Anne Sharman compiles King's 'Green and Gold Cookery Book' from 1924 into a recipe for South Australian iconic status
Anne Sharman edited and compiled the Green and Gold Cookery Book, a fundraiser for Adelaide's King's College in 1924. The book went into multiple editions (the 1933 edition is shown at top centre) as it adapted to cooking "with oven temperatures" during the 20th Century and continued to be a fundraiser for Pembroke School in the 21st Century.
The Green and Gold Cookery Book, beginning as a volunteers’ fundraiser in 1924 for King’s College (later Pembroke School) in Adelaide’s Kensington, became a South Australian icon and classic Australian recipe book with more than 50 editions and half a million copies sold.
Anne Sharman conceived the idea of a little recipe book to raise funds for the new King’s College boys school set up by the South Australian Congregational and Baptist churches. From a Congregational church family, Sharman, 20, trained as a domestic science teacher at Norwood, offered to compile the recipe book as her contribution to a King's College fete planned for March 1924. The idea was taken up by fete committee president Emma Morris, who, with secretary Constance McRitchie, sold advertising to cover the costs of the book.
A call was put out to Congregational and Baptist women across South Australia for tested recipes and household hints. With individual churches encouraged to appoint a recipe collector, 30 congregations responded and recipes poured in from churches and individuals, mainly from South Australia but also as far as New South Wales and Queensland.
Sharman took on receiving, checking and sorting what became more than 200 pages of practical dishes, wrapped in a hard clothbound cover of dark green, embossed with gold letters, to match the new school’s colours. Contributors had recipes published in the first printing, with their names and suburb recorded under their recipe and, in some cases, the full address.
The Green and Gold described itself in the preface as “a purely Australian book – the ingredients it calls for are those in daily use in every Australian house – and it should therefore commend itself to all Australian women. Our little book does not profess to compete with such complete manuals of the culinary art as Mrs Beeton’s, for example; but I dare to say that with no other guide than this, the inexperienced housewife may prepare a breakfast, cook a dinner, and serve up a dainty tea that will rival, if not out-rival, ‘what mother used to make’.”
Like many cookbooks of the era, the early Green and Gold was heavy on cakes with 26 recipes for sponge and layer cakes, 36 recipes for small cakes, 70 recipes for large cakes and 70 recipes for biscuits and shortbreads. Jams, jellies and marmalades had another big section. Breakfast dishes included brains in batter, liver and bacon, kidney savoury and crumbed sausage. Luncheon dishes included more egg dishes, homemade camp pie, “fricasse” of sheep’s tongues and the classic South Australian fritz sausage. The meats continued the offal theme, with recipes for curried or stewed kidneys and ox tongues boiled or in jelly. Rabbit also featured repeatedly.
In the chapter on “Remedies,” the cure for a bilious attack was given as the juice of a lemon, one half teaspoonful carbonate of soda, and two tablespoonsful of warm water.
The new cookbook was very well received, with the Register newspaper in Adelaide praising its practical and reliable methods, and complete, clear and satisfactory index. Priced at two shillings, the first edition of 5,000 copies sold out within 12 months, raising £250. The Congregational church journal reported that “praise has come from America, India, New Zealand, and all parts of Australia.”
McRitchie called on 250 Congregational women to take on the challenge of selling 10 copies each, and her Baptist counterpart on the committee, Florence Benskin, urged 250 Baptist women to follow their example. A second edition in 1925 had women volunteers again promoting, distributing and selling it. In 1927, the committee signed those tasks over to a commercial publishing house that paid the school royalties.
Within months of the Green and Gold being released, Anne Sharman was offered a job as chief demonstrator with the South Australian Gas Company (Sagasco). She stayed with the company for 14 years, running adult cookery classes and giving cooking demonstrations at the company’s showrooms in Waymouth Street, Adelaide city, and at public venues and shows in Adelaide as well as regional centres. She also judged cookery at the Royal Adelaide Show for many years and, in 1931, produced the Sagasco Cookery Book.
By 1960, there had been 31 editions of the Green and Gold Cookery Book, with Sharman occasionally adding extra recipes and tips or a fresh preface. By 1974, the book had generated more than $15,000 in royalties. That year, King’s amalgamated with Girton Girls’ School to form Pembroke School. Passing 50 editions, the receipe book continued raising money for the school.