The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken

of meat, vegetables, of salad vegetables, and of fruit, from an Australian standpoint, should be so thoroughly inculcated that a proper conception of their respective food values should remain for a lifetime. The prizes for proficiency and excellence in culinary matters, too, should be such as to render them worth the winning, and serve as a stimulus for future exertions. Is it not strange that so far ingenuity, universal approval, or general consensus of opinions call it what you will, has not up till the present given us an Australian national dish? Although tea and damper instinctively arise in the mind when the matter is referred to, yet I take it that we would all repel such an accusation if levelled against us. Does the Australian, moreover, away from his native land perpetuate his patriotism by oft partaking of this pastoral fare? Certainly not. Well, when this national dish is composed and formally approved of by the nation, let us devoutly trust that it will be a MACEDOINE of vegetables, or a vegetable curry, or some well-concocted salad. It is true that in one of the cookery books I have seen a dish of peaches, dubbed PECHES A L'AUSTRALIENNE. It is a sort of compote of peaches, but to the best of my belief it is simply entitled Australian for the sake of giving it a name, and for no other reason. CHAPTER X. AUSTRALIAN FISH AND OYSTERS--AND THEIR FOOD VALUE. Anyone looking backwards upon the history of Australia cannot fail to be impressed by one peculiar feature, which is the more distinctive, too, because it is in striking contrast with all else. It is the more noteworthy also, because it affects each individual inhabitant of this island continent, and has a direct bearing on the daily life of every person is the community. Thus, on the one hand, while we are nearing a maximum of progress--or, at any rate, attaining to a high level of success--in political matters, in commercial affairs, and in athletic prowess, yet, on the other, there is unfortunately an apathetic indifference in all that concerns