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Stirring up the stacks #1: Variety salad in tomato aspic

Wednesday, December 19th, 2018 | Hocken Collections | No Comments

Post cooked up by Kari Wilson-Allan, Collections Assistant, Archives

Food. We all need it, and many of us love it. We love to try new tastes, new textures, know what’s on trend and what’s on its way out. (Time to see yourself out, salted caramel?)

But what about the old food fads? Is there value in revisiting them? Have our palates shifted; can we stomach the ingredients?

‘Stirring up the stacks’ is a new and occasional blog series coming to you from the kitchens of the Hocken staff. By finding and preparing long-forgotten, curious, or delectable sounding recipes amongst our varied collections, we aim to entertain, inspire, delight or, perhaps, disgust, you with our concoctions.

So, let’s get into it!

I’ve been perpetually intrigued and grossed out by the concept of jelly salads since I first heard of them. Meat and/or veges, suspended in elaborately shaped goop, and usually photographed with the colour balance all out of whack. Images I’d seen tended to be American in origin, and seemed to date from the 1950s until maybe the 1970s. But meals of jelly had hit the culinary scene far earlier on, here in New Zealand and many other parts of the globe. Emeritus Professor Helen Leach, a well-known face in our reading room, had me nearly fall off my chair in surprise when I read in her 2008 book The pavlova story: a slice of New Zealand’s culinary history, that the first pavlova, dating from 1926, was in fact a layered jelly, with nary an egg white in sight! The Davis company cornered the market, from 1913 producing a gelatine that opened up options in the kitchen. Previously, dishes with gelatine had been the preserve of those with time, resources and great expertise.

Evidence indicates that the Davis company promoted their product vigorously. We hold eleven of the recipe books they published in New Zealand, ranging from 1926 through to the 1980s.

Desserts, salads and savoury dishes the Davis gelatine way (n.d.)

I browsed through a couple, and quickly realised I was going to need a recipe with an illustration to understand how exactly I was to construct my masterpiece. The book above proved to be a boon. Not only did it have a recipe I thought I might have some chance of executing, it was pictured in full colour on the rear cover. There’s no year of publication, but I suspect it is from the late 1950s or early 1960s – elements of it indicate that it predates decimal currency.

My choice of recipe, variety salad, requires me to to make tomato aspic too. For those not in the know, or who (like me) only associate the word aspic with cat food, an aspic is a savoury jelly, traditionally made with meat stock.

What better to do than put on some sixties pop and hit the kitchen?

Cutting my work out for me

You might notice I’ve got both gelatine (Davis brand, naturally), and agar agar powder.  Why’s that? I’m (probably foolishly) making two discrete aspics – one for the omnivores and one for the herbivores, of whom I’m one. Curiously, around a quarter of Hocken staff are vegetarian or vegan, and I want a good range of willing tasters  – as much as I’m leery  of trying it myself.

I’ll admit here I cheated a little. The day prior to cook day, I did a trial aspic, to get an idea of how it came together – had I converted pints to millilitres accurately? I also wanted to see if I could get the veges in the mould to behave as they should, to figure out how quickly the gelatine would set (the answer: forever), if there was enough liquid (there wasn’t – must double the mix come Show Day!) and if I could get it out of the mould. I’m an impatient one at the best of times, and tried too soon. The tomato aspic, freshly tipped out of its bowl, cleaved itself as if it were the Red Sea. Lesson learned. Well, maybe.

Chop chop!

Leach and others have pointed to the time-consuming nature of this type of dish as one reason why it eventually fell out of favour. I’m not surprised to read this: as I was wielding my knife I was feeling certain that, were I transported back to the the 1960s as a housewife, I would not fare well in the role. I’m realising nor will I ever be a Michelin-starred chef. I’ve diced my vegies, cooked my peas and rice (rice??), and juiced the lemon that’s not listed in the ingredients but features in the method. It’s a hot day, I’ve got my first aspic brewing, and I’m knackered.

Best to not think about being knackered when prepping gelatine…

Now things are getting tense. I have to pour a little aspic in my bowl, allow it to set a little, then artfully place my ‘garnish’ (slices of tomato and capsicum), then pour over a little more aspic.

