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from one end of the bar at their Blampied hotel and stabled horses overnight for
customers (cf above p. 162). Many Italian speakers ran businesses while at the same
time investing money in mining ventures. Better-educated immigrants marketed their
translating skills as a side-line to a business. A diversity of enterprises retained its
value in the AustraUan setting because of its usefulness as a survival tool. Reliance on
the famUy farm remained, however, at the core of their existence and the Italian
speakers, despite the wealth, which some inevitably achieved, continued to labour in
their fields, live a fmgal and hard life and rely upon traditional methods of food
preparation.
As described earlier, centuries of living in a harsh alpine terrain and climate had
taught the Italian speakers, not only how to grow foods for an adequate diet, but also
how to prepare and preserve them for a year-round food supply. Dried sausages,
bacon, cheese, bottled vegetables and fruhs were among the many foods to which they
had become accustomed ~ and continued to enjoy in Australia. Despite the range of
new foods available in the Colony, and the recipes acquired through contact whh other
ethnic groups, many continued to prepare and consume tradhional foods: vegetable
soups in which bread topped with cheese might be floated, sausage meat, bacon, eggs,
pasta cooked with onions and cheese, polenta (com porridge), fresh fm\X and
vegetables. Some families cooked risotto, rice being one of the few hems acquired
outside the home. As typical peasant foods, most were prepared in a manner
preserving fuel and cooking time. The foods of the Italian speakers were an important
expression of their ethnicity on the goldfields: a sUce of sausage and a piece of cheese
was the school lunch many immigrant children shared with their Anglo-Cehic
438