Originally published in 1894, Mrs. Rawson's "The Australian Enquiry Book" is an unusual colonial Australian cookery book which mixes culinary skills and recipes with bush lore and farming knowledge, making it a veritable bush living handbook!
With sections on farming and even detailed instructions on how to build a slab hut, including types and amounts of timber as well as the tools required, the book is of interest to both men and women.
The Preface tells us that the motto of the book is "Refer to Me (for Everything)" and a flick through the contents shows that's pretty accurate.
The book was genuinely intended to be a very practical guide "for the cottage, villa, and bush home". It was meant to be used by men as well as women, by the young as well as the old. "The first work of its kind in these colonies", its object was to help people to help themselves. Its author, Mrs Lance Rawson, "a lady of wide Australian experience in town and bush", has included sections on cookery, household hints, fancy work, health and hygiene, as well as general farm management, animal husbandry, gardening, building and decorating, skin curing, and "odd items for the farm".
It is easy to imagine that many a bride relied heavily on this little book with its "General Advice to the Cook", its hundreds of recipes, its guide to home beautification, its rules for management of the sick, and much, much, more. Whether husbands found it just as useful, one doubts. Though good use may have been made of chapters on "Doctoring Stock" and "The Orchard", there is some reason to think that "To Tame The Wildest Horse" and "To Cure A Drunkard" may have contained information somewhat harder to apply!
Today, many readers will find the recipes of greatest interest, but those with an interest in Australian bush lore, bushcraft, off the grid living and sustainability will also find it extremely interesting.
Though the detailed instructions about how to prepare and serve bandicoot, flying fox, wallaby and ibis may now have little appeal, those for the several kinds of tomato sauce, chutney and pickles sound marvellous still. And many of today's cooks will find something of benefit in the sections which deal with scones, biscuits and cakes, and soups.
"The Australian Enquiry Book" is considerably more than an amusing, if somewhat outdated, oddity. It is a very valuable record of everyday life in colonial Australia, and a reminder of our not so-distant heritage. Ropesend Creek Press is to be congratulated on its efforts to keep alive this absorbing link with our past.
Above all, the book is a reminder of how much the times have changed in one hundred and twenty-odd years -- in attitudes as well as in household routines. Gone are the days of wood stove, butter churns, washing boards, home-made soap, starched collars and kerosene lamps.
The interior of this new edition from Ropesend Creek Press is a perfect replica of the original. Page numbering, illustrations, layout, table of contents, index and any footnotes are exactly as they appeared when the original book was published. With this new edition, the book is ready for a new lease of life through a modern readership.