Jusqu’ici tout va bien, as the French would say

Time for the fiddly bit, the bit everyone wanted to know about – how did I get the gherkins and carrots to stay put? It’s a game of dip the strip (in partially set aspic), stick the strip  (against the wall of the bowl at an angle), then repeat with the next.  The fun continues as you discover half are falling off, and the others aren’t doing so well at staying parallel. Come half time, your language is becoming as colourful as the salad itself.

Excuse my French

Finally, I’m reasonably satisfied with the alignment, and the rest is plain sailing. On top of the peas, I pile the seasoned rice and diced celery. I have surplus carrot and gherkin, so in they go too. Once I’ve poured over the aspic, I’ll be done. But do I mix the aspic through the ‘variety’ mix? The instructions don’t specify, and I’m not sure there will be adequate seepage through to lower layers to avoid a rice eruption when I unmould. I give it a desultory stir, then leave it as it is.

Come the big reveal, I’m nervous as. Will my salads unmould in one piece, and will anyone actually try any? It’s scary stuff.

Ta da! The agar agar version, still in its bowl on the left, pleads with gravity to help it along. Meanwhile, the gelatine has held its own.

To my great shock, both were persuaded fairly easily from their nests. The agar agar came out most cleanly, and had a beautiful sheen. It takes some time, though, to convince my workmates that they want to taste them.

The first cut is not for the squeamish

Archivist Tom eventually made the first move, and once he consumed a little and didn’t collapse, others tentatively followed suit. As we’ve learnt from reality cooking shows, nothing counts until the feedback is given. Tasters had the opportunity to submit their thoughts, anonymously or otherwise, and these, along with their facial expressions, gave me almost as much delight as the successful up-ending of my concoctions.

The aforementioned Tom declared it to be ‘very surprising, & unexpectedly good’. Jacinta, Kaitiaki Mātauranga Māori, found it ‘delightfully refreshing’. Another said ‘very tasty once you get past the texture’. Emma (Collections Assistant, Publications), had textural misgivings too, saying ‘it is like eating tomato sauce as the main meal’. Jennie, also from Publications, thought it ‘visually splendid’, but noted ‘I don’t trust food that wobbles’. Understandable – I have similar reservations.

Megan, a CA from Researcher Services deserves a special medal for summoning the courage to take the plunge, but said ‘I hope to never be that starving’. She was not a happy chappy. Others felt they’d been transported to the past – Archives Curator Anna said ‘just like Grandma used to make’. More than one staffer suggested the addition of vodka. Bloody Mary salad, anyone?

Publications Curator Pete summed it up for most of us though: ‘I can honestly say this is the best salad in aspic I have ever tasted’. And what did I think? It was a fun culinary experiment I probably wouldn’t repeat (I chose not to finish my serving), but it was far less horrific than I had imagined.

Chaos out of order

General Assistant Nick takes the last word. He said ‘visually arresting, perfect for Christmas, delicious with Emerson’s Morning Star Pale Ale’. So, what are you waiting for – get it onto your menu for Christmas dinner. It’s sure to be a memorable dish.

Sources

Australian Dictionary of Biography: Davis, Sir George Francis (1883-1947)

Leach, Helen. The Pavlova story : a slice of New Zealand’s culinary history. Dunedin, Otago University Press, 2008.

Serious Eats: A social history of Jell-o salad: The rise and fall of an American icon

 

Stitching in the Detail

Monday, December 10th, 2018 | Hocken Collections | 11 Comments

Post researched and written by Megan Vaughan, Collections Assistant – Researcher Services

Hapua School, Parenga – sewing class (c.1900). P1990-015/49-328. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago.

This wonderful candid scene from the far north has turned up as an illustration several times over the years, captioned briefly or sometimes not at all. The sewing class image from Te Hāpua School is intriguing, prompting questions about the people, time and place, and it deserves to be more than an illustrative aside. This post looks behind the scene in an attempt to embroider a more detailed background to the sewing class on the veranda.

