CAMP OVEN COOKING

The Milmerran Camp Oven Festival attracted many spectators.

 Millmerran is a small country town of 1,200 residents in southern Queensland. Last weekend it was swamped by an extra 7,000 visitors and thousands of caravans as they held their two yearly Camp Oven Festival. The festival began on the Friday morning with a workshop for beginners and experienced camp oven cooks. Throughout the Saturday and Sunday there were cooking workshops, displays, competitions, trade stalls and entertainment.

An array of camp ovens cooking a meal.

A camp oven is a thick-walled, cast-iron cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid. The camp oven originates from the Dutch oven, used in the Netherlands for hundreds of years. The Dutch manufactured them using dry sand to make a mould. In 1704 an englishman, Abraham Darby travelled to the Netherlands and after observing how the Dutch manufactured them he patented his own design. From England the oven spread to the colonies of America and Australia. Suited to life in a wilderness the oven became an essential item with the design often being changed to suit the environment or what it was used for. They also became such a valuable item that owners would specify in their will who their cooking pot should go to.

Dutch immigrants also took these pots to South Africa. Here they are round and have three legs arranged as a tripod. They are known as 'potjie pots', potjie being translated from the Afrikaans or Dutch word meaning 'little pot'. Potjie can also refer to the technique of slow cooking and layering of food to cook in these pots. Camp oven, Dutch oven or potjie pot, all have become popular because they are suited to cooking over a campfire. They are well suited to cooking slowly and for making flavoursome stews, soups, roasts and casseroles.

These ovens produced trays of fresh-baked pies.

The weekend centred on the camp oven. I watched the workshop on the Friday morning. Each 'expert' had their secret tip on how to produced the best results over a camp fire and I was able to pick up a few tips. Watching the ingredients table I could see the participants coming back time and time again just to add that little bit of extra sauce, relish, sugar or spice. There was a bottle of red cordial on the corner of the table and I did wonder wether I should move this before someone tried to add a dash to their simmering stew. I was also amazing and as a beginner maybe a little overwhelmed by the vast range of camp ovens and the uses that the experts could put them to. There were large oven where stews could be made for large groups, special arrangement to bake dampers and cakes, and 44 gallon ovens used to cook trays of pies. 

At different times over the weekend there were other workshops, cooking displays and cooking competitions. One group of beginners produced breadrolls, a sweet bun and a cheese and herb damper from three ovens. The competition had teams cooking full roast dinners, apple pies with custard and an assortment of curries and stews. The versatility of these ovens seems unlimited.

Breakfast with a bush poet.

Supporting acts include a tractor pull competition, including competitors who must have been about 12 years old, damper throwing, whip cracking, and a poets' breakfast. The breakfast was attended by about 3,000 people. Bushies told jokes and recited poems about how the farm shed was kicked down by the cow or how the visitors from the city outlived their welcome and had a nasty experience. "Rural culture at its best". Later in the day there was a line up of country singers. There were also displays and talks by bush historians and a blacksmith demonstration. Other displays included the rural fir brigade, racing go-karts and old machines which had been restored and were working pumping water.

'Bragging rights' from previous competition winners.

All in all it was a good fun weekend. I did manage to pick up some good tips. I had also been surprised at the size of the crowd there for what is a friendly country weekend.

DOUGHNUTS: THE HOLE STORY

Some typical modern donuts.

I had heard that doughnuts were invented during the First World War as a convenient food for the troops in the trenches. The hole in the middle made it easy to quickly deliver the food to the troops by dropping them over the bayonet on the end of the rifle. However mystery and argument surrounds the origin of the humble doughnut. Archaeologists have recently discovered the petrified remains of cakes with a hole in the centre in early Native American sites in the south-west of the United States. It is not clear though how these cakes were prepared or cooked.

Most historians looking for the origins of the doughnut begin with the Dutch. The Dutch used up pieces of left-over dough by dropping them into hot oil and making little fried cakes known as olykoeks, or oily cakes. To make them more appealing they would shape these pieces of dough into little knots (dough knots) and roll them in sugar. Sometimes they were filled with prunes or raisins. Dutch colonists took the recipe for these oily cakes to America with them.

Research in action. Testing donuts so I can write about them.

Of course some Americans have a different version. In a house in Rockport, Maine there is a plaque which credits Mason Crockett Gregory with inventing the hole in the doughnut in 1847. Mason was a sea captain who probably brought the recipe for donuts home from his travels around the globe. His mother would cook them for him using spices from his cargoes of cinnamon and nutmeg, and putting a nut in the middle (hence the name 'dough nuts'). Some version of the tale have Mason making the hole so that the doughnut could be slipped over a spike on his ship's steering wheel so that both hands were free in a storm. Other versions say he didn't like the nuts his mother put in the middle and so simply pushed them out with his finger. Yet another version claims he was just cheap and saved costs by making the cakes with no centre to save dough. Mason always took credit for inventing the hole in the donut. He eventually met his end by being burnt at the stake as a witch.

Donut King - a popular donut chain in Australia.

In 1872 John Blondell was issued with the first patent for a doughnut cutter. His machine was made of wood. An improved version, made from tin, and with a fluted edge was patented in 1889.

In France in 1917 during World War 1 American troops in the front lines were served twisted doughnuts cooked by two Salvation Army ensigns, Helen Purviance and Margaret Sheldon. The pastry was rolled using a wine bottle and then cut to shape using a knife. The Salvation Army girls soon became fondly associated with the doughnut and in 1938 Donut Day was launched in the US to remember the contribution of the girls bringing comfort to the troops, and as a fund raiser for the Salvation Army. It has been celebrated annually ever since. The Salvation Army continues to serve coffee and doughnuts to police, firemen, rescue workers and disaster victims when needed.

