When we had roast lamb for dinner the leftovers were never wasted. The next day they would be cooked up with sultanas, some vegetables and Vencatachellum Curry Powder. Vencatachellum was the brand name for a spice mix imported from India. Typical of the 1950s was that food was never wasted. The Sunday roast chicken became soup on Monday. Corned beef became rugged racehorses the next day (slices of meat dipped in batter). Another use for left over lamb was Shepherd’s Pie. We never had pork as my mother couldn’t stand the smell of it but she did cook boiling bacon which was as good as ham on wholemeal bread for school lunches. T-bone steaks and chops were commonly on the table along with three or more vegetables.
My father would cook now and again. There were only two meals in his repertoire but they were greatly anticipated and enjoyed. One was his misnamed spaghetti bolognaise as it consisted of a whole chopped up chicken cooked in a homemade tomato sauce and served with spaghetti. The other was salmon pie which was tinned salmon in a white sauce with a potato and cheese topping.
Food deliveries made life easier for people living in isolated towns. Eight miles to Mittagong seemed a long way to go for groceries! The butcher from Bargo delivered meat, the milkman (named Billy Cairns) filled the billy hung on the gate, the fruiterer arrived in his truck once a week with exotic vegetables called zucchini and eggplant which my mother enthusiastically cooked along with the more mundane varieties.
Dessert was an essential part of every evening meal. My mother would cook rice puddings, pasta puddings and bread and jam puddings. Every summer we sweated as we laboured, filling Vacola bottles with peaches, plums and apples from our orchard and submerging them in the large green preserving unit full of boiling water which sat on the fuel stove. Blackberries from the back of the property made the most wonderful jam. Apples and blackberries dripped through muslin in the laundry to make clear jellies. Green tomatoes were combined with banana passionfruit to make unusual jams or used on their own to make pickles.
The only cakes my mother made were fruit cakes and as for pies of the pastry variety, they were never on the menu. Canned food was rarely used and considered a luxury.
The Curry Apple Orchard 
Your Dad had two more dishes in his repetoire than mine!
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I’m really enjoying your posts Linda. Standard curry in our house was Keen’s used to cover up the taste of what I suspect was rather stale or overcooked meat. The added sultanas were probably the best part of the dish.
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Curry became a lot more complicated in the 70s and 80s involving entire days of preparation. Now it is back to the curry sauce in the supermarket.
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You are the winner for the best Letter V word in the A to Z Challenge! My early childhood was spent on a farm and I well remember the home milk deliveries…and our elderberry bushes behind the barn. Well done!
Molly of Molly’s Canopy http://mollyscanopy.com/
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Thank you for your response. It is so good to get feedback.
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Thank you so much for sharing these memories! During this challenge, seeing the day-to-day experiences of others has been so wonderful. I may have to go back and read your previous posts, I found you so late in the challenge!
@IsaLeeWolf
A Bit to Read
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Thank you for your comment. It is always satisfying to know someone has read it and gained some pleasure from it.
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Absolutely. The memory posts have been some of my favorites during this challenge.
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I just found your challenge posts from your commenting on another I’ve been reading. I am fascinated! I live in Canada and it is fun to see how life and experiences were the same or different! Like your elementary readers with David and Wendy? Ours were pretty much the same but with Dick and Jane and their dog Spot. Thanks for sharing your wonderful memories.
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Here from the A-Z and also remember a time, well after 50’s, but still a long time ago, when food was never wasted. Great take on V!
Best wishes,
Nilanjana.
Ninja Minion, A-Z 2016
Madly-in-Verse
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Thank you. Old habits die hard so I still hang on to some of those traditions.
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Using up the leftovers by transforming them into something new is perhaps a dying art, but one that I’m working on. The only cookbook I was able to find devoted to that subject was published in 1973. I’ve posted a few of my own recipes on my blog under “The Leftover Project,” and continue to collect suggestions. Thanks for sharing your culinary memories. Do you still can your summer produce? I have done, but not lately, and want to try again this summer.
@RhondaGilmour from
Late Blooming Rose
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Every now and again I look at a Vacola bottling outfit on eBay and am tempted. We don’t have fruit trees in our yard except for citrus but I could buy fruit cheaply when in season. Mmmmmm. I’ll have to think about it.
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Just found this. The vencatatchellum label was one of the labels I sat for hours .. figuring out how to pronounce..a task set by my Dad in the 50s to give me something to do whilst sat at the dining table waiting for dinner. Loved it in tomato soup!! Thanks for the memory .
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My father spent hours teaching me to say and spell ornithorhynchus which is the Latin name for a platypus. I don’t think I pronounced Vencatachellum correctly now I look at it again.
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