Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Food stories continue, so many family oddities. Robyn Yavor of North Ryde says, “Growing up in the small land down under the land down under, we had no experience of exotic cuisine. Along with meat and three veg, Mum cooked savoury mince as a staple. She then broadened her skills and introduced a dish she called Kai See Ming. Mince fried with onion, then stewed in a pot with cabbage, rice and curry powder.” Some poking around on the internet suggests that this was a dish of the 1960s, possibly originating in New Zealand.Paul Marynissen of Watanobbi, which sounds as though it should be close to Bullamakanka but is on the Central Coast, says, “‘Train smash’ reminded me of a similar name. I once made a dish called crash hot potatoes, twice cooked potatoes flattened and cooked until crispy. My sister asked later if I was going to cook those roadkill potatoes again. Despite the mental image created, I have made them many times since then and her name has stuck.”Less enthusiastic about home cooking is Susan McMahon of Lismore’s brother-in-law, who “will not eat marmalade because his grandmother told him that she made it out of toenails and even asked him to save his own toenails as a contribution”. Grandmother sounds like our kind of woman.More news of technology past. Randi Svensen of Wyong writes, “As a young secretary in the 1970s, my job was to type the telexes from dictation (remember shorthand?), ‘recording’ them on paper tape and transmitting them to head office in New York, where telex operators worked 24 hours. It was a nightmare if someone stepped on the tape as I was sending a long missive. It was also possible to type a telex in the moment and often I’d end up having typed ‘conversations’ with my counterparts on the other side of the world.Brave new world, indeed!”Then for your next trivia night, Kerrie Wehbe of Blacktown says, “The use of outlines of ‘people divided into numbers’, aka dermatomes, isn’t peculiar to John Flynn and outback clinics [Col8 Wednesday]. We use them in hospital recovery wards to determine how quickly the effects of regional anaesthesia are wearing off, by applying ice to different parts of the body to get a response from the patient. It gives us shorthand information for an accurate nursing handover.” As if hospital isn’t hard enough, ice?Richard Stewart of Pearl Beach asks, “Could I be the first to report that Easter eggs are now in Woolies?”Column8@smh.com.auNo attachments, please. Includename, suburb and daytime phone
