Article contributed by – By Outback Family History reader Jenni Hodge
Miners having their ‘crib’
There are few better ways to get a feel for the people of the past than by eating their diets. The experience of tasting something which our ancestors tasted connects us with them through a sensory experience which cannot be equaled in the realm of academic learning. However, no wish to engage with the past should ever be an excuse for budding historians to try the Miner Diet. The diet of Australian gold miners was distinctly limited. In fairness, there were not many resources available with which to work. The New South Wales Department of Prime Industries describes the typical goldfield stores as containing “fresh and salted meat, bacon and hams, tobacco and forage for horses”. There were also usually butchers present – who did a roaring trade. Meat was killed and hung outside a butcher’s store for all to see the same day. So, assuming you had a little money in your pocket, you were unlikely to go hungry. However, while it may keep hunger at bay, you might find that your Miner Diet makes you rather ill. While meat was available, it was often not of the best quality. Flies quickly gathered around hanging carcasses and the dripping flesh swiftly turned rancid in the heat so it was advisable to get in and cook your meal early – if you could afford the meat, that is. This high protein diet did have the unfortunate side effect of rendering the breath rather foul, and troubling the bowels (among other, more worrying health concerns). Furthermore, until the arrival of Chinese migrants, vegetables and other sources of essential nutrients were in short supply. However, if the ill-nourished, smelly-breathed, sallow-skinned, irritable-bowelled effect is what you are going for, then the Miner Diet is for you.
The Monotony of Mutton
The Miner Diet, in short, consists of mutton stew, damper, and alcohol. This is to be consumed twice daily (with the exception of the alcohol, which should be drunk freely and at all times) with no variation whatsoever. Mutton stew with damper is not an unpleasant meal when eaten occasionally (and perhaps with a few more flavorings). However, consumed day in, day out, it is both monotonous and deeply unhealthy. Damper remains popular today. The basic recipe is often augmented with herbs, spices, and oils, and remains a staple on the menu of “artisan baker” café chains like Sol Breads. The damper eaten by the miners was a more basic affair – a simple flour and water mix which would be either baked in a tin or cooked in a split stick over warm embers. The damper worked as a belly-filling accompaniment to the frequently somewhat dubious mutton stew. Mutton is rarely consumed these days, with diners preferring the tenderer junior version of sheep meat. Our preference for lamb is, however, a recent development – a2013 study into percentage of income spent on differing types of meat discovered that “Mutton share was 13.8 per cent in 1962 and has been almost wiped out in 2011”. Back then, however, mutton was cheap and readily available (its historic cheapness may have contributed to its downfall – the low price meant that people all too easily viewed it as an ‘inferior’ meat and eschewed the mutton for its higher-priced offspring). For those unable to afford the bacon and hams available in the scanty stores, the slaughtered sheep carcasses gathering flies outside the butchers were the only available option. The stew could be augmented with potatoes and onions, but damper and meat were the essential culinary resources available to most miners. It was a diet rich in protein, but distinctly lacking in anything else.
Unhealthy Hearts
Diet has a big part to play in “heart disease prevention”, and the typical miner diet was (quite literally) a recipe for disaster. The high protein, high fat, high salt diet of your average Australian gold miner would make a modern heart disease specialist blanch in horror. Meat is naturally high in salt anyway – but much of the meat eaten by the miners was externally salted in addition. This helped to preserve it in the hot climate, but wreaked havoc on the veins and arteries of those who ate it. We now know that excessive salt intake is a major cause of cardiovascular disease – and such salt consumed in association with a diet consisting mostly of protein is just asking for trouble. Although some proponents of Atkins-style high protein diets query the accepted wisdom that immoderate meat-eating is bad for your heart, most research appears to back up the theory. A 2009 study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology indicates quite clearly that “High protein intake associates with cardiovascular events”. And we’ve not even started on the the major vitamin deficiencies of the Miner Diet.
Lifesaving Onions
In all fairness to them, the miners did supplement their mutton stew with onions wherever possible. These humble little bulbs were probably a lifesaver, as they would have ensured that the miners got at least a tiny amount of vitamins. Onions Australia point out that “Onions are a source of vitamin C, potassium, dietary fiber, and folic acid”. All of these were sorely lacking in the Miner Diet, and their inclusion with the onions may just about have preserved our miners from the ravages of diseases such as scurvy. The fiber they provided would also have helped the protein-rich bowel movements of the miners along (although the end result, packed with salty meat waste, would have smelled foul – the open toilet trenches were reputedly quite hellish). Nonetheless, the nutrients gained from the onions were not nearly enough to keep the miners in good health. Nowadays, the National Health and Medical Research Council recommend that people eat at least seven portions of fruit and veg a day, divided into five portions of fruit and two portions of veg. A few shreds of onion a day does most definitely not cut the mustard. What little vitamin C the miners did get would have been spread extremely thin over the wide range of tasks this vital vitamin performs. As such, their immune systems would probably have been vulnerable to any infection which came sweeping through these already crowded and insanitary camps. Influenza and pneumonia were rife, and claimed the lives of many.
Chinese Culinary Intervention
The situation was saved by Chinese immigrants. The Chinese diggers eventually became disgusted with the dietary habits of the dissolute white men, and began to cultivate market gardens. Such was the demand for fresh veg that the Chinese diggers made a good profit out of cafes serving greens-rich platters. Before long, the Chinese market garden industry had become, as the Australian Humanities Review says, “ubiquitous in colonial Australia”. Some of these gardens are even still going today – La Perouse Market Garden in Sydney remains active, and is described as “of State significance for their history, associations, research potential, representative value and rarity”. As the gold mining camps developed into communities complete with wives and children, the old campfire lifestyle and questionable cooking of the pioneer gold-seekers was replaced with a perhaps less exciting but eminently healthier mode of living. The Miner Diet became a thing of the past, revived occasionally in times of need, but generally consigned to the old days. Nobody ever voiced any regret at its passing.
Moya Sharp
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A variation of “mutton Stew” for Catholic miners were “salmon patties” every Friday. Canned/tinned salmon, onion & potato made into a “pattie” & shallow fried in mutton fat. My husband & I, both of Cornish & Irish decent still have this favourite at lest every fortnight, a bit more refined, now with parsley, egg & not so much potato & served with salad.