The marie biscuit

Last week when I went to meet our extraordinarily hospitable colleagues at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town, they gave me morning tea—proper tea out of a pot, sitting down at a table, with cups and saucers, and a generous plate of marie biscuits (rhymes with starry). I don’t think I’ve seen a marie biscuit since early childhood, and I immediately thought of Gran in Myamyn Street. It was quite eerie: the canonical key pattern around the edge; the lettering in the middle, “MARIE”; the pale colour; the dense composition, not too hard but definitely not crumbly; the comforting, non-assertive ur-biscuit flavor—all these seemed so familiar, so vividly the same. My own little madeleine moment. There are many remarkable things about the South African National Gallery, but my delightful reunion with the marie biscuit was a special bonus.

According to various sources, the marie biscuit was invented in London in 1874 by the firm of Peek Frean & Co. to commemorate the marriage of Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to H.I.&R.H. the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia—and by that neat set of circumstances gained traction throughout the Empire. Peek Freans had earlier achieved success with their garibaldi biscuit (1861), but as far as I can recall only the marie was ever a middle-class morning-tea staple in the suburbs of Melbourne. Prior to my visit to Cape Town I was not aware that it enjoyed the same degree of prominence in South Africa—so I imagine the marie found its way onto the bridge tables of Hong Kong, the verandahs of Candy, Peshawar, and Nairobi, and I daresay into the better tea rooms of Halifax and Christchurch also. Splendid.

According to the South Australian Register (Saturday, November 22, 1919), “The Prices Regulation Commission on Friday approved tentatively of an increase of ½d. per lb. in the price of bush, coffee, and marie biscuits. The new prices are 7d., 9d., and 9½d. per lb. respectively, with transport added for the country districts. A further investigation will be made by the commission at a later date.” How sensible, and what better indication than this of the lasting importance of the marie biscuit (the costliest of the three) as a binding agent, both gastric and imperial.

Mrs. Jones or M. Galland?

Upon further reflection overnight, it seems to me that the lamington could easily have been invented, along with other “dainties,” by Lord and Lady Lamington’s sometime chef de cuisine Mrs. Jones (who, as we have seen, was apparently still en poste in August 1899), or else by her successor, the Frenchman Armand Galland, whom they poached from Admiral Pearson after 1898. If, as seems to be the general consensus of opinion, we accept the latter view, some clarifying flecks of detail emerge from the brief obituary for Mrs. Cladie Galland, which appeared in the Brisbane Courier-Mail on Saturday June 23, 1934, a notice that bleakly adheres to the bad old habit of talking almost entirely about the subject’s late husband (who died in September 1923 and is buried in the South Brisbane cemetery), and hardly at all about the lady herself: “Mrs. Cladie Galland, who died in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital last night, was the widow of the late Mr. Armand Galland, well-known in Brisbane as a chef and wine merchant. Mrs. Galland was born in France 68 years ago, and came to Australia in 1897[–98] with her husband, who was then chef to [Rear-]Admiral [Hugo Lewis] Pearson [Commander-in-Chief of the Australian station], in the Royal Arthur [the “Australian” flagship {above}]. Mr. Galland afterwards became chef to Lord Lamington, Governor of Queensland, but later founded the wine business in Melbourne Street, South Brisbane, at present conducted by his son, Mr. Marcel Galland. During the visit of the present King [George V], then Duke of [Cornwall and] York, to Australia [to open the Federal Parliament in Melbourne, May 1901], Mr. Armand Galland acted as his chef, and went to New Zealand with the Royal party. Mr. Galland also acted as chef for the Prince of Wales during his visit to Queensland [in July 1920]. Mrs. Galland leaves one son, Mr. Marcel Galland.” What the Courier-Mail does not mention is that after the departure of Lord and Lady Lamington in 1901 and M. Galland decided to go freelance—“MONSIEUR Armand Galland (late Chef de Cuisine to his Excellency Lord Lamington) is open for Engagement to do Luncheon, Afternoon Tea, or Dinner Parties, in private houses. Address, 137 George-street, City” (Brisbane Courier, Tuesday, July 23, 1901, N.B. no mention of any exciting lamington speciality). Ultimately switching to the wine and spirits business in Melbourne Street, M. Galland was some years later (in August 1906) convicted of Sunday trading in the South Brisbane Police Court, and fined £2, with 4s 6d costs. This presumably reflected a degree of Gallic contempt for the local licensing laws. If M. Galland had in fact invented the lamington, or claimed credit for it, it is hard to imagine that hugely important detail being omitted from his widow’s obituary, or any ambitious post-Government House advertorial. In 1902 we find him serving as an examiner in cookery at the Technical College (“late chef de cuisine to his Excellency”). In July 1906 we find him catering for the Children’s Hospital Benefit Euchre party in the Protestant Hall, and between 1907 and 1909 he evidently enjoyed a cosy relationship with Rex stoves: “In connection with the late Austral Festival [in Toowoomba] it is announced that Monsieur Galland, adjudicator for the cookery competition, expressed himself highly delighted with the Rex stove used by the competitors” (Brisbane Courier, Saturday, November 20, 1909, cfr. Saturday, November 16, 1907). Perhaps M. Galland regarded the lamington as beneath his dignity. Certainly we need to know more about the relatively unsung Mrs. Jones.

