Tastes like Summer

Summer is hot here in Queensland, Australia. Average temperatures are not often below 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in the area of the state where I live and the humidity is more than 65% on average during the season (the months of December, January and February).

That's right, our Christmas Day can feature gatherings around the pool if you have one, the sprinkler for the kids if you don't or air conditioning if your host has it. Some of the southern states have it better than we do during the summer with their averages lower than ours, but they pay for being able to spend Christmas day outside by freezing their butts off during the winter months (June/July/August). Then there are some states that have it a little worse. Like The Northern Territory where Mother Nature scrapped the 4 regular seasons, in favour of the less popular Wet and Dry Seasons.

When I was a young child my family lived in a small community a very long way from the coast of the country which impacted the climate, the environment and there fore our lifestyles considerably. Temperatures at night were low and high during the day, the same way a desert is. I remember the midday temperature one winter being 40 (or 104 F) degrees in the shade. Water would actually get hot enough to almost boil in the pipes. I remember mum having to put bricks of ice weighing a few kilograms each into the bath water. I never had a problem with the heat out there though, it was a dry heat and I've discovered I'm fine in the heat but high humidity makes me feel like I'm the Wicked Witch of the West and I'm about to melt. And being a kid probably had something to do with being more tolerant too.

The community being so isolated also presented a lot of challenges. One of the biggest was food and groceries. Home vege gardens were not possible due to a lack of water and rain. There was no corner shop or bakery, the nearest shops were a 3 hour drive away on partly dirt roads. No just nipping to the shops if we ran out of milk or bread out there! Actually, our milk was powdered and Mum baked our bread fresh. Everything had to be purchased from the nearest town or bought in on freight train. Some of the families raised and slaughtered their own livestock so they would have fresh meat. Even baking was a challenge. Got a hankering for a sandwich, your all-time favourite cake, yummy slice or biscuits? The only way to get them was to order the ingredients ahead of time and bake it yourself. Sorry guys, I'm of British decent and I just can't bring myself to say cookies or candy! Its biscuits and lollies to me. You should see the confusion on the barely-more-than-a-teen barrister's face when I order a Monte Carlo biscuit with my coffee when the jar is clearly labelled cookie! Besides, these are relatively new terms in Australia and while you can definitely teach an old dog new tricks with a bit of determination, this particular one just doesn't want to do it! Tradition. You understand, right?

Mum made the best sweets! Besides the slices, biscuits and cakes she baked, she also added marshmallow, toffee and fudge to her repertoire! My siblings and I grew up with beautiful treats, made in our own kitchen like everything else we ate. No fast food or pre-packaged food for us. We didn't try McDonalds until I was nearly 10 on a trip away to visit extended family. To this day, if considering fast food, restaurants like McDonalds are not on my list, based on nothing more than those options weren't available to me for more than half my life. And before the Convenience Generation tries to suggest it, I'm fairly certain Uber Eats wouldn't have gone out that far even if it had been around back then! It was a vastly different way to live from the life I lead now.

Given the complications involved in getting our hands on even just the basics, I'm not entirely sure how my primary school teacher got her hands on fresh seafood (was frozen sea food was even available 35 years ago?). But she did and she shared it with my family on a picnic one summer.

There were crabs, prawns, oysters and my all time favourite, Moreton Bay Bugs. Bugs sounds creepy and gross, but they are beautiful to eat! Apparently they are known as Slipper or Flathead Lobster elsewhere. Good to know! Now I can order some Bug if I'm travelling overseas! It is definitely a once-in-a-while treat in my household, mostly because I'm the only person that enjoys a good seafood feast and it's become a special event meal shared with much loved visitors. I'm not sharing my seafood with the visitors I'm not so fond of!

I can't say oysters were a highlight of the day and it took me just a few more years to come to appreciate them, but I don't pass them up these days! I know, a lot of people aren't Oyster fans, but have you tried Oysters Kilpatrick?? Honestly, if you can tolerate bacon with you pancakes and maple syrup, its a very small change to putting bacon on oysters and baking them. The most vivid memory I have of that picnic were the Bugs. They must have been the strangest looking food I had ever seen. Did that put me off? Not a chance! Since then I've discovered there are a lot of different ways chefs prepare Moreton Bay Bug and I think the most popular is usually done in garlic butter. I did try a beautiful pasta with white garlic sauce, spring onion and Bug that was divine. However, it never matters how well someone dresses it up, my favourite will always be fresh Bug straight out of the shell, no embellishments. So sweet and great texture. Just like the first time I tried it.

The human brain is absolutely amazing. Did you know that our brains are more inclined to form and recall negative memories than positive ones? It's an evolutionary throw back to a time when our food source was as likely to hunt us as we were to hunt it! It is no longer necessary, but the primal part of our brain hasn't actually evolved much since then. Right now I have the image of a Big Mac and a shake chasing someone down the street. Insert Laughing Face emoji here!!! The impact of that trait however is that we more readily form memories around food experiences. Is that why a taste or smell can make us happy? Could that be why we "eat" our emotions? Ok, me. It's me. I eat my emotions. Could it be that I've reinforced that original happy summer memory by adding more positive memories of sharing those meals with the people I love? Maybe this is part of the reason food is such a integral part social experiences. I'm not a psychologist, so don't quote me on that. But it's food for thought!

I don't remember ever eating seafood before that picnic. Ever since then, fresh seafood has been my favourite summer food. There is nothing more refreshing after on a hot summer day than sitting down to a meal of a few kilos of fresh prawns, maybe a Bug or oysters if we can get them, a fresh crisp salad, buttered fresh bread rolls and Mum's home made seafood sauce recipe. To be honest there isn't actually a recipe. It's mayonnaise or sour cream if it happens to be in the fridge, mixed with a mild Sweet Chilli sauce and anything else that takes your fancy to personalise it (like a dash of Worcestershire sauce which was Dad's favourite or minced up gherkin which is mine). Finish off the table setting with chilled drinks (maybe an ice cold cider! I don't drink beer), family and friends.

The perfect way to spend a summers day and memories I'll treasure for ever!