Most sources, like the Hocken, have estimated the date of the photograph to be approximately in the early 1900s, but Robin L. Shepherd, author of Te Hapua School: our 75th year identified the year as 1904 and the teacher as Mrs Greensmith. By 1904, Te Hāpua Native School had been in existence for eight years and Edwin Greensmith was the school’s third principal. His wife, Isabella Cleland Lloyd, was the assistant teacher. They arrived at Te Hāpua the year this photograph was taken and the wooden building seen in the photograph replaced the original raupō schoolhouse with its mud floor just five years earlier. Edwin and Isabella taught at Te Hāpua for only three years while raising their young family. Single men were not allowed to teach at native schools until the 1930s, and the majority of the head teachers in Te Hāpua’s first 75 years were men whose spouses shared the teaching load. The author of the history booklet, Robin L. Shepherd, was himself Te Hāpua’s eighteenth principal, starting in 1969, and his wife Gena Shepherd was the assistant teacher.

Te Hāpua School (initially called Pārengarenga Native School) was established in 1896 with Lucy Irvine as the first head teacher. The community had spent many years petitioning the Education Department for a school. The Ngāti Kurī people actually wanted the school at Kapo Wairua, even further north than Te Hāpua. However, the Education Department maintained it was too remote and it was easier for them to get a teacher and supplies to Te Hāpua instead. At that time, Te Hāpua was a lake called Lake Hōpua and in order to get the sorely needed school Chief Murupaenga of Ngāti Kurī drained the lake and set up a papakāinga there. In an historical account in the Ngāti Kurī Deed of Settlement, a retired politician commented that the area might have suited the Education Department but it caused numerous problems for the community including inadequate road access, flooding, lack of fresh water and deficient soil quality.

Indeed, health and access issues plagued the school and its community for many years. During 1906, the Greensmiths’ final year at Te Hāpua, the school closed for much of the year due to a meningitis epidemic. This was not the first time, nor the last, that epidemics forced the school to close. The previous head teacher, Mr Matthews, was moved to provide an extensive report on the health of the local children in 1903, noting “one hundred were ill, and nine had recently died, suffering from coughs, fevers and convulsions” (Ngāti Kurī Deed of Settlement, p.22). Access problems made the trip to school hazardous for many pupils. Shepherd noted the Raharuhi people kept their children from attending Te Hāpua fearing they might drown crossing the Waitiki River. This prompted Mr Greensmith to offer the use of his boat to ferry pupils safely to school.

Portion of: Te Hāpua / drawn by N.M. Dudley. Wellington N.Z.: Lands and Survey Dept., 1959. Hocken Maps H++ 830/NZMS2/N2/7 1959. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago.

Although it was drawn over fifty later, the map shown in part above is beautifully detailed and gives us more of an idea of the topography of Te Hāpua and its surroundings. The Waitiki Channel and stream, which was a problem for many children on their way to school during the early years, can be seen to the west of Te Hāpua as well as areas of mangroves and swamp. The Hocken holds a physical copy of this map and the National Library has made a digitised version available.

Portion of: Topographical survey of the country between Hohoura Harbour and the North Cape. Wellington. N.Z.: Dept. of Lands and Survey, 1899. Hocken Horizontal Maps 841 1895a. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago.

The lovely watercolour map by T.K. Thompson shown above is earlier, from 1899, and marks the location of Te Hāpua School (“Native School”) to the south of Manuka flat.

The sewing class scene depicts a time when practical skills were prized and made a compulsory part of the school syllabus. In fact, the government wanted all schools, not only native schools, to focus on these more so than academic learning. To this end the Native School Standards of Education (in section 4 of the Native Schools code, 1880) stipulated that girls were expected to be able to thread needles and hem by the end of standard 1, and by standard 4 “to do button-holing, to sew on buttons, to darn stockings, and to be learning to knit stockings”. Some of the girls in the photograph are taking measurements, which suggest they may have gone beyond the syllabus into altering or making new garments.

An important part of any photograph’s story is its creator. Fortunately, The Turnbull Library, which also has a copy of the sewing photograph, has been able to identify the photographer Arthur James Northwood. Arthur and his two brothers, Richard and Charles were all photographers in the Far North from the 1890s to about 1940. They travelled by horseback enabling them to access remote areas taking photographs of the gum fields and the people that worked in them. They also photographed the teachers and pupils of Te Hāpua School. Shepherd’s book includes several images taken by Arthur and Richard Northwood in 1904. Arthur Northwood also took the picture below, which appeared in the Otago Witness in December 1908 (this image does not appear in Shepherd’s history). We all know that photographing children (let alone large groups of them) brings challenges, making “A study in smiles” remarkable with a group of no less than seventeen boys smiling simultaneously for the camera.

