Tastes that have gone missing

by John Wells
There are some simple tastes we once enjoyed, but which have slipped silently into the past.
We were on a dairy farm so our milk was fresh milk, whole milk, tasty, creamy milk, and we drank huge amounts of it. None of us ever 'caught' anything, but the dreadful urge to make life entirely, absolutely, boringly safe has put an end to that. The taste was rich, it was filling and refreshing and it was cheap (it is still cheaper than it should be – ask any cocky).
We went one or two steps further with the taste of milk, and I remember happily the taste of warm milk squirted straight from the teat to our mouths – Dad could hit at least the bottom part of your face every time – and that milk had a warm frothy nature. We would possibly call it a soft 'mouthfeel' today.
Do you remember the tastes of treacle and golden syrup? Golden syrup on hot crumpets is a taste that takes a fair bit of beating. Treacle was the basis of home-made toffee, and if you were not aware of that you haven't read the CWA recipe book.
Do you remember the tastes of your school lunches? They were mostly fairly healthy lunches back in the fifties because there was not much unhealthy food around. We were lucky because when the bread at home was a bit past it and the next delivery was tomorrow, Mum would give me two shillings, known as two bob in those days, a small block of butter and a knife.
I'd race over to the baker's place opposite the Longwarry railway station as soon as we were let out for lunch, and buy, usually, a Boston bun. I'd then race back to the school and sit on the seats built near the sandpits on the First Street fence, where my younger brothers would be waiting. I'd cut up the bun, butter it, and, hey presto, a fresh-bread lunch – and with icing.
It was always "the bakers" and "the butchers"; we never had 'bakeries', but every town had both a baker and a butcher. Now most butchers are in supermarkets or are gourmet butchers. I'm not sure that is progress but things have changed. You even pay for shanks and soup bones now. Once they were free, "for the dog" or for "a bit of soup".
One of the 'taste' themes that appears here and that I have just now recognised is how unhealthily we ate and yet how well we grew up, survived, and worked our backsides off. On Sunday nights we would sometimes sit in front of the dining room fire making toast and slathering it with a mixture of butter, cinnamon and sugar. That was real luxury and a taste that I still remember, with a certain wistfulness.
We also ate fried bread sometimes, dipped in a solution of eggs, milk, salt and pepper. I think the correct name was French toast, but we didn't know that. It was hot, it was filling and it tasted really good.
Even worse, we would come home from school, a fairish sort of walk, and cut a slice of bread to cover with dripping, preferably the black and tarry bits from the dripping tin. We'd salt it, and eat it as we went down for the cows. Great taste. I don't remember it tasting fatty, though it must have.
I also remember the tastes of onion grass (no good at all) and sourgrass (rather nice in a sour way). I remember the taste of gum leaves, shewed up until the eucalyptus was all gone and then spat out. The trick was to get gum leaves mature enough to have flavour but young enough to be tender. We were adventurous kids by today's standards.
Farm kids back in the day knew the milky taste of raw corn cobs, and the butter-laden juiciness of them cooked. Of course, they were maize, then, and not corn, and they were raised for the cows to eat, not us. They tasted magnificent and not as sweet as corn today.
I still remember, and love, the taste of blackberries fresh from the bushes. Some were riper and sweeter than others but they all tasted good to us, and those and our figs made the only jams I still like, jams which can bring back good memories.
Mushrooms were and are a taste I could tolerate, but no more than that. Most of the people I remember from back then would gather field mushrooms in that brief annual season. I was glad when it was over.
Now, the biggest difference of all, for most people, is one of which they'll be blissfully unaware. Tomatoes picked in your garden and eaten within the hours stand head and stake above the ones you can buy. They have a tart crispness which soon fades to something sweeter and a little insipid.
That difference does not apply to all vegetables but it certainly does for capsicums, carrots, cucumbers and lettuces. For those flavours as I remember them you need a vegetable garden or a good friend who has one and will share.
There was one taste long-remembered nut never understood. On the way home from school we'd walk past McReady's place and sometimes we'd steal limes and unripe gooseberries. Neither was any good to eat but we kept on doing it, and eating the terrible things before we got home. we must have had stronger stomachs back then.
We often ate under-ripe fruit, but not in front of mum and dad. With cherry plums that might have been an attempt to get rid of them before they ripened enough to make the dreaded plum jam. You have not understood misery until, on a really hot day, you have to eat a plum jam sandwich made the night before. Or an apricot jam sandwich. Both jams would soak into the bread to make a soggy lunch aesthetically challenging and tasting mostly of sugar.
You'll have your own memories of flavours and tastes, if you are old enough. Just take a moment to remember them, and to enjoy the memories.
I don't want to sound like a grumpy old bloke looking back through rose-coloured glasses, but I do want us to record and remember all the little things that made our lives back then. I know that change is not a bad thing, but it is not always such a good thing, either.
If this column has seemed self-indulgent, and it is, use if to go back through your own childhood memory of tastes – and enjoy the journey.