How indeed! Also in the 1950s, my family befriended an ethnic Chinese Colombo Plan student from Malaya, and he stayed with us on weekends and cooked for us. It was a new world for us, as the only Chinese restaurants in those days were in Chinatown. Congratulations to all the migrants who somehow managed even if they had to buy olive oil in little bottles from the pharmacy, and thank you for extending our tastes.
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I was born in 1943. My maternal great grandmother came to Australia on a sailing ship from Southern Ireland and my maternal great grandfather came on a sailing ship from Lebanon. My grandmother cooked basic meat and three veg, but she also cooked Lebanese cabbage rolls, slow roasted lamb with lemon, tabbouleh, stuffed zucchini, Mujaddara and, my absolute favourite, kibbeh! Needless to say, they had to force me to eat the overcooked basic food - I much preferred the delicious Lebanese dishes - and still do!
I did a three year cooking course at East Sydney Tech, starting from basic cookery and finishing with international, but the Lebanese dishes I learnt from my grandmother are still my favourite.
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Me too!! Other kids refused to sit next to me because I had brown bread and yummy fillings like yesterday’s schnitzels or ham and a nice gherkin while the Aussie kids had jam sandwiches with white bread washed down with cordial. I did feel picked on though.
Another interesting thing though is the different attitudes to shoes. When it rained, My parents would examine our shoes to make sure they were still water tight. Then when I got to school I saw Aussie boys that had been told to take their shoes off on the way to school so that the shoes didn’t get wet. They then put them on for school.
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