Good Old Aussie Tucker

Welcome

The Western Road by Ella McFadyen

The wind is blowing up the Pass,

A west wind dry and fine,

All resinous and honey-sweet

With blossom of the pine,

And fragrance out of orchard lands,

And scent of fruited briars,

That once were English roses

Round the homesteads of our sires.

The cars are rolling down the Pass---

The road that Mitchell made---

Where runs the writing on the wall,

Where stood the old stockade;

By Hartley, up the three-mile hill,

The low-geared traffic wends---

The winding road, the western Road,

The Road of Forty Bends.

Road, bear me to a little house

Where I may lie at ease,

And smell the odorous cedar boughs

Light-swinging in the breeze;

The breeze that makes the windmills clink

Beside the western dams;

The breeze that shakes the noonday doze

With cries of weaning lambs.

There let me dream the oldtime teams

Still bear their freight away---

The wheat of Burrundulla farms,

The wool of Castlereagh;

Rich coaches in from Lambing Flat,

New gold from Talbragar---

Then waking, on some hill's curve hear

The hot brakes grind and jar.

To tell me of a towering load

In forward hurry presses,

The wealth of long and league-wide runs

New-freighted from the West:

Of sheds cut out, of wool away,

Good tidings may there be,

Where night and day and Golden Fleece

Rolls eastward to the sea.

Old Country Scones

Ingredients

6 cups S.R. flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup fresh cream

2 cups fresh milk

Method

Sift flour and salt well. Use enough milk to make a firm but not dry mixture (enough milk to make a dough that is easy to handle, without to much extra flour on the board). Roll one way lightly, cut and place scone shapes on a cold tray and bake in hot oven of 430 F for 8 to 10 minutes. Brush tops with melted butter. Will make about 30 scones. Serve hot with whipped cream and passion fruit jam.

Banana Bread

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons grated lemon rind

3 ripe bananas

3/4 cup of sugar

1 egg,

1/4 cup of good fat

Method

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt, add grated lemon rind, mash bananas and add sugar and unbeaten egg, add to dry ingredients. Melt fat and fold into to mixture but do not beat. Place in greased tin, bake in a moderate oven 40 minutes.

Aussie Damper

Normally made in a camp oven which is a cast pot and lid. The mix is placed inside, lid put on and entire covered in hot wood coals till baked. Camp oven sometimes placed in a hole dug in the ground and surrounded in hot wood coals till cooked.

Ingredients

2 cups self raising flour

8 oz milk (normally powdered)

1/2 tsp salt

Home Method

Mix flour and salt. Make well in the centre and add milk, mixing with a knife to form a moist dough. Turn into a greased 7" tin. Bake in a hot oven for 25 minutes, then turn onto wire cooling tray.

Variations can be the addition of either sultanas, dried fruit, herbs, sugar, 2oz butter, lemon, sugar, etc