Mangana

Mangana is a little town nestled in behind the imposing peaks of Ben Lomond in Tasmania's North East. Off the main road, it's not ever a drive through or a destination for the average Tasmanian motorist. But for me, ever since the 1988 film The Tale of Ruby Rose some of which was shot there, I've wanted to go there.

Gold was discovered there in 1850 and by 1860 sixty buildings were in place and 104 town allotments sold. By the 1870's the mine was thriving with two hotels, three churches and a school.

By 1881 though, an observer noted: travelling through the once flourishing township of Mangana...the town has a very uninviting appearance. The present state of Mangana is pathetic.

Despite this bad review, it still thrived into the next century.

Well. I don't know what our town reviewer would say about old Mangana now if he held that view in 1881.

 sheep in the front yard................

                                               still got the Christmas tinsel up.............

  old miner's cottage.....

                                             ..............the old school

maybe this was a hotel? Lovely old place.

And the incongruously, well kept and architecturally unusual Catholic Church.

Well, me with my love of history and abandoned places, found Mangana fascinating and charming.
 My grandmother was born and raised in the nearby sister town of Mathinna (that's for another blog), and as I stood in the middle of the main street (no traffic) and took photos, stories she had told me of her childhood seemed a little more real. I just felt if I closed my eyes for a moment, I would open them and see the little girls in boots and stockings running, laughing to the schoolhouse. And the boys, some barefoot, throwing stones and teasing the girls. I'd see the mothers in their long, heavy skirts hanging out the washing, and then a father riding his old pushbike home from working in the mine all day.

The following week post-Mangana-visit, a friend told me her grandmother grew up there, a  neighbour to Alice Christina Irvine 1879-1940. Now, where did I know that name from?

Alice wrote the famous (in Tasmania anyway) Central Cookery Book.

Every Tassie girl with a Tassie born mum or grandma, was familiar with this book and it's many editions. I still use it regularly. By googling Alice.....

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/irvine-alice-christina-13002


......., I find she grew up in Mangana and her first job was as a paid monitor at the Mathinna school in 1897. By 1906 she went to Melbourne Training College and was Mistress of Domestic Science in Hobart when she put out her book which was to be the definitive text for school girls to come.
Within the pages of this edition is Mangana Cake.

I scan the recipe....12 eggs! Seems they had good chooks in Mangana. Alice has noted at the foot of the recipe that it gives satisfactory results if halved. I'll go with that.

 double line the tin with brown paper....

                 .....using some of my grandmother's utensils, maybe they can help me along a little...


I don't know what Alice was like, but the Head of Domestic Science at my High School was old school and scary. As I was making this cake I could hear her bellowing behind me. As I banged the beater on the bowl... "don't beat that bowl or I'll beat you"....."use your hand girl".
Mrs Morris was still instructing me!

Finished result.

I've never made a fruit cake before, and was quite chuffed with the results. It's really very nice.