Parrish - Merles Country Show Baking: and Other Favourites

TO MY WONDERFUL FAMILY,
THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING.

I come from the small village of Cudal in New South Wales and the local show has always been a big part of my family life. My mother and father were stewards in the pavilion and so I first attended as a baby and toddler. Im in my eighties now and I still enjoy the show every year. Im a proud life member of a show that has been going for 110 years.

The local show in Cudal was held on the second Saturday and Sunday in September. It was always the nicest time of year, weather-wise. Only very occasionally did we have rainy weather. It was such a big event! Excitement would build from as early as January and February. We would wear our very best clothes and spend our savings on rides on the merry-go-round, hot chips and fairy floss. I still like fairy floss!

My mother and some of the other auxiliary ladies used to serve luncheon in the dining room at the showground. In the weeks before the show, she would go on foot from house to house in the village to ask for donations to pay for the ingredients, and I would go with her. At the show, people paid a small sum for their luncheon, which was usually meat and salad with plum pudding and custard for dessert. The ladies would make the food at home and finish the preparation in the showground kitchen. Then they would serve it up in the dining room over the space of a couple of hours around lunchtime. They would serve as many as 200 people a day.

I would go to all the shows in the district: Manildra, Molong and Canowindra. When I was a teenager I would go with a group of friends. It was lots of fun. Later I would go with Clyde Parrish, who I married on 23 January 1954.

My mother was a good cook and I would help her, standing next to her on a little stool at the kitchen table. When I was 7 years old I entered my Anzac biscuits in the Junior Baking Section at the show, and I won first prize! I competed every year after that. When I was 16 years old I had my first go at a big cake, a butter cake. I cant remember if I won or not that time, but competing at the show had really grabbed me. I loved the atmosphere. I still get a thrill now. And if Im beaten fairly, then so be it. You have to be a good sport about it.

Clyde encouraged me to continue competing. He was my backstop. When I was in the kitchen cooking for hours, he would always do the washing up. No dishwashers in those days! I still dont have one.

Our three children, David, Marianne and Robert, all started competing early and they all won prizes regularly. Sometimes they even did better than me! It was a busy life. I worked part-time for 21 years on the domestic staff at the local hospital. I looked after the children and I cooked every meal from scratch, including all my biscuits, jams, sauces, you name it. I knitted all the childrens jumpers. I was active in our local branch of the Country Womens Association and I was Chief Pavilion Steward at the local show. And I was entering my baking and handiwork into the competitions.

Then, in 1977 when I was 45 years old, I started to have trouble seeing. My doctor sent me to see a specialist in Sydney and he diagnosed a malignant cancer in one eye. It was devastating and the whole family was affected. I had the eye removed and since then I have had tests every three years but luckily the cancer hasnt returned. Mind you, I had to make adjustments to my baking, cooking and handiwork. In 1978 I did a cake-decorating course at TAFE in Orange every week for two years I drove 40 km there and back. When I finished the course I taught classes in my own home. I couldnt do fine work because of my eye, of course, but I knew the basics.

Since the operation I can only bake big cakes in round tins. Occasionally I would misjudge taking a cake out of the oven and it would end up on the floor. Oh well, that ones not going to the show!

After all those years of competing, I was asked to become a baking judge at district shows. You have to judge strictly to the rules and regulations. You only have to taste the tiniest little bite. In between you can bite into an apple or have a sip of water to neutralise your tastebuds. I can keep a note in my head about which is the champion when Im judging cakes. In some shows, you judge on your own in the pavilion with the stewards accompanying you.

I had been judging all over the district, from Oberon to Bedgerebong, from Canowindra to Dubbo, for 20 years when I did my CWA Land Cooking Judge exam in 1988. It was tough, but it should be. Once youre a judge you are invited to judge groups who are competing to take part in the Land Cooking and Craft Handiwork sections at the CWA state conference. Its different now because there are so many judges, but when I did my exam only 14 of us passed out of the 32 who entered. I have since judged at both group and state level of CWA land judging.

The CWA judging exam and my first entry into competition at the Sydney Royal Easter Show in 2000 were the toughest things Ive done. But they are both the best of the best. Competing in Sydney had been a lifelong ambition, but that year was the first time circumstances allowed me to enter. I made 14 entries, including my butter cake, my peach blossom cake and my scones.