MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS - LET'S SHAKE IT UP A BIT!

Cardwell by the Sea...Hinchinbrook Island in the background

Main Street of Cardwell...which is actually the Bruce Highway...businesses on one side; ocean on the other.\

W.C. Fields once said: “Never cry over spilled milk, it might’ve been poisoned.” 

Later, after he came back (or it could’ve been before he left) Arnold Schwarzenegger grunted: “Milk is for babies; when you grow up you have to drink beer!”

Advice I sometimes follow; and many other times, not.  I don’t drink a lot of beer, but there’s nothing quite like an icy-cold beer to quench one thirst in the heat of summer.  The beer industry would go broke if it depended on my ingestion of the amber ale or lager, though.  I’ve not had a beer since Christmas.  When I do infrequently succumb, it’s always lager.

I don’t spill a lot of milk, but I do drink my fair share of it; and always full cream.  I like milk; I enjoy drinking it.

When I was a child growing up in Gympie in the Fifties there were nine or ten (or more) cafés along Mary Street, Gympie’s main street, alone - Condie’s; Wards; Brown Jug, Tobin’s; Patrick’s, Choy’s and Comino’s to name but a few; I can’t remember all the names at this moment.

Each one prepared and served milkshakes and malted milks in the authentic fluted, frosted metal drink containers of old while us children with our eyes sparkling in eager anticipation watched on. The containers froze our little fingers, but not enough to be a deterrent. Only the shortage of pocket money would stop us from indulging; but I must admit I mostly preferred the painfully-cold orange drinks; and probably, overall, had more of them than I did milk shakes.  As a child I wasn’t a big lover of ice cream, as strange as that sounds.

Sometimes the rich milky treats were served in the paneled soda fountain glasses mostly reserved for chilled orange juice or ice cream sodas. 

At this very moment the roof of my mouth is going out in sympathy just from the memories flooding back of the pain suffered, but endured!

Those days are long gone, aren’t they, of the old-style cafés/milk bars?  Are there any similar outlets around the ridges today where these drinks are sold? 

(As an aside…there were as many pubs in Gympie’s main street back in those days, too.)

Most of the cafés/milk bars in Gympie back in those days of yore were owned and operated by Greek families; at a guess, more than 95% of them.

Condie’s Café on the opposite corner to Webster’s Corner Store at the Five-Ways was very popular with the movie-going crowd because the Olympia Picture Theatre was only a hop, skip and jump away.  The picture theatre also had a small milk bar snuggled up close and personal to it on either side, enough to keep everyone happy.

Patrick’s Café halfway along Mary Street became a popular meeting place for lunch after I started working.

Tobin’s Café a little further along Mary Street, frequented often by the wives of farmers when they came to town was lined in stained dark wood/ and it’s glass-encased shelves and display counters held many tempting cakes. 

Back in the Fifties the farm/country ladies only came to town once a month; perhaps at most once a fortnight.  And they always dressed in their very best - equal to their Sunday best - for their day’s outing in town; and fashionable hats were almost always worn.

My first job when I left school in the early Sixties was as a legal secretary at Tozer & Jeffery, a local law firm. The newest junior member of staff, into which mould I fitted at one stage, had a very important chore to do each morning.  That chore was to walk down to Tobin’s Café daily clasping a glass jug in one's hand to purchase the milk for our morning teas.  The hardest part of this chore was to arrive back to the office with a still-full jug of milk. Our success rate was very low.  A trail of spilled milk was left behind.

The office didn’t have a fridge to store milk.  In fact, we didn’t have any “mod-cons”.  The most modern piece of equipment we had in our “staff room” was an electric jug.  And, our “staff room” was, in fact, nicknamed the “dungeon” by us staff.

