{"id":2862,"date":"2023-07-31T06:42:42","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T14:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=2862"},"modified":"2023-07-30T01:46:17","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T09:46:17","slug":"food-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2023\/07\/31\/food-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Food memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I was thinking about what I should write this week, I began some chicken soup. Boiling chickens are very hard to come by now, and that sent me back in time to four winters ago, when the bushfires kept me indoors and there was no COVID. I was making chicken soup then, too. The post was for BookView Cafe and when they fixed their website, it came down, alas. So… here it is again. It amuses me that despite my whole life changing over four years, I can still be relied upon to make chicken soup in winter. And I still play with time.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today I\u2019m a bit timewarped. My July and August are basically impossible, so I\u2019m spending a freezing July evening pretending it\u2019s an even more freezing evening in later July or maybe a milder evening in August. I hope to be back to writing a few days before I post later in the year: this means you\u2019ll get timely blogposts then. Everything I write today is influenced by today, even if I try to take my mind into the world of two weeks\u2019 time or a month\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

My hands are so cold I can\u2019t even type properly. The heater is on and I\u2019m making chicken porridge and chicken soup and still my hands are cold. Midwinter is midwinter is always, always midwinter.<\/p>\n

My own chicken soup is my traditional way of getting through midwinter. I bought a cheap boiling chicken (the label proudly proclaims \u2018steamer\u2019 but it knows it\u2019s a chook meant for soup) and I put it in the slow cooker with bone left over from my chicken porridge. That and four litres of water will take me through until this time tomorrow. That\u2019s when I\u2019ll add onion. Saturday I add carrot and take half the soup away. On Sunday I buy parsnip and celery from the market, top up the water by a large amount, and finish the soup off.<\/p>\n

The soup I take off will have other things added to it, including tiny dumplings. I bought the wrappers yesterday. I\u2019ve got some vegetables and sesame oil and other nice things and will shred the chicken currently working valiantly to make the soup. I\u2019ll mix all this together for my dumplings. That\u2019s lunch every day next week.<\/p>\n

The rest of the soup will be a base for dinner. My next six nights\u2019 worth of dinner, though, is that chicken porridge, with the chicken from it and various vegetable dishes on the side. The chicken is already in a bowl with its sauce, and I\u2019ve made some pickled daikon. It\u2019s a substantial meal, but also not too heavy. Full of garlic and warm tastes.<\/p>\n

Just making these things has warmed my fingers up somewhat and I now have a big cup of tea, which makes them all kinds of happy. Happy fingers are a good thing when one has a lot of typing to do. Having most of my food cooked before the week is even better. All I need to worry about is more vegie dishes or salads on Sunday and I will be eating well and staying warm and have every change of meeting my deadlines.<\/p>\n

This is Australia in winter. We\u2019re at the start of the financial year and we\u2019re impossibly busy and we turn to food. So many people are talking seriously about food right now, and getting their tax papers ready.<\/p>\n

During my busy periods, I usually cook from Thursday to Sunday and then spend a few days finishing everything up. This is what happens in many Aussie households. My days are different because my working week is a bit odd and I have little control over when I get to shop, but a lot of my friends cook for the week ahead rather than cook on the day.<\/p>\n

What strikes me is how many Australians cook. We are one of the countries that has farmers\u2019 markets and takes fresh ingredients for granted. This need not have been the case. Our distances our so great and our basic cuisine so English that we could have made quite different food choices.<\/p>\n

Not everyone cooks here, but those who don\u2019t can be very apologetic. At functions where we \u2018bring a plate\u2019 those who bring a plate of their home cooking are seen as doing the right thing and those who\u2019ve picked something up on the way are not bad people so much as people we look at and hope that this means they were busy rather than that they can\u2019t cook.<\/p>\n

I once went to a dinner party where someone had ordered the food in. For casual eating we all do that. We love our food, so we love many kinds of food, so it\u2019s fine to order in for casual eating, but not for formal dinners. The host and hostess didn\u2019t mention what they\u2019d done and everyone was happy for the food was delicious.<\/p>\n

The trouble our hosts faced that night is that we all ask questions about food. \u201cWhat\u2019s in this?\u201d and \u201cHow do make that?\u201d MasterChef is one of Australia\u2019s favourite TV programs. I was the first person to cause a problem, for our hosts had no idea if a dish had nuts and I have a severe allergy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTry it and see,\u201d suggested the host.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow far is the hospital?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I won\u2019t, today. It looks good, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few minutes later the person opposite me said, \u201cThis dessert is terrific. Can you share the recipe?\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole table was silent. I looked at the person asking. They had worked out that the food was not home made and that there was a recipe. Their child also had a peanut allergy (we\u2019d chatted about it) and they were making a point\u2026 politely.<\/p>\n

That was years ago, people are more careful about allergies. I get many fewer dinner invitations because a very few people prefer to avoid the whole issue, which is a funny cultural shift.<\/p>\n

The other funny cultural shift is how the tendency for those with income to eat out or send for a home delivery or buy premade food from the supermarket make sense of US movies for us. I\u2019ve noticed that the recipes shared on local fora are more often basic recipes, too, because not as may people know how to cook.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Still, a large percentage of Aussies cook. This still informs our foodways. I am not the only one cooking reassuring food this week to get through midwinter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I was thinking about what I should write this week, I began some chicken soup. Boiling chickens are very hard to come by now, and that sent me back in time to four winters ago, when the bushfires kept me indoors and there was no COVID. I was making chicken soup then, too. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,406,636,56,270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid-life","category-food","category-life","category-life-experiences","category-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2863,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions\/2863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}