Further Lamington

The domestic arrangements of Lord and Lady Lamington (above, with their pet sulphur-crested cockatoos) at Old Government House in Brisbane were mentioned often in the local press, and although their chef de cuisine was in August 1899 explicitly identified as “Mrs. Jones,” the picture is less clear a little more than twelve months earlier when on Saturday, July 30, 1898, the Queenslander, referring to the first vice-regal ball of that season, reported: “The whole of the supper provisioning was the work of the Government House chef and his assistants [my italics, presumably referring to M. Armand Galland]. The following menu du bal will no doubt prove interesting:— ‘Government House, Brisbane. Menu du Bal. 20 Juillet 1898. Bouchées aux huitres. Mayonnaise de poisson. Petits pates de volailles. Côtelettes d’agneau à la russe. Cailles à la St. Hubert. Galantine de dinde truffée. Poulets découpés au jambon. Petites timbales de foie gras en aspic. Gelée [de] macédoine. Charlottes russes. Gelée au Champagne. Crèmes bavaroises. Glaces assorties. Gâteaux varies. Gauffrettes. Meringues Chantilly.’” Interesting, indeed, for its ambition and flamboyance, although I do wonder if an early iteration of the canonical “lamington cake” found its way into those gâteaux varies, a tactful nod towards His Excellency’s comparatively recent expedition to British New Guinea, during which the enormous potential for cocoanut plantations was frequently noted, despite certain challenges presented by inhospitable jungle terrain and the excessively tropical climate, unsuitable for ladies.

The Lamington again

I have lately heard from a kind reader in Brisbane, Kerry Raymond, who with exquisite tact provides valuable new information about the Edwardian and vice-regal origins of the lamington, that staple of the Australian afternoon tea table. With her permission, I am delighted to provide particulars.

The earliest reference to the lamington, roughly coinciding with the relinquishment of the Government of Queensland by Lord Lamington, and his departure with Lady Lamington and their children from Brisbane on June 20, 1901, comes in the women’s section of the Queenslander the following December 14, where “Native Born” inquires: “Have not heard of a recipe for ‘Lamington cake.’ Can you give some clue to the appearance and ingredients of the cake?”

This cri de coeur suggests that by the end of 1901 word of the discovery had spread some considerable distance and generated much interest, although the delicacy had evidently not been sampled or even much seen outside Old Government House, where Lord and Lady Lamington’s chef de cuisine, M. Armand Galland, presided over the catering arrangements—although I see that one account of the second vice-regal ball of the season that was given by the Lamingtons in August 1899 explicitly mentions that “all the dainties so lavishly provided for the supper were prepared under the supervision of Government House chef de cuisine Mrs. Jones,” so I am not quite sure where this leaves us.

Anyhow, after the hiatus of Christmas and the New Year, on January 4, 1902, so prompted by “Native Born,” the Queenslander furnished the following recipe: “Lamington Cake (from a Subscriber). The weight of two eggs in butter, sugar, and flour, two eggs, half-teaspoonful of baking powder. Beat the butter to a cream, add the sugar and yolks of eggs, one by one, then the whites beaten stiff, lastly add gradually flour and baking powder. Bake in a moderate oven. When cold cut the cake like a sandwich and put the white mixture between, then cut into small pieces and cover on all sides with the chocolate mixture. Dip the cakes into grated cocoanut and put in a cool place. The Mixture.—2 oz. butter, 6 oz. icing sugar, beat to a cream, and divide equally in two basins, and to one half add one and a half teaspoonful cocoa (to be had in small tins) dissolved in three teaspoons boiling water. Beat well.”

There is a commonsense air to these instructions that points to a colonial mastermind, and not so much to the specialist patissier temporarily transplanted to the tropics, even one searching for new and exciting, even flamboyant uses for grated coconut, so if pressed I would hazard a guess that the canonical lamington (with filling) was the brainchild of Mrs. Jones and perhaps not M. Galland. It seems certain, meanwhile, that unlike the pavlova, New Zealand’s premier cultural export, the lamington is a bona fide Australian discovery, now satisfactorily documented to not later than 1901, the year of Federation.

