Getting to Know Liz Harfull: Author of The Blue Ribbon Cookbook (Part 2)

Don’t you just love it when once a year the city press catch onto the royal show and do charming little features on animals, country skills, cooking, produce displays and the like. Scones in particular are always featured as typical of county cooking and hospitality.

Meanwhile, life goes on in the country and it’s this life that Liz Harfull has tapped in to. If you’ve read the first part of Liz’s interview you’ll know that The Blue Ribbon Cookbook: Recipes, Stories and Tips from Prizewinning Country Show Cooks won an award in Paris this year and is the first cook book in Australia that I’m aware of that features country show cooks, their stories and their treasured prize-winning recipes.

The next time you read about exotic ingredients, molecular cooking, masterchefs, celebrity chefs and the like give a thought to all those country cooks who without fuss and fanfare proudly exhibit their cooking at local shows all over Australia all year round. Some personal glory doesn’t go astray - it’s that blue ribbon they’re after - but the greatest pleasure for them is to contribute to their local community life, keep treasured recipes and traditions alive and most importantly, offer family and friends their prize-winning delicacies, often featuring the local produce of their area.

Liz, having been born in the country and a writer on rural affairs understands just how important it is to acknowledge the show cooks of South Australia and their recipes before it’s too late.

Liz, how on earth did you decide which recipes to include in The Blue Ribbon Cookbook?

This was the single most difficult part of the book. In the end it came down to a combination of factors:

• The first step was working with each show society to gather the names of potential cooks for consideration, and the recipes they might be prepared to make public.
• I rang and spoke to as many cooks as possible, to discover more about them and their recipes, and I ended up with hundreds of recipes for just 53 places! I wanted a wide range of recipes for the book to have public appeal. In the first weeks I was inundated with offers of fruit cake recipes – I stopped counting at about 30.
• I was keen to capture some of the traditional recipes fast disappearing from common knowledge, but I also wanted newer recipes that reflected changing trends in show cooking.
• I was also keen to reflect cultural or agricultural traditions within various regions. For example, yeast cakes, honey biscuits and even ‘rote grutze’ bring German traditions to Barossa Valley shows.
• I also wanted to reflect local food production. In the Riverland area of South Australia I thought it was important to have a citrus recipe, while they still have a citrus growing industry left! Show classes featuring honey are popular on Kangaroo Island, famous for its Ligurian bees, and in the Adelaide Hills there are special prizes for recipes using apples and pears.

But truth to tell what fascinated me most were the people and their own personal stories. So where it came down to a difficult choice, the overwhelming criteria was the passion of the cook, and their personal story.

I gather you’ve given many talks on The Blue Ribbon Cookbook. What are people most curious about?

The most common question relates to the difficulties I might have encountered in convincing competitive show cooks to part with their recipes. But strangely enough it wasn’t a problem. I had more offers than I needed, and most people were very keen to help in the hope it would keep the tradition alive, and encourage others to cook for their local shows.

With cooks like Joan Lindner, who made 83 recipes for one Adelaide Show, it’s hard to believe that show entries have declined. What do you think is the future for show cooking?

It’s true that entries have declined at quite a few country shows, however I am very pleased to say there seems to have been a rejuvenation in interest since the book came out. I am not sure I can claim full responsibility for this though – I think it’s part of a general trend that sees people rediscovering the joy of traditional cookery and a nostalgic yearning for the things they remember their grandmother making.

Having grown up in the country I can remember the excitement as the local show opened each year. What do you think country shows mean to rural communities?

They mean a great deal. They bring together an opportunity to gain recognition for skills that help feed the world and nurture the family, whether its showing prizewinning cattle, or a hand-stitched quilt.

They offer a rare opportunity to get off the farm and catch up with the neighbours, and in larger towns and cities, they bring together the city and the bush, to hopefully help city dwellers reach a greater understanding of what is involved in growing the food and fibre on which we all depend.

How does a home cook go about entering cakes, biscuits and the like, into a Royal Show?

Anyone can enter cooking classes at a royal show but the best way to check this is to contact your state’s royal show society. You don’t need to win anywhere else to be there – they even have novice classes to encourage people who have never won a prize before to have a go.

The only exceptions to this rule here in South Australia are three State-wide competitions that run local and regional finals, and then select the overall winner at the Royal. They are for scones, rich fruit cake and genoa cake.

Liz, what do you think is the difference between country cooking and cooking as it’s discussed and shown in the media and in the multitude of cookbooks now available?

I guess my best insight into this comes from the way people have introduced me when I have been speaking at book events. Time and again they refer to the book being about ‘real’ food and ‘real’ people, food that is cooked regularly to nurture the family, or feed the workers on farm.

Do you have a favourite recipe from your book?

This is a very tricky question to answer! The jam roll recipe is a marvel; if you’re a chocoholic it’s hard to go past the chocolate peppermint slice, and who can pass up home-made pasties and sausage rolls?

But I think the Jubilee cake stands out for me because I wasn’t familiar with it before I wrote the book. It’s a South Australian invention that was starting to slip from common memory. It’s a very simple, economical fruit cake, made with just one egg and a small amount of fruit. You can make it and cook it in about half an hour – you even put the icing on warm. I can imagine in days gone by it was the sort of thing you could turn out quickly if people dropped in unexpectedly, and most of the ingredients would be in the pantry or readily available on a farm. (I’ve made the Jubilee cake and it’s a gem)

Can you tell us a little about one cook from the book?

It is just way too hard to focus on one. There are so many great characters and fascinating people, ranging in age from three to 93 – men, women and children, family dynasties, winemakers, nurses, boilermakers, drovers, teachers … Its the diversity of the people that takes most people by surprise as there tends to be an assumption that show cooks are usually CWA members and only of a certain age!

Why do you think The Blue Ribbon Cookbook has been so popular?

Again, I think its about the people - real people and real food. The book has connected with many because it revives precious memories and a yearning for days gone by, in a country where there is increasingly less connection with the bush. We are essentially an urban nation, even though we may not like to admit it.

In the final part of Liz’s interview she talks about her passions and inspirations and how writing this, her first book, has given her the confidence to take her writing career further. And yes, there is a possibility of another Blue Ribbon Cookbook, featuring other states of Australia.

If you can’t find The Blue Ribbon Cookbook: Recipes, Stories and Tips from Prizewinning Country Show Cooks at your local book store you can buy it here online.

back to top