The Art of Living in Australia

The Art of Living in Australia was first published in 1893 and urged the value of Mediterranean eating and drinking habits for the Australian way of life. Philip E. Muskett was an Australian-born medical practitioner and health reformer. Born in Collingwood in 1857, he studied medicine at universities in Melbourne, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and then practised in London before returning to Melbourne. In 1882 he took up a position at Sydney Hospital, and remained an honorary surgeon there after going into private practice. As many of his patients were children, he became interested in infant health and mortality, and particularly the role of nutrition in preventing illness. The Art of Living in Australia was his call to the Australian population to rethink all aspects of their physical life, and embrace Australia's 'Mediterranean' climate. Muskett's recommendations include ablution, bedroom ventilation, appropriate clothing for hot and cold weather, diet and exercise. Muskett particularly abhorred the eating habits which had grown from the availability of foods during early colonial times - the predominance of meat, bread and butter and tea. He encouraged increased production and consumption of vegetables, fish and seafood, salads and wine. The book contains over 300 recipes contributed by Mrs Wicken, lecturer in charge of 'domestic economy' at Sydney Technical College.

Harriet Wicken received a Diplomée of the National Training School for Cookery, London, and was also lecturer on cookery at the Technical College, Sydney.

Philip Edward Muskett (1857-1909) was a medical practitioner and health reformer, working in hospitals in both Melbourne and Sydney.

Preface

Part 1: the art of living in Australia
1. The climate of Australia
2. The alphabetical pentagon of health for Australia
3. Ablution – the skin and the bath
4. Bedroom ventilation
5. Clothing, and what to wear
6. Diet – importance of breakfast, fruit, tea, coffee, iced drinks, tobacco
7. Exercise
8. On school cookery, and its influence on the Australian daily life
9. Australian food habits, and their faults – a plea for their improvement
10. Australian fish and oysters – and their food value
11. On salads; salad plants and herbs; and salad
12. On Australian wine, and its place in the Australian daily dietary

Part 2: Australian cookery recipes and accessory kitchen information
13. The kitchen
14. The ice chest
15. The stock pot
16. Soup
17. Fifty recipes for soups
18. Fifty recipes for fish
19. Fifty recipes for meat dishes
20. Fifty recipes for vegetable dishes
21. Fifty recipes for salads and sauces
22. Fifty recipes for sweets

Index

'Though scarcely to be regarded as a work of great ability, this book is well worthy of attention. The literary style is clear and agreeable, and the writer must have read widely and otherwise devoted much time to the preparation of the text.' ... "The consumption of butcher's meat and of tea is enormously in excess of any commonsense requirements, and is paralleled nowhere else in the world."
  Glasgow Medical Journal, 1894

Format: paperback
Size: 210 × 148 × 31 mm
408 pages
10 b&w illustrations and 3 b&w tables
Copyright: © 2016
ISBN: 9781920898601
Publication: 01 Mar 2017
Series: SUP Classics