The Empire Christmas Pudding

Princess Marie Louise was probably not aware that by so enthusiastically recommending the exciting concept of an “Empire” pudding at the Food and Cookery Fair at Olympia in November 1926, she was getting herself mixed up in a sticky political issue. The Fair was in any case a grand event, tied from the outset to imperial trade—in tough competition with California, Florida, Mexico, and Central and South America. According to a carefully worded advertorial placed in the Australian press, the fair also addressed (inter alia) “the Decline of Cookery”:

Master chefs from all parts of the world exhibited the products of their art at the cookery exhibition—the greatest ever held—opened at New Hall, Olympia, Kensington, W., last month. There were dishes by soldiers, sailors, artisans, hospital workers, domestic cooks, and Boy Scouts. An exact replica of the Prince of Wales’ dinner to V.C.’s in the House of Lords last November was one of the chief exhibits. Mr. R. C. Vaughan, caterer to the House of Lords, who arranged the original dinner, and Maître A. C. Juriens, who cooked it, made the preparations. Mr. Vaughan, interviewed by a “Daily Mail” reporter, said:—“Cookery has never reached a higher stage of artistry before—that is, professional cookery. The cooking of our housewives and young women, however, is of a very different order. There is hardly a girl to-day who knows how to fry a chop. They are too busy drinking cocktails, driving motor-cars, and playing golf to learn how to cook. So many young people live in service flats, dining in restaurants, that cookery in the home is a thing of the past. (Argus, March 8, 1930, p. 11 S[upplement].)

The aggressive marketing efforts of Australia House in respect of the dried fruit growers of the Riverina were occasionally at odds with the larger concerns of the Empire Marketing Board, however they converged on this occasion at Olympia, when the idea of an imperial pudding seemed to make good sense. At short notice the Board engaged the advertising firm of F. H. Benson, Ltd., to place the following advertisement for a fairly impressionistic “Empire” pudding in time for Christmas:

Take 1 breakfastcup full of each of the following eight ingredients: Canadian flour, Australian or South African raisins, Australian sultanas, Australian currants, chopped mixed peel, English or Scottish beef suet, breadcrumbs. Also 1 English cooking apple, 4 to 6 eggs (Home laid), 1 teaspoonful pudding spice (Indian), 1 wineglass Jamaica rum, sufficient milk to mix, grated rind and juice of one lemon. One English 3d bit for luck! Mix well. Place in greased basin. Cover with greaseproof paper: tie on cloth and steam or boil 6 to 8 hours. Here you have a quite simple recipe. It will make as delicious a plum pudding as you have ever tasted. And you will enjoy it all the more if you remember that by using Empire fruit to make it you will give a helping hand to the thousands of British Overseas—most of them ex-Service men and their families—by whom that fruit is grown. Buy Empire Goods. Ask—is it British?

The problem was that the produce of New Zealand, and that of numerous crown colonies were missing from the recipe, and feelings were duly hurt. Therefore early in 1927 it became necessary for drastic remedial action, extending to the highest echelons of the government. This and various other aspects of the story have been taken up recently by Kaori O’Connor in her long article “The King’s Christmas Pudding: Globalization, Recipes, and the Commodities of Empire” (Journal of Global History, Vol. 4, 2009, pp. 127–155). 

Retrieving the matter from Bensons, and securing the co-operation of Buckingham Palace, towards the end of the summer the Empire Marketing Board was in the happy position of being able to issue the following, carefully revised edict:

The King’s Chef, Mr. [André] Cédard, with Their Majesties’ gracious consent, has supplied to the Empire Marketing Board the following recipe for An Empire Christmas Pudding:

5 lbs. of currants—AUSTRALIA; 5 lbs. of sultanas—AUSTRALIA; 5 lbs. of stoned raisins—SOUTH AFRICA; 1½ lbs. of minced apple—CANADA; 5 lbs. of bread crumbs—UNITED KINGDOM; 5 lbs. of beef suet—NEW ZEALAND; 2 lbs. of cut candied peel—SOUTH AFRICA; 2½ lbs. of flour—UNITED KINGDOM; 2½ lbs. of demarara sugar—WEST INDIES; 20 eggs—IRISH FREE STATE; 2 ozs. ground cinnamon—CEYLON; 1½ ozs. ground cloves—ZANZIBAR; 1½ ozs. ground nutmegs—STRAITS SETTLEMENTS; 1 teaspoonful pudding spice—INDIA; 1 gill brandy—CYPRUS; 2 gills rum—JAMAICA; 2 quarts old beer—ENGLAND.

