The full story

The quote ‘The night before the ship left for Australia, our family cooked together for perhaps the last time. But the meal was too salty from everyone’s tears’ was based on the story of a Afghani woman who migrated to Australia in the 1990s. This is her story.

One day I was walking to my niece’s home. Like all women, I was wearing a burkah. As I walked past a soldier he yelled, “I can see your feet! When are you going to be a true Muslim!” I knew that speaking up to a soldier was dangerous but in that moment I decided ‘this is no life’, so I shouted back: “It’s not your job.” The soldier pushed me down and hit me many times.

When I told my brother, he became very worried for our family’s safety, so he helped me escape. Everything was prepared for me. I was to leave my family, my two children and travel on my own to Pakistan, Indonesia and then to Australia where I believed I would be safe. The night before my departure my mother and my sister in-law made orange pollou. That evening there was extra salt in the recipe because of our tears.

Orange Pollou (Orange Rice)

3 cups of basmati rice
4 cups of water
750g meat (trim beef or lamb)
half cup sultanas
1 cup pistachios or blanched almonds (either or both)
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 orange or 70g of dried orange rind
5 threads of saffron
2 tsp caraway seeds or to taste


Method:

Peel orange and cut rind into julienne strips. Leave rind to dry for 2 days. Boil and drain rind twice to reduce the bitterness. Fry in oil. Before removing orange from pan, add sultanas and let them go “plump”. Add nuts and sugar to the mixture. Set to one side.

Before cooking rice, add saffron to water. Cook rice for 10 minutes. Stir in caraway seeds.

Cut meat into small 1 inch pieces, place in pan with lid and cook slowly until juices have evaporated. To serve, lay down layer of meat followed by a layer of rice and repeat a number of times, and scatter orange rind and nuts on top.

Cooking Stories was an exhibition that explored the significance of food in the culture and life of 19 individuals from refugee communities. The stories revealed the witty, tender and sometimes painful experiences of the journey to Australia. Elements of the exhibition, together with recipes also formed part of a cookbook titled ‘Cooking Stories’, edited by Julie Shiels and published by Museum Victoria.

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Your stories

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Posted on 11 May 2009 by Chris Buckingham from Moe, Victoria
I immigrated to Australia with my brother Edward in 1979. We travelled withy out grandmother on a Qantas Jumbo Jet. It was very exciting for a pair of 10 and 8 year old boys. My grandmother demonstrated extreme patience on the flight and the cry 'Are we there yet was heard many times before we landed at Tullamarine Airport.' We travelled to Australia separately from the rest of my family because my parents had been trying to get permission to live in Australia for four years without success. They were both teachers and would normally have had no trouble getting Visas. The Immigration Department were not keen to accept my family, because my older sister Zoe' has Down's Syndrome. They decided my family would be too much of a burden on the Health System. My mother was so determined that we would have the opportunity to grow up in Australia. She was prepared to send us ahead and take the risk that we would not come back. When Edward and I arrived at Tullamarine airport, we were met by an aunt and two cousins. We drove across Melbourne and up to Jamieson in an EH Station Wagon (about 4 hours drive) One the way we were very keen to see kangaroosa and koalas. Like many other new arrivals our first sighting of Austraian wildlife was road kill. When we stopped for lunch at a Milk bar we found the Australian meat pie very much to our liking - so much so that we went back for another one. Life as a child in Jamieson was idyllic we swam in the river, went bush walking with our grandfather and learnt how to fish for trout. While we missed our family, living in Jamieson was a great adventure. Happily my parents overcame the bureacratic barriers and sailed out to Australia on the MS Taraschevenko. We were reunited as so many other immigrant families on the Port Melbourne docks. My family are all still alive and well. My sister Zoe is now 42 and has made a terrific contribution to her community wherever she has lived. My father has taught at BoxHill Tafe for more nearly thirty years and is set to retire this year at 72. My brother lives in Fontainbleau near Paris with his partner Tao and three children... we hope he will return to Australia one day. My youngest brother Sebastian lives in BoxHillNorth with Hien and his daughter Margaret Anne (just down the street from Dad). My mother lives not far from Moe on a small farm at Willow Grove. I live in Moe with Mikaela my partner and two great kids Thomas and Mietta. Moe is a really good place to live - we enjoy being close to the beach and the mountains. It is a town with a bigheart and if you smile and say hello to people walking down the street, they nearly always respond with a smile and hello back. As a family we have a wonderful life in Australia. This is a great country with good communities that still have the capacity to give people a fair go, no matter where they are from, or what they believe...
Posted on 21 Jun 2009 by smith helen from melbourne
My daughter is the seventh generation to live in what is now Victoria._the ancestors arrived in Port Phillip colony after a three month trip costing nineteen pounds-only seven years after Batmans famous line"this is a place for a village". We have opened up the country,fought and died in its wars and helped to build it to what it is today-the best country in the world.

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