Hunter-gathering in the 1950s. We ate like kings - Hunter Wells

On a Tuesday morning, I would take crayfish rolls to school for lunch.

Hunter Wells writes for The Weekend Sun.

OPINION

We didn’t have a fridge. We were the last family in the street to get TV. And we walked or cycled everywhere.

But we ate like kings.

The basket was always bountiful. Because the old man was a blue-collar worker 40 hours a week and a hunter-gatherer the rest.

He provided in a way we can only dream of today.

On a Tuesday morning, I would take crayfish rolls to school for lunch.

My mate, Brian Magnussen, was forcing down butterless Marmite sandwiches and I was hooking into crayfish wrapped in fresh white sandwich bread and drizzled with malt vinegar.

Two or three of them — and we didn’t think anything of it. There were also three or four crayfish legs to break open.

School lunches were a joy in my family. Bless the old bird.

And crayfish rolls Tuesday morning because fresh bread baked overnight Sunday didn’t reach our Four Square in time for school lunches.

So Mondays we took a couple of bob, or 20¢ in today’s money, to school for a pie and a cream bun — a sweet dough bread bun, split and filled with thick, sweet mock cream gloop, a splash of something red with the consistency of congealed blood, and dusted with icing sugar.

They were shockers.

I remember Rowena Snook would dislodge the big gloop of mock cream from the bun, eat it and throw the bun away.

The crays were caught during our regular Sunday afternoon hunting and gathering ventures.

Dad would unravel a plastic pot scrub, fill it with mussels and dangle it deep in a tidal rock pool.

An hour later we would pull it up and net the crays having a feeding frenzy on the mussel bag. Easy.

We’d also pull in half a dozen greenbone — white creamy fish fillets with few bones. Beat the hell out of snapper.

On the way home with our kai moana, we would shoot four or five rabbits.

They would be stuffed with sage and onion, trussed and baked. Dinner that night and cold with a salad the next day.

We ate splendidly.

No TV, no fridge, no car — but bellies full with the best. And all it cost was effort and enjoyment.

The only bit I didn’t like was the foul, black, evil-smelling field mushrooms we would pick.

As big as dinner plates, vile, cooked in butter and eaten on toast.

Texture and taste are irrelevant — I hated them. It was the pungent stench that hung heavily for days. Where’s the enjoyment?

They grew in perfect magic circles that always intrigued me.

And Dad would kick over the manky ones left behind; apparently to scatter the spores and start a fresh crop.

And always at some point on those adventures, Dad would stop. And from the depths of his windbreaker, he would pull a bag of Frisco Kiss toffees — always Frisco Kisses.

Two and six they cost — 25¢ for a bag, which worked out about four or five toffees for each of us.

A good buy.

He liked what he liked. And we liked what he liked.

So this family of six would eat very well for much of the week — until the bread started going stale again on Saturday.

• This article was originally published in Coast & Country News