THE first recorded evidence of vegetables for sale in Australia is in the early 1800s.

By the late 1800s Australian writers showed a delight in vegetables and salads that the British at home took another century to develop among the working classes. A simple salad consisted of sliced raw or cooked vegetables with dressing of vinegar and oil.

Muskett recommended a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables in diets. The harsh summer climate made cooking unbearable over wood-fired stoves designed in Britain for a British winter. Many a sensible woman must have preferred  slicing tomatoes to stirring cauldrons.

Today we include in salads anything that can be eaten, not just raw green vegetables.

In Muskett’s words, "A salad is a delicacy which the poorest of us ought always to command.”

RIGHT up to the depression of the 1930s meat was the staple food for all three meals. Mutton and beef were the chosen meats of the day, and were often served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Veal was considered a delicacy and many recipe books make no mention of it at all.

Some meat dishes from the past are still favourites today. They include pies, soups, casseroles and stews.

As Muskett put it “the consumption of butcher's meat and of tea is enormously in excess of any common sense requirements, and is paralleled nowhere else in the world.”

Inset Image of a Butcher Shop Supplied by Adam Lawrence-Slater

Inset Image is of Sydney fish Markets 

Image supplied by Morgan Carpenter