Damper

Many years ago when I was a child my father made me a hut in the garden - just a rude hovel really, but its glory was an old iron stove which he had found and supplied with a flue so that it could be lighted to provide some smoky warmth.

He showed me how to make damper, the stodgy unleavened bread that was the traditional staple of travellers, such as stockmen, swagmen and drovers, in the Australian outback. The simple ingredients - flour, salt or sugar, baking soda, some currants - could be carried dry until mixed with water and formed into rough loaves or flat cakes for baking on a pan, in the ashes or wrapped around a stick. Not in any way a delicacy, but eaten in the fingers beside the fire, with woodsmoke and fresh air as the only condiments, damper is a tasty filler.

Later on I made damper for my sons when we had fry-ups in the fields close to home, where they slept out in tents during the summer. The flat cakes of dough would be cooked in a pan over a camp fire along with bacon and sausages, usually ending up greasy and scorched but none the less much relished.

Yesterday my sons and a friend with a car drove to a favourite beach for the day and took with them the ingredients for damper. They cooked it in a pan over a fire along with some shrimps and tiny crabs. They brought home these two charred cakes. Even reheated in the microwave the damper tasted as good as ever to me, flavoured as it was with nostalgia and reminiscence. It's nice to see an old family tradition revived.