Simpler Meals Including Greens Beach Special

At the Greens Beach shack meals were different from what we had back in town. They were simpler, certainly, partly because of the limited kitchen work space, a very basic stove and an absence of appliances like the Sunbeam Mixmaster. And there was no way Mum would miss out on beach time, golf time, card-playing time and precious reading time, just for the sake of cooking ‘normal’ meals! And rightly so. The range of fresh food was less and catering had to work around that.

During the slong summer holidays at the beach lunch was either a BBQ (lamb chops, sausages, slices of potato, sauteed onion rings, maybe salad, maybe bread) or it was a platter of cheese, cold meats like polony or ham, sometimes tinned camp pie, hard boiled eggs, sliced tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce in season, with chutney, mustard and salt and pepper standing by. Fresh bread and butter were on the table for us to help ourselves if we wanted to make a sandwich. For years this kind of lunch was associated with the informality at the beach, but today it’s standard for many modern households, any day of the week – our own for a start. In time, travelling in UK, Mum learned of ploughman’s lunches, and then Blue Banner Pickled Onions began appearing on our table, too. I’d forgotten how iconic these divinely crunchy pickled Tasmanian onions were until I looked them up just now.

For over 100 years they have been produced and in Tasmania, but I haven’t seen them anywhere else, not surprisingly as it turned out. In the late 70s, during a visit to Tasmanian family from Mt Isa, one day I rang the Blue Banner company offices to find out where in Queensland I could buy them. I was slightly amused to be told that Melbourne was their most northern distribution point. Recent reports indicate however that production has been stepped up, so watch for them – inquire and put a bit of pressure on the company! In the supermarket I bought a caterer’s sized jar to take back to Mt Isa. It was a huge plastic jar, about a gallon capacity, with maybe a couple of hundred onions in it. I’m not exactly sure why we were carrying a feather-filled sleeping bag back with us in a duffel bag, but it seemed reasonable to wrap the onions in the sleeping bag and put that all in the duffel to protect the jar and contents. At Mt Isa airport, as soon as the cases came down out of the luggage hold to be loaded onto the luggage trailers, from 100m we could smell those pickled onions! The plastic jar had split and leaked into the surrounding sleeping bag and possibly into other nearby cases. Everything dry-cleaned up perfectly well, and the drained onions did just fine in the fridge in the liquid-free plastic jar until they were all eaten.

Returning to simple meals at Greens Beach: the electric frypan journeyed back and forth from town to the beach, as it was frequently used in each kitchen for a variety of dishes. At the beach it was used for the one dish Mum never cooked in town. Your family might have something similar by a different name, but our family and others at the beach knew it as Greens Beach Special . A recipe book today might refer to this as a skillet meal.

Here’s how you make it: (1) Into a large saucepan or electric frypan, place a finely chopped large onion and saute this in about a dessert spoon of dripping until translucent. (today ‘vegetable oil’ is more PC, it’s almost the only time I ever use dripping) (2) Add about 1/2 kg minced beef and brown while dividing it all up with a wooden spoon. (3) Then add 1 and 1/2 cups white rice, a large can of tomato soup (we always used Rosella) and then the same quantity of water from rinsing out the can.

(4) Cover and cook on a low heat, stirring often until the rice is all cooked and then it’s ready to serve. Add a little more water if you think it’s getting a bit too dry. Add S&P to taste, or not – it depends on your tomato soup.

In our house GBS was always served with tinned peas, and to this day I don’t think frozen or fresh peas ever do the dish justice 🙂 Our greenery tonight will be a green salad served before the GBS. Of course, it can be stretched a bit – add more meat, more soup, more rice or add a packet of frozen mixed vegetables – heck, just double the recipe to start with. Any leftovers are marvellous on toast for breakfast next morning.