No doubt Princess Marie Louise was among the forty or so guests who tucked in at Sandringham on December 25, but naturally the vast size of the royal pudding so configured in due course caused a headache for the Board, to whom tens of thousands of patriotic students of domestic economy applied for a more manageable, and incidentally less costly version of M. Cédard’s flamboyant recipe—which, after all, required a basin the size of a bathtub; semi-industrial equipment for mixing, a pudding cloth almost as big as a sail, and upwards of twenty-four hours of volcanic cooking. Meanwhile questions of taste (Cypriot brandy?) and sensitivities arising from disproportionate representation, such as for example only a teaspoonful of allspice sought from the Indian Empire, were thankfully offset by sectarian considerations and the tropical climate: Christmas puddings were at this date not high on the agenda of Gandhi, Nehru, or Congress.

In any event, the Australian recipe that appealed so much to Princess Marie Louise at Olympia in November 1926 remains fugitive, but I am—as always—optimistic.

Even More Pavlova

I seem to be doing New Zealand’s work of cultural differentiation from Australia for her. Yesterday I found that The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary, edited by Tony Deverson and Graeme Kennedy for the New Zealand Dictionary Centre (2005) has finally hit the shelves of the Starr Main Reference Room in the Sterling Memorial Library here at Yale. However, I was shocked to find that they ascribe pavlova, n. (p. 832) simply to “orig. NZ & Aust.” I feel strongly that this is technically incorrect. My own researches have clearly demonstrated that the canonical pavlova was named in New Zealand, and co-opted soon afterwards by the envious Depression-era housewives of Australia. In her exhaustive The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand’s Culinary History, Helen Leach has evidently gone into same the question in far more exhaustive detail, but thankfully she appears to concur. I have not yet had an opportunity to read her book, but I am assured that my copy is on its way from A1 Books in the village of Westham in East Sussex. In due course, therefore, I should say that unless we uncover unequivocal Australian evidence in the form of some pre-1929 smoking meringue “orig. NZ & Aust” should definitely read “orig. NZ,” punkt, point, basta così. Meanwhile, pavlova, n., the brave promotional gambit of Davis Gelatine (a rather sordid jelly concocted with inter alia milk and orange juice), and pavlova, n., the American ice-cream (c. 1926) of which I can find no trace at all, evidently require separate definitions. None of which helps us to solve the problem of pavlova, adj., the mysterious color quite aggressively marketed by at least a handful of Melbourne department stores between 1926 and 1928.

The Pavlova again

A small but intriguing coda to my exhaustive researches into the question of the origins of the canonical pavlova, New Zealand’s premier cultural export, has last evening emerged from a close reading of Australian Newspapers beta.

Coinciding with the first of Anna Matveyevna Pavlova’s two sensational Australian tours for J. C. Williamson, in 1926 the Melbourne retailers, led by Georges, hitched their caboose to the prima ballerina’s publicity locomotive. In an advertisement for their winter sale that appeared in the Argus on May 19 (p. 15), it was noted that suits and frocks came in “jade, wine, cocoa, Pavlova, bois de rose, and cinnamon.”

With characteristic competitiveness Myer’s chimed in on June 12 (p. 9) with Saxony frocking in “bracken, bois de rose, Pavlova, almond, bottle, palm green, and parma violet”; bordered frockings in “Sahara, bracken, amethyst, Pavlova, palm green, nut brown, bottle, bois de rose, nigger, and rust”; and English velours in “wine, Burgundy, plum, Pavlova, saxe, Princess blue, bottle, navy, and black.” 

At around this date the ugly term “nigger” was also applied to the color of shoes and gloves sold by Debenham and Freebody in London, but that is, of course, irrelevant. What is so interesting, however, is that among the more conventional prompts, one finds here (so insistently capitalized) a loud tribute to the ballerina exclusively in terms of color, as well as, of course, a deep bow to the arrival on April 21 of Princess Elizabeth of York, a powerful reminder that The Queen was hugely famous from birth.

Gradually filtering “down,” on June 22 we find the following advertisement placed by the Charles M. Read Stores of Chapel Street, Prahran, for their winter sale, (“having purchased the entire stocks of Messrs. Wallace and Shorter Pty. Ltd., in voluntary liquidation, from Messrs. Wilson, Rattray and Danby, Public Accountants, 41 Queen Street”), namely a “Wholesale Slaughter of Woollen Dress Goods” consisting of Kasha suitings “in diagonal stripe effects of Pavlova, Dutch blue, bottle, russet, and new red,” and tubular Jersey cloth in “rose, rosewood, santal, bois de rose, Pavlova, deep mauve, cinnamon, cocoa, rose, beige, mole, grey, new green, Persian, beaum (wine) [sic: beaune], spring, vert de gris (two shades), Elizabeth blue, sky, light tan, wine, full brown, navy, also black and cream.” 

