Post researched and written by David Murray, Archivist Cookie Bear is back! Many were disappointed when, in April last year, Griffin’s announced he would no longer feature on Chockie Chippie and Hundreds & Thousands biscuit wrappers. Last week the company posted on social media: ‘We heard you, New Zealand. Thank you for sharing your stories, […]

Post cooked up by Emma Scott, Collections Assistant – Publications My Hocken colleagues are sick of hearing about my love for the air fryer. My air fryer has been moved out of the cupboard and has a permanent home on the kitchen bench. This move is significant as it could have easily been banished to […]

Post cooked up by Jen Anderson, Collections Assistant – Publications People who work with heritage material often find themselves compelled to demonstrate its relevance to contemporary society. Some connections are obvious, and some require a little more lateral thinking. Initially I intended to justify this carrot-themed post via the Easter bunny, but having tasted the […]

Post cooked up by Eilish McHugh-Smith, Collections Assistant – Publications Our recent return to Covid alert level 4 prompted Hocken Staff to fish through their camera rolls and personal bookshelves in search of historical culinary delights to tantalise their bubble’s taste buds. In the preceding weeks, I had been on a mission to find a […]

Post cooked up by Katherine Milburn, Liaison Librarian and Curator of Ephemera For many people Christmas is a time of long-honoured traditions. At the Hocken this means the decorating of our Christmas tree in the foyer on the 1st of December. It seemed the perfect date to bring in the latest contribution to Stirring up […]

Post researched and written by Gini Jory, Hocken General Assistant When I came across this recipe late last year in the Cyclopedia of valuable receipts: a treasure-house of useful knowledge for the every-day wants of life, by Henry B. Scammell (what a mouthful!) that one of my colleagues had on his desk, I knew I […]

The second of our series from Practising History (HIST 353) students, this is Shinay Singh’s response to an Otago Preventive Medicine dissertation. An invaluable primary source of New Zealand medical and social history, the Preventive Medicine dissertation collection comprises more than three thousand public health projects written by fifth-year medical students from the 1920s to […]

Post cooked up by Andrew Lorey, Collections Assistant (Researcher Services) I faced a daunting challenge as I started thinking about what to cook for my contribution to the Hocken Collections ‘Stirring Up the Stacks’ series. Over the last year my colleagues have fermented sauerkraut from scratch, deciphered German-language cooking notes, recreated 1960s party starters, provided […]

Post cooked up by Alex Scahill, Collections Assistant, Publications I came up with this idea upon spotting a recent children’s book by Gavin Bishop, Cook’s cook: the cook who cooked for Captain Cook, appear on the new arrivals shelf at the Hocken. What caught my eye was that the cook in question, John Thompson, only […]

Post cooked up by Ali Clarke, Collections Assistant, Archives When we started this challenge of testing recipes we had found in the Hocken stacks, I immediately thought of the archives of scientists Franz and Marianne Bielschowsky, whose lives took several unexpected paths. Marianne’s recipe books – some handwritten, some full of clippings and some published […]