My mother’s copy of Margaret Fulton’s Encyclopedia of Food and Cookery no longer sits straight on the shelf. The yellow clothbound cover has faded to an unattractive beige and the binding tape dad stuck over the spine is losing its grip, causing it to slump against its neighbours.
It’s full of neat pencil annotations (“v. good, used half sugar”) and certain pages fall open, stained from heavy use: beef bourguignon, pork and water chestnuts, apple and quince pie.
If ever we asked how to cook something, mum would just say: “Ask Maggie.”
Fulton died on Wednesday, aged 94. She taught a whole generation how to cook, and introduced to a stubborn country that dinner could be more than chops and three veg.
Most Australian households had at least one of Fulton’s 25 cookbooks, usually the encyclopedia or The Margaret Fulton Cookbook, which sold 6m copies and included recipes as simple as making a tossed salad.
The salad dressing my parents still use (two thirds oil, one third vinegar, a spoonful of mustard, salt and pepper) came from The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. Before then, most white Australians had no idea how to dress a salad. We were perplexed by vegetables that weren’t boiled.
If you grew up in Australia, your family has probably formed its own traditions around her recipes. We want to know: what did Margaret Fulton teach you about cooking?
Tell us in the comments below.
