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In 1916 the Licensing Court began re-assessing the number of liquor licences
granted per head of population around Daylesford, closing some premises down.
While the Lafranchis were able to afford the cost of a lawyer to help keep their hotel
open, the closure of others revealed the area's diminishing population. When the
Shamrock was finally closed, Lafranchis' was the only hotel at the crossroads. Its
staff was reduced, however, with the marriage of Giuseppina in 1924 to farmer
Michael Bourke. During their married life the couple lived on farms at Smeaton and
Bungaree, raising four children: Olive, Leo, Mary and Innes. These children and their
cousins often visited their grandmother, aunts and uncle at the Blampied Hotel,
deUghting in the foods which they fetched from their candle-lit cellar.*" Their own
parents also prepared traditional peasant foods, such as potatoes cooked directly over
steaming macaroni ~ a cooking method designed to save the power and a pot.
Potatoes were also used as a thickener in pasta dishes to make the meal more filling.
One dish, recaUed years later by a grand-daughter as bancott, was a type of broth over
which bread topped with cheese was steamed.*^ This was certainly the same dish
pancotto (pane cotto, bread with soup) eaten by Leonardo Pozzi during his journey to
Australia (see Pozzi section) and well known thoughout Italy as zuppa di pane. A
recipe belonging to Giuseppina was similar, comprising bread fried in milk, covered in
cheese, then floated in hot soup. These simple peasant dishes, and the names which
identified them, were passed through several generations of the family ~ linking
cultures and time and again pointing to the central significance of food in the
stmcturing of family life.
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