Well, that was fun!!!!

Our ‘Herstory’ series was fabulous and we loved every second of it.  Presenting from the building the Barossa Cookery Book helped establish was incredibly beautiful and we felt very connected to our women and their stories.

If you were following along on socials you would have seen lots of photos and if you are interstate you might have been one of the chorus of voices lamenting the fact that you couldn’t participate.  Well, fear not, because we filmed a ‘condensed’ version just for sharing on digital platforms!

The live chats for the History Festival featured three different topics, which we also cover in the video:

The Cookbook as a political barometer.

Recipe Ingredients and how they’ve changed.

The Tanunda Croquet Club – was there such a thing and what did it have to do with the cookbook?

We cover all these topics in our digital chat, and then we take a quick dive into the story of Mary Schrader who contributed to the original 1917 edition.  Mary’s life was full of tragedy and loss and hers is a theme echoed through so many of the stories we have uncovered in our research.    The cookbook is filled with names of women like Mary and they each have a story.  Some are beautiful, some are full of hardship and some are just downright heartbreaking, but as women in 2022 we recognise that we stand on their shoulders and honouring them is important.

And if you have been following us for a while you will know that we have been researching this cookbook and the stories of these women for compilation into a manuscript.  Our plans for a companion edition to the Barossa Cookery Book are currently being considered by a publisher and we hope to have more news on that soon.

The history of the book and its connection to the Tanunda Soldiers Memorial Hall and our community really are beautiful – and aren’t restricted to the Barossa!  Every community across Australia has stories like this – the women who worked quietly in the background with little or no recognition, shouldering the loss, pain and sacrifice but how in the face of it all they created an artifact that captured so much of themselves.  The stories of the way they lived, the ingredients they used, the political and social climates they lived in, combined with the recipes they used to nourish the people they loved – it’s  gold.  All of it.

But it’s also why we always say its never ‘just’ a cookbook!  We always recommend you open the covers of this fabulous little book and let it sing – and we hope that our video will help you to do just that.

In other news we have bunkered down for winter and the preserved fruit from the summer season is being pulled out for enjoying on winter desserts and bowls of steaming porridge.  It’s currently 12 degrees with sleeting sideways rain as I write this so the fires are going and the tea is plentiful as we all attempt to keep warm.  Over at Marieka’s house I know she is doing bottled coleslaw because we were both eyeing off the beautiful fresh cabbages at the Barossa Farmers Market yesterday morning!  Her family of male humans eat like machines so she’s much more motivated than me.  (I’m going to sit here instead with my nanna rug as I work on some admin and keep the fires going).

We’ve got some planning to do for a couple of Barossa based workshops later in the year, plus we are looking forward to being involved with the Jamestown Show in October.  While all of that is going on we are also trying to record conversations with living descendants of recipe contributors (like Mary) to release as a supporting podcast with our companion edition.

So although it’s cold there is no time for standing still!

So thank you Keepers for continually encouraging our project, our ideas and our passion – without you this would just be us getting excited about old recipes, but together we are creating something really beautiful.

We really hope you enjoy the video and the stories of the keepers who came before us.  (Jump across to our ‘Stories’ page to watch and feel free to share the link with anyone else who may be interested.  If you need a copy of the original Barossa Cookery Book they are available through our shop).

And as always, if you need inspiration or tips or just want to chat about what you are up to, message us – we always love a conversation.

Cheers

Sheralee and Marieka

The dictionary defines a ‘keeper’ as a person charged with responsibility for the preservation and conservation of something valuable, but being a keeper is also a doing word.

We are the keepers.  The keepers of the traditional food skills, the regional food stories, the new ways of doing old valuable things.  And every year, at this time and in this season, we lead the way.

You.  Me.  Us.

We are the keepers.

Click HERE to be redirected our Herstory Digital presentation

Click HERE to purchase copies of the original Barossa Cookery Book