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VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539

Posted: 04:29am 23 Feb 2012

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Hi All

I found my grandmothers cook book a while back and thought you may like to hear some of the recipes from the 1920's.
We where talking about using extra sunlight and dump load capacity for electric cooking instead of just dumping or diverting it for no useful purpose.
If you have a oversize solar array or lots of wind you may be able to make use of that to supply tucker instead of just discarding it or cooking with gas at ever increasing prices.

Making beef stock:

10 lb of beef bones broken up with mallet simmered in 5 gallons of water with a spoon of salt and a spoon of pepper, 2 pound of onions and one knob of garlic, add herbs to taste.

Simmer for 5 hours.
Remove scum every hour.
Allow to bench cool, then place in the safe overnight.
Skim excess fat in the morning and store the fat in a sealed container.
Remove bones and add available vegetables.
Store in freezer in convenient sized lots.

Notes:

grandma had a family of 12 to feed so quantities are large, can be scaled back to suit.

The reference to a safe is a Koolgardie safe an evaporative cool cupboard of the time.

And yes my grandfather had a freezer he made in the mid thirties, it was a large wooden multi door device with a freezer one end and two fridge doors. It was built around a shop unit which he re engined to 110 volt dc initially and 32 volt after ww2.

All the best

Bob

Foolin Around

Rastus

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Joined: 29/10/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 301

Posted: 10:58am 24 Feb 2012

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Hi Bob,
Resourcefullness might be genetic!There's certainly inspiration there.Cheers Rastus

see Rastus graduate advise generously

VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539

Posted: 11:49pm 24 Feb 2012

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Hi Rastus

My old grandpa was a very interesting guy, he had a formal education in farm engineering around the turn of the century, he trained with a Blacksmith in the town of Glenrowan Victoria.

I was very young but can still remember his workshop on the farm and his inventiveness.
Unfortunately he died when I was 5 years old so not much transfer of skills, but his legacy of inventions on the farm where still there for another 30 years.

Grandma's cooking is really imprinted in my mind as you looked forward to everything she cooked, no Kentucky fried rat or Mcdougles dog burgers in those days, just good home made tucker. She was thirty years younger than Grandpa so we spent a lot of good times together.

Bob

Foolin Around

Rastus

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Joined: 29/10/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 301

Posted: 02:51pm 26 Feb 2012

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Hi Bob,
Grandpa must have been quite the catch in his day.There was a social stigma in that era about large age differences,unlike the present trend for old fella's to marry a 20yr old from oversea's.(comment is statement of fact not bias or prejudice)While you were young he possibly stimulated your interest in your surroundings to a greater exstent due to his own comprehension.Grandma knew how to win a man,"through his stomack"!She surely won you.The Kelly brothers lived on the wrong side of the mountain,they could have had a better suite of armour if they'd taken the time to talk to someone like Granpa!Cheers Rastus

see Rastus graduate advise generously

VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539

Posted: 01:40am 27 Feb 2012

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Hi Rastus

As a matter of fact our old family farm was next door to the Kelly farm in Glenrowan and my Grandpa knew the Kellies when he was young, there was a lot of support for the Kelly movement at the time. The Police corruption of the time much as it is now, drove normal peace loving people to deeds that where classed as radical by history, but at the time it was just part of the way of life and culture these people where brought up in.

Grandpa worked the family farm along with his siblings and worked in the blacksmith shop and local engineering works till he was nearly thirty, gaining a lot of experience,in 1901 he selected his own farm in the shadow of the Black Range in the headwaters of the King river, he cleared the place mainly by hand and built his sawmill to use the timber he was clearing. He married grandma and built the house and started a family all 12 of them (kids) no TV in those days.

In those days work was hard but their wasn't the pressures we are subjected today,

Snippet from Grandmas herbal cures book.

For pain and healing broken bones and bruises, use the top leaves of the hemp plant, one handful of leaves and simmer in 2 quarts of water or light soup stock, add a pinch of salt and drink a cup every 3 to 4 hours.

The old herbalists where way ahead of modern medicine.

She was like the local GP and midwife as they where 60 miles from the closest doctor.

All the best

Bob

Foolin Around

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