Struth, cobber! Got any beer to wash that wombat down with?

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TimT

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Just saw this news story:

A colonial-era cookbook featuring recipes like battered kangaroo brains deep fried in emu oil and roasted wombat has been republished 150 years after it was written by a Tasmanian gentleman farmer... "He's got a famous recipe which some people quake at but I'd like to try - Slippery Bob, which is kangaroo brains fried in emu fat," Mr Lloyd said....The book also contains advice on how best to roast a wombat or emu.

Okay, cool, I hear you say. But why post this on a brewing website?

That dish might well have been washed down with lashings of a drink called Blow My Skull, a notoriously potent alcoholic concoction that is also featured in the cookbook.

Book officially upgraded from 'interesting' to 'very interesting'.

"He's probably the first person to really extol Australian ingredients. He's got chapters on Australian beers, on colonial wines, on the way the fruits grow here, and he's full of praise for it.

Make that 'super interesting'.
 
Grew up out in the bush, many variants of offal and all the other good bits. Had roo in the camp oven when out in the bush for a week with my grandfather who was a professional shooter, it was bloody beautiful. And had crocodile at Expo up here in '88, it was very sweet, almost sickly.

All I could think of was this tune, can someone tell me how to embed videos?

 
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An aboriginal friend from Drouin assured me that young wombat, around the size of a Sherrin, is scrumptious if cooked the right way. If she'd told all the farmers in the area this they'd have piled them at her doorstep.
 
Honestly if some greenies saw this story and the light-hearted way it was presented they'd have conniptions. I bet this guy has a recipe for koala, too.

I've had kanga plenty of times, and emu once. Both delicious. Is it illegal to kill wombats now? Now and then you come across roadkill wombats that, I suppose, you could eat. (Not that I'm recommending you do that.)
 
I bet this guy has a recipe for koala, too.

Maybe even Tasmanian tiger (the author/chef was a Tasmanian farmer).
 
All I could think of was this tune, can someone tell me how to embed videos?

It usually works for me, I think you have to get the embed code not from the html bar - you click on the button that says 'share' below the video and a code will pop up in a little box that you copy and paste here.
 
I lived in SE Gippy and worked on properties bordering two shires. In one, wombats (common eastern?) are protected but take a step into the next shire and they weren't. They're in large numbers up that way and the farmers loathe them due to the tunnel erosion their holes cause in the hills. It must also be the wombats fault that the lack of trees exacerbates any land slippage!
 
I fond this interesting stuff:

Blow My Skull

165 gm (¾ cup) demerara sugar
180 ml lime juice (about 6 limes)
500 ml each porter and navy-style rum (57% alcohol), such as Holey Dollar
250 ml strong domestic brandy

Method
Stir sugar and 1 litre boiling water in a large bowl to dissolve. Add lime juice and stir. Add porter, rum and brandy, stir and refrigerate until chilled. Serve with ice in small cups.

Note This recipe is adapted from Thomas Davey's recipe as published in Edward Abbott's The English and Australian Cookery Book. Davey served the punch in pint mugs, but this is one occasion where history may and probably should be ignored.
 
TimT said:
Honestly if some greenies saw this story and the light-hearted way it was presented they'd have conniptions. I bet this guy has a recipe for koala, too.

I've had kanga plenty of times, and emu once. Both delicious. Is it illegal to kill wombats now? Now and then you come across roadkill wombats that, I suppose, you could eat. (Not that I'm recommending you do that.)
nothing wrong with road kill just make sure it is fresh and if in doubt braise in in a camp oven. I have eaten roo wombats goanna eagle galahs water fowle. wombats are like small pigs big ham steaks on the hind quarters.
 
Remember that most of the poorer immigrants from the UK at the time were used to a diet that included Broxy (sheep that had died from an illness), Slink (premature born calves) - not to mention sheep's feet, sheeps head - even when I was a kid, "potted heid" was still eaten in Glasgow - and delights such as tripe and jellied eels that remain popular to this day.

So a nice wombat steak would have seemed divine.
 
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