It was an underground area; below street level. It housed an old, unused strong room, a bench, a few chairs, some old bookcases filled with ancient ledgers and journals, lots of dust, and that’s about it!  We walked down stairs to enter the area; and there was a mottled-glass, solid window set into the concrete wall at footpath level.  The glass was thick and strong; it was unable to be opened. Shadowy forms of the ankles and feet of the passing parade of people could be just made out.  Actually, it was rather more like “the few people walking along the footpath at any given time”, than “the passing parade”.

You might note I wrote “walk down” – and this is what we had to do.  Gympie is a very hilly town.  The office in which I worked was up one end of the Mary Street; and the main shopping area of the street where all the cafes were…was downhill…in what originally had been a gully…Nash’s Gully.  In 1867 prospector James Nash discovered gold in Gympie; thereby saving Queensland's bacon and putting Gympie on the map! 

But back to the important issue of the moment - the last time I came across a milkshake/malted milk-making machine was when I moved to Cardwell from Collinsville in the mid-Nineties.

Before I took on a position as manager of a motel on the highway in Cardwell I worked for a brief period at a service station, where, in the evenings, I operated the little restaurant attached to the servo. During the day I did a daylight shift serving behind the counter in the shop wherein my duties included the selling of all manner of items, along with the preparation of burgers, fish, chips, steak sandwiches, sandwiches etc., as well as making milkshakes and malted milks.

I felt taken back in time while I whizzed and whirred milkshakes and malted milks using all the old-time equipment. It was the first (and last) time I’d ever done so. Even then I thought it an ancient and rare practice; but a fun one.

Another indulgence of the lost days of my tender years of innocence was the ice cream sundae.  We even prepared sundaes, every day including Sundays at the Cardwell Service Station.

Again, when I was a little girl, I didn’t indulge in ice cream sundaes often because of my not being overly partial to ice cream. I probably could count on one hand how many times I’ve eaten sundaes.  My brother, Graham and our friends loved them, however. They made up for my shortcomings; and I do eat ice cream now – so all is well and at peace in the world.

Perhaps franchises like Gloria Jean, Baskin-Robbins and similar are keeping the practices of milkshake, malted milk and ice cream sundae-making alive and kicking.

I don’t frequent such places.  I live such a sheltered life! I should get out more, I hear you say.  On with my deerstalker hat, I’m grabbing my magnifying glass to go in search of an old-fashioned milk bar. 

Banana Split: Slice banana in half, lengthwise; place banana on side of long sundae dish. Using strawberry, chocolate and vanilla ice cream, scoop one of each flavour and place into the dish between the banana slices. Top ice cream with whipped cream; place a maraschino cherry on top of each scoop; drizzle with chocolate and strawberry syrups; sprinkle with chopped nuts, if desired.

Peaches & Cream Sundae: Using strawberry, chocolate and vanilla ice cream, place a scoop of each into sundae dish. Put drained, canned peach slices on sides; top ice cream with whipped cream.  Place 1/2tsp crushed canned pineapple on top of ice cream scoops; decorate with cherries with stems; drizzle with strawberry syrup.

Never On a Sundae: Place a big scoop of vanilla ice cream in bottom of chilled, glass dessert dishes; add a layer of sliced strawberries; drizzle with dark chocolate sauce. Add another scoop of ice cream; then a layer of blueberries; drizzle with chocolate sauce. Top with whipped cream; drizzle with chocolate sauce; garnish with a whole strawberry.

Brandied Berry Milk Shake: Place 2c vanilla ice cream, 1/2c each blackberries, blueberries and strawberries, 1/2c milk and 1/4c brandy into blender; process until smooth.

Piña Colada Shake: Place 1-1/2c frozen, fresh pineapple cubes, 1-1/2c vanilla ice cream, 1/2c coconut extract and 3/4c frozen sliced banana into blender; process until smooth. You could add Malibu instead of the coconut extract if you wanted one with a kick – or not!

R-Rated Shake: Place 1 scoop ice cream, 1 scoop crushed ice, 1/4c cream, 1/2tsp vanilla, ½ banana, 1 liqueur glass of Baileys in blender; process until smooth. Top with whipped cream and choc sprinkles.