Among Melbourne retailers it seems only Read’s of Chapel Street gamely persisted in this vein. On September 20 (p. 15) their after-stocktaking sale featured French colored chiffon taffeta in “pervanche [sic: pervenche, i.e. periwinkle blue], bois de rose, plum, navy, white, brown, raisin, champagne, wine, mulberry, nattier, vieux rose saxe, rose, beige, chardron, parma, Pavlova, cocoa, and black”; inch crepe de chine in “santal, rosewood, rose, beige, chardron, cocoa, parma, mulberry, burgundy, Pavlova, mauve, bois de rose, vert de gris, navy; also ivory and black”; all-wool Jersey frocks in “saxe, reseda, nude, putty, Pavlova, wine, bottle, fuchsia, and fawn,” and all-wool Jersey jumpers in “red, reseda, jade, bois de rose, cardinal, saxe, fawn, putty, grey, and Pavlova.” 

Read’s of Chapel Street were still pursuing the same strategy in the Argus on January 6, 1927 (p. 11), where the full-page advertisement for their bumper annual half-yearly sale was headed “Silks at Remarkable Sale Prices”:

French crepe de chine, 6/11 Yd. 38–40 in. wide French Crepe de Chine, a good heavy weight All-silk Cloth, in shades of helio[trope]., grey, nigger, salmon, petunia, vert de gris, lettuce, lemon, Pavlova, apricot, champagne, burgundy, fuchsia, reseda. Usual price 10/13; SALE PRICE, 6/11 yard.

It is hard to reconstruct with any degree of precision the color of “Pavlova,” except by a tedious process of elimination. However, I earnestly hope that an answer may yet reside in the vast body of critical comment that accompanied the ballerina’s Australian engagements. Certainly it was not ivory, white, or any other vaguely predictable (or even unpredictable) color that one might readily associate with an on-stage prima ballerina, nor by the insistent jostling around Pavlova (the color) of various pinks, mauves, greens and pale blues does Pavlova appear to stray in any of those directions. We may well be dealing with some sort of rich gold or warm, sunny, buttery yellow.

In any case this hitherto forgotten meaning of “Pavlova” is yet to make it into the Australian National Dictionary, nor even the Oxford English Dictionary and I must speak to the editors about that careless omission. The fact that the color of Pavlova has since vanished into the ether of forgotten fashion (only to be supplanted by a meringue “cake” with New Zealand provenance) goes some distance towards explaining why it is not there, however we must as a nation aim for complete coverage of our linguistic heritage.

Of course, there is the issue of letting sleeping dogs lie, because once you start down this path only insanity awaits, because inevitable questions arise as to what on earth chardron, nattier, parma, and Sahara actually looked like. “Saxe” clearly relates to Dresden china, which, given their broad palette does not help very much, but at least we may assume “bottle” was green.

Rock Cakes

Nan (q.v.) took her special recipe for rock cakes to her grave, or, to be more accurate, the Springvale crematorium. However, reconstructing the general approach from memory, it must have gone something like this:

Heat your oven to 340 degrees Fahrenheit. Rub 4 oz of butter into 8 oz of self-raising flour with the tips of your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Add 4 oz of sugar, ½ cup of sultanas, ¼ teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg, and maybe some other spices, to taste, allspice perhaps?, and mix them in thoroughly.

Make a little hollow in the middle, and add 1 egg, lightly beaten, and 3 tablespoons of milk. Gently mix all this into a good dough.

Place heaped dessert-spoonfuls of this promising concoction in lumps on a greased baking sheet, allowing some room for spreading, then bake for 10 minutes, or until the rock cakes are very lightly browned.

Allow to cool, make a pot of tea, then devour.

Now, something tells me that there was a certain astringency, a nip in the aftertaste, that suggests that Nan may have used baking soda, but I cannot be sure.

As well, this illustration is all wrong, because Nan never permitted her rock cakes to assume more than the slightest hint of brownness. Her rock cakes, in other words, were essentially blond, and smoother in texture, so the dough was therefore probably a few notches higher on the sloppiness scale.

Although the basic features are certainly correct, this recipe has Tasmanian provenance, and is therefore not entirely reliable.

Violet Crumble

Violet Crumble is a popular Australian delicacy, now manufactured by Nestlé at their Campbellfield premises near Melbourne. It is composed of a crunchy, crumbly, sugary, synthetic approximation of honeycomb, a substance, moreover, that is coated in chocolate.

Violet Crumble was invented in 1913 by Abel Hoadley (1844–1918), following the incorporation in the state of Victoria of Hoadley’s Chocolates Ltd.

Previously, Mr. Hoadley owned and operated the Rising Sun Preserving Works, which gradually spread its mantle over a highly diversified jam, jelly, preserved fruit, candied peel, sauce, confectionery, cocoa, vinegar, and chocolate business.

The decision to concentrate on chocolate was shrewd, and Hoadley’s Chocolates’ first assortment was sold in a purple box decorated with violets, a tribute to his wife’s favorite flower, once in happier times so venerated, but now sadly, surprisingly, and almost universally under-appreciated.

As usual, Serge Lutens seems to have grasped the significance of this yawning aesthetic void, and the recent launch of his insolent, sensual Bois de Violette may help to provide a remedy. According to an informed source:

Bois de Violette is the most luxurious violet fragrance that we have ever encountered...This violet is not a demure Victorian beauty. It is a sultry enchantress, a forest nymph, a wild and dangerous seductress. Bois de Violette is also one of the softest and most feminine woody scents: the subtly candied cedar note here is buttery and supple, an enveloping, comforting note whose gentleness provides a charming balance to the come-hither aroma of violets. One of the greatest fragrances of all time, a modern masterpiece.

In any case, Hoadley’s Chocolates’ original assortment contained an amusing piece of complementary honeycomb, which proved so popular that Mr. Hoadley decided to produce an individual honeycomb bar.

Because the pieces of honeycomb tended to stick together, it was decided to dip them in chocolate, to keep them separate, dry, and crunchy.

At first Mr. Hoadley intended to call his new bar “Crumble®” but was advised by an ancient firm of Melbourne solicitors that, for reasons that are still unclear, it would not be possible to protect that name as a registered trademark. Thinking of Mrs. Hoadley (Susannah Ann née Barrett), therefore, he registered “Violet Crumble®.”

Thus yet another Australasian cultural landmark was created.

It was on the night of the sophisticated Junior Common Room cocktail party at Trinity College, Parkville, in 1983, whilst pausing for refreshment in Jeffrey Sheather’s comfortable Behan sitting-room, that, dressed as Alice in Wonderland, and accompanied by Michael Pickering, who was channeling Esther Williams, my dear friend Clare Florence, a refugee from Brisbane, clearly inspired by free association, first applied to me the charming nickname “Uncle Crumble,” now often abbreviated to “Crumble,” a bouquet-toss of rare affection, which I shall always prize.

Clare is now an attorney, and, when not engaging in Kissinger-level shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East and elsewhere, together with their ever-growing, highly skilled domestic staff, she, her husband Bill Condie, and their son Jack now reside in Bangkok.

The Tim Tam

The Tim Tam is a delicious chocolate biscuit (which means cookie) that is manufactured by Arnott’s Biscuits Ltd., of 11 George Street, Homebush, New South Wales. Approximately 35 million packets of Tim Tams are sold in Australia every year.

Tim Tams are composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a slightly aerated chocolate-cream filling, and coated in a thin layer of chocolate that carries a hint of buttery caramel.

The active ingredients are a closely guarded commercial secret, but evidently they include milk solids, cocoa, salt, and traces of peanut, other nuts, seeds, and egg. Australian and New Zealand laws also require the disclosure of the following colors: E102, E110, E129, E133, E150; the raising agent E500; the emulsifier E322 (soy), and what is somewhat elusively described as “flavoring.”

The Tim Tam finally commenced production in 1964. It was named after the eponymous thoroughbred three year-old bay colt who in 1958 at Churchill Downs in Louisville won the Kentucky Derby by half a length:

Tim Tam by Tom Fool out of Two Lea was bred by Lucille, Mrs. Eugene Lawrence Markey, Jr., the widow of Warren Wright, Sr., heir to the Calumet Baking Powder Company fortune, who left her his famous stud, Calumet Farm at Lexington, Ky. The legendary Ismael Milo Valenzuala had the mount (above).

According to Mrs. Markey, the four-legged Tim Tam was named after an intimate friend of her second husband, the much-decorated Rear Admiral “Gene” Markey. The admiral, originally a Mississippian, was also a successful author, Hollywood film producer, and screenwriter. Lucille Parker Wright Markey was his fourth wife; the Admiral was previously married to Joan Bennett, Hedy Lamarr, and Myrna Loy.

As a member of the British aristocracy, “Tim Tam,” the Admiral’s shadowy friend, apparently wished to preserve his anonymity. However, an indiscreet secretary at Calumet Farm later revealed that Tim Tam was more likely to have been named after Timmy, Mrs. Markey’s Yorkshire terrier.

In any event, the well-connected Australian biscuit mogul, Ross Arnott, who witnessed the running of the 1958 Kentucky Derby, thought that Tim Tam was the perfect name for his new chocolate biscuit, but research and development seems to have taken nearly six more years.

For some reason Hawaii is the only state in which genuine Arnott’s Tim Tams are now sold. They may be found at R. Field Wine Co. at 1460 S. Beretania; Don Quijote at 801 Kaheka; various Long’s Drug Stores, and other outlets in downtown Honolulu.

