Cooking Times by Kate Fraser

Author:Kate Fraser [Kate Fraser]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780730445586
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Dot liked farm-kill hogget and there was always plenty of that. However, when electricity had arrived at the farm, George’s first wife, Mary, had had a big walk-in deep-freeze put in one of the sheds and Dot darn nearly filled it with beef. She bought steaks to feed Texas: whole fillets, whole rumps, great slabs of sirloin, and so much mince it occasionally ended up as dog tucker. When she wasn’t buying food, she bought clothes—many from Scotland, which told us she had money there; it was next to impossible at the time to send funds out of the country.

Decorating was another favourite pursuit, and everyone liked the job she made of the homestead. ‘Mary liked to be comfortable,’ Mum would say, ‘but Dot—well, she likes to be posh.’ Their dining room was formal but welcoming. When I think of dining rooms in those days I see red. Everyone who had a separate dining room had it wallpapered in red, curtained in red, and often enough there were red lightbulbs as well. Talk about dining with the devil! Dot and George had a pale grey dining room, with long, white linen curtains hanging from mahogany rods. The table was limed oak, which was different too, and most of the floor was covered in a shaggy white rug. The built-in furniture was ripped out and replaced with glass shelves, displaying Dot’s collection of blue-and-white china.

It was cold in the valley mid-winter, but what with panel heaters, fires in the sitting room, the study and the dining room, and the coal range roaring away in the kitchen, the house was always warm. I mention the coal range because most people had pulled theirs out by then, but when Dot had discovered the old Shacklock in a shed she had had it re-installed. It heated the hot water, it was the best oven for roasting you ever saw, and when we had power cuts, as we did quite often, it was a blessing.

I was Dot’s kitchen assistant, waiter and washer-up when she had parties. She always invited too many people for us to have a sit-down dinner party, but her buffets were famous. She started each New Year with a buffet lunch on New Year’s Day—everyone came, and her food was always the talk of the place for days afterwards. Dot introduced us to hot buttered crayfish, potato salad, and spiced beef, among other dishes.

If anyone got engaged, Dot had a hen’s party; and if anyone had interesting visitors, they’d all be invited to drinks. She eventually accepted that it was the custom to feed and water those who turned up uninvited, and not say ‘You’d have had your tea, then?’ She might have lamented the locals’ lack of manners, but she always welcomed the chance to show off her culinary skills. Mrs Benjamin, the wife of the married couple, described her as a peacock in the hen run and she was right.

There was always fun when Dot was around and, although there

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