A modern doughnut 'assembly line' machine used by Krispy Kreme.

In 1920 the first doughnut machine was invented by a Russian refugee living in New York. Adolph Levitt's machine caused the doughnut to became more popular as it was more easily made and able to be mass produced. Machine made doughnuts were presented as "the hit food of the Century" at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1934. By this time Levitt was selling over 25 million dollars worth of machines each year to bakeries.

Krispy Kreme- one of the first donut chains.

Doughnut chains, such as Dunkin Donut and Krispy Kreme have made the American version of the doughnut popular around the world, although many countries have their own local versions. In Israel a popular Hanukkah food is the doughnut filled with red jelly and covered in icing. In South Africa there is a version called the vetkoek which is served with mince, honey or jam. In India a doughnut or vada is savoury and made from dal or lentils; while in Indonesia a doughnut is made from flour and mashed potatoes and coated in icing sugar. In Japan they are made with bean paste and in Malaysia with mashed sweet cassava. My favourite is the Spanish churros, a long skinny doughnut which is served hot and dipped in hot chocolate from Juanita's in Brunswick Street, Melbourne.

A dozen 'mini-donuts' from Donut King.

Where does the word 'doughnut' come from? I have mentioned possible origins as the 'dough knot' or 'dough-nut'. An 1803 English cookbook mentions doughnuts in an appendix on American cooking. An 1808 novel talks about a meal of "fire cakes and dough-nuts". In Washington Irving's 1809 History of New York he describes "balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks". The first use of the alternative spelling 'donut' was in 1900 by George Peck in Peck's Bad Boy and his Pa. The traditional spelling has been 'doughnut' and this seems to continue outside of America, but the alternative 'donut' seems equally acceptable in a language as accommodating as english. As can be seen from the photos above Krispy Kreme and Donut King have different spellings for the same item.
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Postscript: Recently in Cammeray, Sydney I was talking with a fellow who said he had just had the best doughnuts in the world at The Colonial Bakery Milson's Point, just beside the Harbour Bridge. I talked to him about the blog and the entry on doughnuts. The following week he suddenly turned up with half a dozen doughnuts for me to try and suggested that I should visit the shop. This I did that afternoon (in the interest of research). At The Colonial Bakery Milson's Point I found a quaint little store filled with all sorts of nice cakes and their famous, award-winning pies. If you are looking for somewhere interesting in Sydney this is the place. A ferry ride, a walk along the shore under the bridge and afternoon tea and a doughnut, and make sure you say hello to Nancy Mobbs who runs the bakery. Are they the best in the world?......well I'm continuing to research this question......they were excellent, but in fairness I do have to try all the rest before making a decision.

TULIPS

Many people associate the tulip with Holland. However it is not native to Holland but was introduced to that country from the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. The flower is native to mountainous region of western Europe and central Asia.

The Turks regarded the flower as special, being cultivated for the pleasure of the sultan and his court. There were strict laws preventing the tulip from being sold outside the capital, punishment meant exile from the country. The Turks were also believe to have held the first tulip festival. This was held at night, under a full moon. There were aviaries of exotic birds and the guests had to wear clothes which complemented the colours of the flowers.

During the mid-sixteen century it is believed that the Austrian ambassador to the Turkish Empire took some tulip bulbs from Constantinople to his garden in Vienna. From here it spread into central Europe and eventually Holland in 1562. The bulb became very popular and the Dutch took the lead in trading and breeding prize specimens.

In the 1630s in Holland this trade in tulip bulbs became an obsession. Both wealthy and poor began to speculate investing in bulbs. The bulbs were sold by weight. So many people speculated on the future weight of the bulb. They would buy bulbs, plant them and wait for the soil to nuture them and increase their weight. It was often said it was like making money out of thin air, and so the trade became known as "the wind trade".

The situation was made worse by a disease which began to infect Tulip bulbs. Instead of killing the plant it caused changes to the colour of the flower. Huge flames and splashes of colour on the petals only added to the excitement and the desire these flowers caused. Traders were now able to demand even higher prices for new varieties.

The price of these bulbs rose dramatically. They would be bought and sold and even change owners a number of times while they were still in the ground. During 1636 and 1637 this speculation reached such absurd proportions that it is referred to as "Tulipomania". During this time tulip bulbs have been recorded as selling for the same price as a house. There is a record of a bulb being swapped for a brewery in France, and it became acceptable that a single bulb could be given as a dowry for a bride. Others were swapped for acres of land or a horse and buggy. A bill of sale shows one bulb being sold for “two [loads] of wheat and four of rye, four fat oxen, eight pigs, a dozen sheep, two oxheads of wine, four tons of butter, a thousand pounds of cheese, a bed, some clothing and a silver beaker.”

Tulip fever swept the country and many other ordinary industries were neglected and forgotten. Of course religious leaders and moralists tried to stop this speculation. The government even passed laws but it still continued until its inevitable collapse. When the collapse did come many people lost everything they owned. Some varieties did continue to command high prices but generally the demand dried up. It took decades for Holland to recover from this economic crisis, its effects being comparable to the Wall Street crash and the Great Depression of the 20th century.

Photographs on this page were taken in Holland and supplied by Elizabeth Shore