole tray of baklava (walnut pistachio filling) with real cream (from cow or sheep milk) and then run like hell for ten hours. 🙂
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algernon1 said:
That’s a Dutch curry isn’t it. A friend of the family (of Dutch Sri Lankan extraction) told the story once of how his future mother in law served that up for him thinking he’d like a curry.
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hph said:
Yes but Keen’s Curry Powder originated from Tasmania…. look at the map 🙂
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sandshoe said:
An improper curry would do, Big M. I don’t mind a curry.
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