Northwood, A.J. (1908). “A study in smiles”: Māori boys at Te Hāpua School, Auckland, the most northerly in New Zealand. Otago witness supplement, 30 December 1908, p.47. Dunedin, N.Z. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago.

Clearly, there is a lot more to the sewing class photograph than its simple captions, but research also raises further questions. Who were the children in the photographs? The girls have obviously survived the epidemic of 1903 that prompted school principal Mr Matthews to compile a health report on each child in the area, but how did they fare in the meningitis epidemic the following year? Did Arthur Northwood take the photograph of the boys on the same visit in 1904, and if not, when? Some of the answers may lie in the old school records held in the Te Ahu Heritage Museum in Kaitaia. There is certainly room for more detail to be stitched into the Te Hāpua sewing class scene.

Sources:

Barrington, J.M., & Beaglehole, T.H. (1974). Maori schools in a changing society: an historical review. Wellington, N.Z.: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.

Dragicevich, K. (2015). The gumfield collection: 100 years on – looking back: photographs by Arthur and Richard Northwood, 1898-1940. Awanui, N.Z.: Willow Creek Press.

Education: Native Schools (1897) in Appendices to the Journals of House of Representatives, E-02, 1897, Session 2, retrieved 27 April 2018, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1897-II.2.2.3.6?end_date=31-12-1897&phrase=0&query=te+hapua&start_date=01-01-1897

Education: Native Schools (1905) in Appendices to the Journals of House of Representatives, E-02, 1905, Session 1, retrieved 27 April 2018, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1905-I.2.3.3.7?end_date=31-12-1905&phrase=0&query=te+hapua&start_date=01-01-1905

Education: Native Schools (1907) in Appendices to the Journals of House of Representatives, E-02, 1907, Session 1, retrieved 27 April 2018, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1907-I.2.3.2.7?end_date=31-12-1907&phrase=0&query=te+hapua&start_date=01-01-1907

(Hapua School, Parenga – sewing class c.1900) [photograph]. P1990-015/49-328. Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago.

Mead, Sidney M. (2016). Tikanga Māori: living by Māori values. Wellington: Huia Publishers.

Morris, M. (2010) ‘Unpaid domestic work – Making clothes and preserving food’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, retrieved 27 April 2018, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/23326/school-sewing

Ngāti Kuri and The Crown deed of settlement of historical claims (2014), retrieved 27 April 2018, http://www.ngatikuri.iwi.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/NK_DOS_Historical_Claims.pdf

Northwood, A.J. (1908). “A study in smiles”: Māori boys at Te Hapua School, Auckland, the most northerly in New Zealand. Otago witness supplement, 30 December 1908, p.47. Dunedin, N.Z.: Josian Lye for the Otago Daily Times and Witness Newspapers Co.

(School records [Te Hapua Public School]) [catalogue entry]. Te Ahu Heritage Museum, retrieved 27 April 2018, http://www.nzmuseums.co.nz/account/3293/object/608238

Shepherd, R.L. (1971). Te Hapua School: our 75th year. Te Hapua, N.Z., Te Hapua School.

Simon, J.A., Smith, L.T., Cram, F., and University of Auckland. International Research Institute for Maori and Indigenous Education. (2001). A civilising mission? : perceptions and representations of the Native Schools system. Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press.

Sylva, T. (2014). In the matter of the Treaty of Waitangi act 1975 and in the matter of the Muriwhenua land claim (WAI-45), retrieved 27 April 2018, http://www.ngatikuri.iwi.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Wai_45_Tuini_Sylva.pdf

Te Hapua / drawn by N.M. Dudley [map]. 1959. Wellington N.Z.: Lands and Survey Dept. Hocken Maps H++ 830/NZMS2/N2/7 1959. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago.

Topographical survey of the country between Hohoura Harbour and the North Cape [map]. Wellington. N.Z.: Dept. of Lands and Survey, 1899. Hocken Horizontal Maps 841 1895a. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago.