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 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.