Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Meal planning in the early 1960s

5 comments:

Richard said...

I spent my PNG years down the Papuan coast and up at Sogeri, KL.

Had house bois with elementary cooking skills but they could rustle up bacon (or ham) and eggs for brekkie, plus a reasonable cooked meat meal with mashed taties and one veg. for dinner.
Probably took the leftovers back to the boi-house for their own supper.

Can't remember what we did for lunch so must have taken sangers to the work place.

One year down at Amazon Bay we'd get Steamies' frozen goods on the STOL air service. It landed twice a week at Amazon Bay en route Moresby-Alotau.

Then the heavy goods, South Pacific Lager cartons included, of course, would come on the fortnightly Steamships' coastal boat. Local plantation owner would transport the non-perishable goods from the Amazon Bay wharf up to the whiteys' settlement.

All orders were placed via the 2-way radio situated in the local trade store.




Anonymous said...

Good story Kev. Paul Weaver.

Kev said...

Richard, my situation was not as I wrote. I was about 18 miles from Ihu Government station in the Gulf of Papua and I would make an after school dash into the station to talk with Steamies on the sched on Fridays giving them my order. The K boat would get into Ihu up the Vailala River around Tuesday, or was it Wednesday? A government tractor/trailer would deliver the groceries and beer out to my school. Usually the meat would be bloodless after swimming in a large watery ice chest all the way from Moresby. Villagers sold me vegies and occasionally gift of
fish.

Late when posted to Madang Tech in '64 things were a little more normal.

Richard said...

I should have stressed that he house boi days were when I was single.

We've been married 47 years come Thursday and lived for 6 years in Moresby as a married couple until departing PNG in December 1976 --- a year after Independence.

We did have a hguse boi in those 6 married years in Gordon's Estate, a Moresby suburb.

But he was more of a garden boi cum house cleaner, not a cook.

My terribly fussy wife would have fainted had he been allowed to touch our food supplies.

Greg said...

Had a similar situation when off-shore cruising, bringing a yacht around from Broome to Perth. The tinned food store had been inundated at some point and the labels had floated off, making selection a bit hit-and-miss. Tinned carrots with custard, anyone?