Author(s): Victoria Heywood

Food

Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons brings together around 500 lost recipes from the Australia of yesterday, gathered from farmhouse attics, dusty archives, long-defunct magazines and newspapers, family bookshelves, private and state collections. Beautifully designed with a nostalgic feel and illustrated with advertisements of the day, it brings to life what we ate when from the days of early settlement, through two World Wars, The Great Depression and days of rationing right up to the heady days of the 1950s when the good housewife reigned supreme. Sprinkled with hilarious advice from the time, Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons pulls some marvellous old recipes out of oblivion. It also details recipes for some dishes that, because of modern tastes and diets, have been deservedly lost. Jottings in the margin explain some of the more esoteric ingredients and suggest modern replacements and equivalents.