In the early to mid-1990s Arnott’s Biscuits Ltd. became yet another limping Australian antelope on the edge of the globalization herd, and were in 1997 most regrettably bagged by The Campbell’s Soup Company Inc., of which they remain a wholly owned subsidiary. O tempora, O mores.

The Pie Floater

A “pie floater” is a traditional dish served at pie carts in Adelaide, and elsewhere in South Australia, the purpose of which is to provide sustenance to people attending Australian Rules football matches, and other sporting fixtures in really appalling weather.

The pie floater consists of a traditional, demotic, commercially manufactured Australian meat pie, deposited upside down in a bowl of thick pea soup, with a generous dollop of tomato sauce (ketchup) on top. Salt and pepper, and/or mint sauce may be added to taste.

To the extent that it is not a dish so much as a dare that got out of hand, the pie floater may regarded as a very distant Commonwealth cousin of the Québecois poutine:

This sobering concoction consists of a mound of French fried potatoes, sprinkled with fresh cheese curds, and sometimes other starchy ingredients as well. The whole is then smothered with brown gravy.

The main justification for poutine is the severe Canadian winter, but there are no comparable grounds for seriously defending the existence of the pie floater, even though Anthony Bourdain, Joe Cocker, and Billy Connolly are said to be fond of it.

A well-known version of the pie floater, popular with tourists, cashiered sailors, indigents, hoodlums, tarts, medical students, and off-duty policemen may be purchased from Harry’s Café de Wheels, a pie cart long situated near the wharves at Woolloomooloo in Sydney, but Adelaide remains the psychic epicenter of this odd culinary experiment.

In 2003 the National Trust of Australia saw fit to designate the pie floater as a South Australian heritage “icon.”

The Neenish Tart

The neenish tart is an indigenous, commercially manufactured Australian delicacy consisting of a small pastry cup with, first, a dollop of raspberry or strawberry jam; a filling of sweet cream, mock cream, or occasionally custard, and sealed on top with two kinds of icing in equal halves, one of which is generally chocolate, the other usually pale pink or white.

The neenish tart was apparently invented by Mrs. Ruby Neenish in Grong Grong, near Narrandera in the Riverina district of southern New South Wales, when in 1913 she ran out of cocoa.

The earliest printed recipe for a neenish tart occurs in Miss Lucy Drake’s expedient Home Cookery, which was first published in 1929.

The catalogue of the otherwise impeccable National Library of Australia in Canberra does not yet contain a dedicated subject reference to “neenish tart,” a strange omission.

Satisfactorily, however, the subject heading “tart” does yield The Life of Quong Tart, or, How a Foreigner Succeeded in a British Community, compiled and edited by Margaret, Mrs. Quong Tart, which was published semi-privately in Sydney in 1911 by W. M. Maclardy.

Photograph: Jennifer Whitehead, London.

The Lamington

The lamington is a small, cube-shaped sponge or butter cake, covered in thin chocolate, and dusted with dessicated coconut. It is sometimes prepared with a layer of cream and/or strawberry jam between two halves of cake, but this elaboration is not canonical, and, along with other dangerous excesses, seems likely to have originated in Queensland.

According to the Australian National Dictionary, the earliest reference to the lamington occurs in a cookery book published privately in 1909 for the Ladies’ Working Guild at Holy Trinity Church of England in Port Melbourne. The recipe specifies “‘icing’ for [a ‘Lamington cake’]: ¼ lb. butter and 1 cup icing sugar, beaten to a cream; 2 tablespoons of cocoa, mixed with 2 tablespoons boiling water.” This is then “put over” the lamington.

The Port Melbourne lamington was obviously a whole cake, not divided into orthodox cubes, and curiously there is no mention of dessicated coconut. However, The Schauer Cookery Book provides a nearly identical recipe and, fortunately, concludes: “spread, when cold, with chocolate icing, and sprinkle with coconut” (Brisbane: Edwards, Dunlop, 1909).

By 1912, in the second edition of their Kookaburra Cookery Book, the Lady Victoria Buxton Girls’ Club in Adelaide clearly envisioned individual cakes ingeniously sculpted into cubes: “when [the cake] is cold, cut into squares [sic] and ice.”

The lamington is said to have been named after Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, second Baron Lamington, G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E. (1860–1940), who was Governor of Queensland from 1895 to 1901, but there is some confusion on this point, because the etymology (accepted without question by Larousse Gastronomique) was almost certainly concocted post hoc by John Hepworth as recently as 1977, when his garrulous article on the topic appeared in Nation Review.

