PREFACE: MY FIRST TEACHER
My rabbit shooting, steel working, tip truck driving, Marquis of Queensberry fighting grandfather, William Webb, taught me about food. Not the type of lesson Kylie Kwong or Gordon Ramsey might teach you, but a deeper, systemic instruction a long way from the relentlessness of celebrity cheffing so evident in contemporary media (the Two Fat Ladies is my favourite). We raised or hunted it then ate it. He grew it and then we ate it. He taught me about food: what tasted good, and why it tasted that way. In many ways these lessons were lost on me in my earliest youth but have come back, so gently, yet profoundly reverberating against the infinite chasm of time.
A highly intelligent man that only got the basics of schooling, his mental arithmatic and capacity to understand the machinations of politics, and betting odds on the greyhounds that still seem somewhat esoteric to me, was indicative to me of a sharp intellect. The type of intelligence that would have most likely taken him on a different trajectory should the opportunities open to todays budding scholars been available in his time.
He was one of those traditional Australians that are excrutiatingly rare these days. Full of a laconic strength, easy humour, sharp intution and relaxed poise – unencumbered by superficial cheapness. One of eight children, the small farm where he grew up could not produce enough to sustain all of his kith and kin so he moved on at 12 or thereabouts, wending his way through Western NSW to the billowing stacks of the Wollongong steelworks and the ample work they provided drew him to the coast. He made his way from Mudgee into the Illawarra by way of shooting rabbits for sparse coin and survival.
Like most of his generation he was someone who was used to scarcity in a way the vast majority of people from the developed world have never appreciated, though considering how things are developing that may not always be the case. Like most people of his generation he did physical work and his diet consisted largely of his own produce – as much
for reasons of taste as for frugality’s sake, though my suspicion is that these two were trumped by his pleasure of having his own wee farm on his quarter acre block.
The backyard was replete with chickens; Australorps and Leghorns for the most part – though these were complemented by the occasional starlet like an Old English Game or jungle fowl. As a young boy with time on his hands, and being inclined to relatively harmless mischief, they were on the recieving end of my dirt bomb artillery. Of course my canny grandfather surveilled me from his eyrie at the back of the fibro house, and there was some harsh words upon discovery of my behaviour – at this point I learnt that animals don’t enjoy stress, chickens don’t lay if they are assailed by mud howitzers, and grandfathers fond of eggs let loose on their misbehaving grandchildren. A lesson sharply learnt and never forgotten.
We had a small system going on in there, the snails that attacked the garden would get turfed into the chook shed, the chicken would be able to wander around the veggies laying down some manure, and the seeds would be resown each year. This provided an excellent variety of food: choice tomatoes, broccoli and carrots without any additives and the finest green beans that I have tasted up to this stage of my existence – the cost was a small investment of time with seed, soil and bird which he enjoyed anyway.
My grandfather died at around the age of 75 after a tough, though satisfying life. He had his wits, strength and independence till his last months and managed to avoid a nursing home which is too frequently an ignominy for seniors. A move towards food and health autonomy is pretty much the best thing a person can do for themselves – peak oil is racing towards us at a rapid rate. We mightn’t have a choice in the near future.
Travel Well
R|Y
