An Attractive Coal Range

An Attractive Coal Range.

While staying at Pep’s Cottage in Raglan there was an old coal range in the house that had great visual appeal. This coal range now fulfils a decorative purpose. Our family lived in Timaru for a period in the 1960s. I was a pre-schooler and we lived in an older house. The memories I have of this house are the large sash windows, you could climb in and out of them; riding the trike along the hallway; the outside toilet; and the coal range.

As kids we had to go outside at night and use the toilet before we went to bed. We stood as a group as we each used the toilet and then headed back into the house and off to bed. Other memories of the house include the big black coal range in the kitchen. Mum used to stoke it up as she used this for cooking. I can remember looking into the bright fire as the cast iron lid was lifted off a stoking hole on the hot plate which formed the top of the range. When my parents sold the place in 1967 the people who brought the house wanted to know what they had done with electric stove. The new buyers were obviously modernists.

 

 

I am currently reading Kai to Kiwi Kitchen – New Zealand Culinary Traditions and Cookbooks. This book states that the first import of a coal range was in 1865 by Lady Barker in Canterbury. By the 1880s coal ranges were being manufactured in NZ and these replaced the earlier "colonial ovens" that were a simpler and cheaper device used for cooking. Nearly a century later the coal range was still in use, but as time has passed they usually now fulfil a decorative function.

Next year we have booked a couple of weeks at Pep’s Cottage. I am sure the coal range will still be in place a reminder of how our forebears cooked.

A second visit to Westmere Butchery and on to Raglan

A second visit to Westmere Butchery and on to Raglan

As we headed from the far north to Raglan we decided to go via Westmere Butchery to purchase some more sausages. On the list to purchase were pork and lemon; pork, blue cheese and walnut; and Italian Banderia. Westmere Butchery make a wide array of sausages and when we visited not one of the desired flavours were currently on display. The shop was busy and so we selected cracked pepper and Worcestershire sauce, chicken and cranberry, and Hellertau Stuntman sausages. With the sausages in a cold bag, it was off to Raglan.

We had booked a bach through the internet, and stayed at Pep’s Cottage in Raglan. This was a great house to stay for our sojourn, the view from the deck was magnificent.

 

 

My father had worked in Raglan briefly during the early 1970s. I remembered the harbour, the mud flats and rowing in a dinghy but not a lot else about the town. We lived a place that had a path down into the bush, this led to the long drop  that was the house's toilet. It is interesting about what you recall after over forty years.

For the first night in Raglan we cooked the chicken and cranberry snarlers. These were eaten with fresh corn on the cob, a potato salad and a green salad.

 

The chicken and cranberry sausages are a fine grind quality chicken sausage with a slight hint of cranberry. They were pleasant eating, but were not outstanding. I would rate The Fridge, New Plymouth and Island Bay Butchery’s chicken sausages as superior to any of the chicken sausages we had eaten recently from Westmere Butchery.

 

 

As the sun went down and we ate our meal on the deck we looked forward with anticipation to our time in Raglan.