In his The Australian Language (Sydney: Currawong Press, 1978), Sidney J. Baker mentioned that a lamington was actually a Homburg hat, as worn by Lord Lamington. Elsewhere Baker mentioned the lamington, i.e. the cake, but conspicuously failed to connect it with the distinguished Old Etonian and sometime political secretary to Lord Salisbury. It may be that the name of the lamington was suggested by the close resemblance between the texture of the cake and that of Lord Lamington’s trademark Homburg, which was raffishly furry.

Though inadequately documented, this vice-regal connection, mediated by headgear, seems far more plausible than the bizarre theory, first mooted in the Bulletin in 1981, according to which the lamington was “named after the man who broke the world record for running from Sydney to Perth carrying a dog.”

The lamington is traditionally served for afternoon tea, and, together with the dazzling chicken sandwiches once served in the Regency Room at George and George, i.e. Georges (R.I.P.), constitutes an enduring legacy of Edwardian taste. The correct dimensions of the lamington, these days so often vulgarly exceeded, are 2 ½ in.³

Unlike the Georges’ chicken sandwiches, the lamington has become a not particularly endangered portion of the national estate. Friday, July 21, 2006, was designated National Lamington Day, and, more recently, the National Trust of Queensland listed the lamington as an “icon.”

In common with the pavlova, however, there is some evidence to suggest that the cake, if not the name, originated in New Zealand.

The Pavlova

It is a painful truth, but one which must be faced up to, that the pavlova, that iconic Australian dessert, a staple since the 1930s, was actually invented in New Zealand.

The pavlova was named in honor of the great Russian ballerina Anna Matveyevna Pavlova (1885–1931), who toured Australia and New Zealand for J. C. Williamson in 1926 (March to August), when Robert Helpmann (aged seventeen) was among the local cast of supernumeraries.

Not surprisingly, Pavlova’s visit to New Zealand was described as “the chief event of 1926,” and according to the ballerina’s biographer, Keith Money, the pavlova was devised by the head chef at a hotel in Wellington, the nation’s windy capital, which dangles winningly from the southern tip of the North Island.

Anna Pavlova made a return visit to Australia on her last world tour in 1929 (March to July), but on that occasion she did not go back to New Zealand.

Now, the earliest printed reference to a dessert called “pavlova” comes in a cookery infomercial booklet, Davis Dainty Dishes, published for Davis Gelatine New Zealand Pty. Ltd., of Christchurch (est. 1913). The Oxford English Dictionary and the Australian National Dictionary agree on this point.

However, this Davis recipe is not for a meringue-based dessert, the canonical pavlova, but for a type of jelly—consisting of a cup and a half of hot water, a cup of orange juice, half a cup of milk, three dessert spoons of Davis gelatine, six of sugar, and different sorts of artificial coloring, combined and set in a mould. This same recipe, a red herring as it were, persisted in subsequent Davis Dainty Dishes up to 1937.

However, the second (1927) edition of Terrace Tested Recipes, a collection published by the ladies of Terrace Congregational Church in Wellington, contains an ingenious submission by Mrs. McRae for “meringue cake” that is nearly identical to the classical pavlova, but makes no reference whatsoever to the eponymous ballerina.

Several other New Zealand cookery books from 1926–29 describe similar pavlova-style meringue cakes, while successive editions of Futter’s reckless Home Cookery For New Zealand (1926 and 1929) contain a recipe for “meringue with fruit filling,” which likewise makes no mention of the danseuse.

It was not until the publication of the first edition of Practical Home Cookery: Chats and Recipes, selected by the mysterious “Katrine” (1929), that meringue cake and the name “Pavlova” finally converge. The presence of chopped walnuts worries me, though, suggesting as it does a degree of unbridled experimentation. Larousse Gastronomique gives 1929 as the year of the orthodox pavlova, and they may well be right.

Great confusion has arisen from the 1973 testimony of Mr. Herbert (Bert) Sachse, sometime chef at the Hotel Esplanade in Perth (proprietor: Mrs. Paxton). Mr. Sachse claimed to have invented the pavlova as an afternoon tea delicacy in 1935, an affectionate memento of Anna Pavlova’s 1929 visit to the hotel. He also claimed the recipe he followed was clipped from the Ladies’ Mirror: The Home Journal of New Zealand (April 2, 1935), so one presumes that his working definition of the word “invent” was fairly broad.

Unfortunately none of this helps us, although the weight of evidence suggests that the dish itself was invented in New Zealand well before Pavlova’s arrival, and named for her there no later than 1929. The article about Anna Pavlova by Jane Pritchard in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is unequivocal: The pavlova was both created and named in New Zealand.

Evidently it was co-opted by outrageous Australian housewives during the Great Depression, without adequately acknowledging this, New Zealand’s premier cultural export.