Worldwide Cookbooks

The Consumer Viewpoint

SIMPLE ITALIAN COOKERY

American Woman's Home

Art of Living in Australia

Cooking Eggs

Elegant Art of Dining

Guide to Marketing and Cooking

Italian Recipes

Meal Preparation

School and Home Cooking

Physiology of Taste

Tried and True Recipes

Library of Cookery

Hans Christian Andersen . American Fairy Tales . Grimm's Fairy Tales

Aesop's Fables - Tales with Morals . Mother Goose . Mother Goose in Prose

CHAPTER X.



AUSTRALIAN FISH AND OYSTERS--AND THEIR FOOD VALUE.


Anyone looking backwards upon the history of Australia cannot fail to
be impressed by one peculiar feature, which is the more distinctive,
too, because it is in striking contrast with all else. It is the more
noteworthy also, because it affects each individual inhabitant of this
island continent, and has a direct bearing on the daily life of every
person is the community. Thus, on the one hand, while we are nearing a
maximum of progress--or, at any rate, attaining to a high level of
success--in political matters, in commercial affairs, and in athletic
prowess, yet, on the other, there is unfortunately an apathetic
indifference in all that concerns our public and family food habits,
which after all constitute the national characteristics of any people.
It is true that we have gained the dignity of responsible government,
that our wool and frozen meat are entering the markets of the world,
and that in the athletic arena our fame is spread both far and wide.
Yet it must be confessed that our national food-life has not conformed
to climatic requirements in the slightest degree since the memorable
day on which Captain Cook set foot on these shores. As those on the
Endeavour lived then, so live are now. On the continent of Europe it
will be found that the manners and customs, even of contiguous
countries, are as widely different as it is possible to imagine. Surely
then, it is, to say the least of it, curious to see the inhabitants of
a semi-tropical country like Australia living in wilful contradiction
to their climatic necessities, and eating the same kind of food as did
their fathers in the old land, with its dampness its coldness, its ice,
and its snow.

Yet, notwithstanding the fact that reflections of this kind are
interesting in the highest degree, I propose to do no more than
consider the matter exclusively from the standpoint of the subject
heading of this chapter. Here, again, we are directly confronted with
an inexplicable anomaly--I refer to the want of enterprise shown in
developing the deep-sea fisheries of Australia. Now, if the dwellers of
this land had sprung from an entirely inland race, this would not,
perhaps, have been so difficult to understand; but arising, as we do,
from a stock the most maritime that the world has ever seen, such a
defect redounds not to our credit as inheritors of the old traditions.
At our present rate of fisheries development it will take centuries
before we will be able to produce anything to even approach the
International Fisheries exhibition of the old country in 1883. At that
memorable exposition His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, in the
course of his conference paper, gave expression to the following
stirring words:--"From the earliest ages the inhabitants of the coast
of the British Islands have made the sea contribute to their food. This
pursuit has produced a race of men strong, inured to hardship and
exposure, patient and persevering in their calling, brave, prompt, and
fall of resource in the face of danger; intelligent and amenable to
discipline, from the daily habit of subordinating their own wills to
that of anyone whom they know is placed in authority over them for the,
purpose of directing their labours and working with them for the common
benefit; accustomed to co-operate with others for the attainment of a
certain end. These qualities are not only exercised from early youth,
but are inherited and intensified from generation to generation. The
foundations of the great position which this kingdom has attained
amongst the nations of the world must, in some measure, be attributed
to our fishermen, for they were our first sea-men; and, from small
beginnings, our seamen increased in number and in skill, until the
whole nation was leavened with that love of maritime adventure which
has resulted in peopling the uttermost parts of the earth with our
race, and in establishing that empire upon which the sun never ceases
to shine. In earlier times our first maritime commerce must have been
conducted by our fishermen, who also manned our fighting navies. The
fisheries of the West of England were the nurseries of the sailors who
enabled Drake to circumnavigate the world, and, as he said, to 'singe
the King of Spain's beard' on more than one memorable occasion."