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This edition published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2017
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research , criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission . Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers:
ETT IMPRINT
PO Box R1906
Royal Exchange NSW 1225
Australia
First published by Rigby in association with Mead & Beckett 1979
Copyright © Babette Hayes 1979, 2017
ISBN 978-0-6480963-4-4 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-6480963-5-1 (paper)
Design by Hanna Gotlieb
Cover shows Babette celebrating Stephanie's 1st Birthday 1962
This little book has deep roots in my life in Australia. Along with others by Leo Schofield, Richard Beckett (alias Sam Orr) and Barbara and Charles Blackman, it was first published in 1979, as part of a series of people ‘talking about food’. The series designer, Barbara Beckett, was then married to Richard. She was the driving force behind the books and I suppose, looking back, they were part of an ever-expanding interest in food and what it meant - that was taking place across Australia and in my home town of Sydney. Its publication came at the end of a long decade of research and writing, where I had compiled numerous books and articles on cooking and lifestyle and become much more intimately acquainted with my newly adopted home.
The first venture started shortly after my arrival in Australia in 1965, when I was commissioned by Paul Hamlyn to be the art director and stylist for a hefty tome, the Australian and New Zealand Complete Book of Cookery. This involved travelling across both countries and provided a wonderful opportunity for someone who had barely set foot on Australian soil to meet and see what was happening in the world of food and wine ‘down under’ and ‘across the ditch’. At the same time, I had been appointed Cookery Editor for House and Garden and Photographic Editor for Australian Home Journal.
The next milestone was 200 Years of Australian Cooking, originally launched as The Captain Cook Book to time it with Cook’s bicentennial anniversary. It allowed me to extensively research old family diaries and their cooking records. This entailed connecting with members of the Country Women’s Association in Tasmania which led to interstate intro- ductions to a wide variety of country women, who loved cooking, and who let me read through their old, treasured, much-used family notebooks and cook books. It also allowed me to meet with famous TV food personalities, who all loved talking about food, and who added a contemporary element.
New publications kept pace with my working life, with The Home Journal Cook Book following my appointment as that magazine’s Cookery Editor. The Australian Cook Book in Colour, Barbecue Cooking, Family Fare, and Party Fare all followed. And there was even a Pan paperback, Babette Hayes Cook Book. The publication, in 1978, of Australian Country Cooking Style, at the encouragement of Barbara Beckett, allowed me to realize another dream – to photograph the food for one of my own cook books. Travelling with various photographers, I had taken photographs with my 35mm Minolta, as I was getting stories together for Belle magazine and Vogue Living, both interstate and overseas. I enjoyed the responsibility for planning the recipes for Australian Country Cooking Style, as well as setting up and gauging the composition and lighting for the finished dishes.
Revisiting the stories and recipes in Babette Hayes Talks about Food for this new 2017 edition, now titled Food for Friends, and featuring my own family photographs, I was asked what has changed in my approach to food. And I realize that I am just as passionate about cooking and eating with family and friends, about sampling food cooked by others, and reading about what is happening in the world of food. I can also sense my early desire to escape from formality in the creek-side picnics in the bush and the informal gatherings described in its pages.
When we first arrived in Australia, I couldn’t wait to organise a picnic but was met with resistance. The heat and the flies, I was told, were good reasons for not going ahead. But slowly I convinced our new-found friends that it could be enjoyable, with the right location. I always suggested that they bring a dish they loved making and people would bring their specialities. It was a joy; it was sharing. These events were a reprise of the amazing picnics we’d had in Oxfordshire, setting off in our 1927 Bentley or whatever vintage car we had ... packed with food and children, before picking up our friends, Lewis and Patricia Morley, with their young son, Lewis, to meet up with ten or more others at the designated picnic location.
Looking back I see that for me, there has always been a very fine line between friends and family. So these pages recall moments of being together, sometimes gathered around a campfire or, lit by candles, at the kitchen table, in the age-old ritual of enjoying food with loved ones. Reflecting on these many years of cooking and entertaining, I realize that I like not to be too formal. I like to mix things on the table ... plates and wine glasses that don’t really match. If people want to help, I like to have them around me, catching up on news as they chop and stir or whatever. We rarely had a separate dining room and it still doesn’t appeal because I am not going to shut myself away somewhere just because I am cooking. And there is a certain pleasure in having a sense of support and help. For their part, friends and family also enjoy sharing, and maybe learning, although that has never been the intention. I think you can cook anything anywhere, even on a camp fire. I would liken it to someone who is comfortable with words, spoken or written, which flow with ease them. Cooking is a part of me. It flows for me and I feel totally comfortable with it.
Those who know me, know of my childhood. I was born in Damascus and we lived in Douma in a typical, large, flat-roofed home, surrounded by a lush green garden. Brief holiday visits to the Lebanon were frequent and when my father died in battle, in Syria, in 1941, we lived in Cairo and Alexandria. This period of my life ended when I was finally taken to England, aged 8, by my mother and my new stepfather, on a troopship in December 1944, towards the end of the war.
I arrived in England, not speaking a word of English. All school children were evacuated due to the bombing of London and the major cities, so after a brief spell in the North of England, I was sent to a boarding school to learn the correct King’s English. I was strictly brought up from ‘day one’ and quickly had to learn perfect English table manners. I was not to speak at the table during mealtime and I curtsied every time I was introduced to an adult until I was 14 years old.
