WEBVTT - The ghosts of lunchboxes past 

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<v Speaker 1>From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

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<v Speaker 1>It's Thursday, November twenty one. Treasure Jim Chalmers is unlocking

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<v Speaker 1>Australia's biggest financial asset, the giant two hundred and twenty

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<v Speaker 1>five billion dollar Future Fund, to drive investment in housing

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<v Speaker 1>and green energy projects and improved infrastructure. One of the

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<v Speaker 1>Biden administration's most powerful diplomats, Deputy Secretary of stat Kurt Campbell,

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<v Speaker 1>is warning incoming President Donald Trump not to turn his

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<v Speaker 1>back on Australia in the face of a relentless China.

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<v Speaker 1>Those two big stories and what they mean for all

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<v Speaker 1>of us are explained in detail right now at The

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<v Speaker 1>Australian dot com. What are the kids in your life

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<v Speaker 1>having for lunch today? I bet it's not a devon

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<v Speaker 1>and tomato sauce sandwich on white bread. How times have

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<v Speaker 1>changed and today we've got to treat our treasured senior

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<v Speaker 1>writer Matt Condon on the ghosts of lunch boxes past.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's make some lunch for my kids. It's so cute

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<v Speaker 1>out there on social media. Women are joyfully making their

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<v Speaker 1>children's school lunches. I'm tapping it off with their clear

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<v Speaker 1>egg and fleaky salts. This food is nourishing, organic, inventive.

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<v Speaker 1>A tortilla, add some hummus, lettuce and some turky. Matt

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<v Speaker 1>Condon is a senior writer with The Australian and today

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<v Speaker 1>he started a new column. His first is a treatise

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<v Speaker 1>on how generations of parents raised on white bread and

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<v Speaker 1>plastic cheese have found themselves preparing bento boxes for their children.

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<v Speaker 2>My mother would just sort of chain saw a bit

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<v Speaker 2>of devon and chuck it between two bits of bread,

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<v Speaker 2>and then it did go into the lunch box and

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<v Speaker 2>then five hours later, in thirty five degree Brisbane heat,

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<v Speaker 2>it had come out again as a completely different product.

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<v Speaker 2>This is before microwaves. I mean it was just Brisbane

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<v Speaker 2>humidity was enough to completely transform the horror that it

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<v Speaker 2>initially was into some new, absolute new culinary monster. And

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<v Speaker 2>yet now kids are getting sushi like what was sushi

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<v Speaker 2>in the seventies. Sushi was I don't know. It was

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<v Speaker 2>like a martial art type of martial arts was it?

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<v Speaker 2>Who nobody knew what sushi was. The biggest event in

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<v Speaker 2>Brisbane in the early seventies was a pizza hut opening.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's incredible how in a single generation. The

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<v Speaker 2>culinary arts have evolved extraordinarily.

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<v Speaker 1>Have your children ever tasted devon?

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<v Speaker 2>It's dog food now, I mean, but having said that,

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<v Speaker 2>even the dogs eat better quality, more quality Devon than

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<v Speaker 2>we had as kids. So no, to answer your question, no,

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<v Speaker 2>they've never eaten devon. I mean that the concept now

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<v Speaker 2>of a roll, a kilogram of processed sausage that comes

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<v Speaker 2>in a dog food style roll pinched at either red

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<v Speaker 2>is literally beyond their comprehension.

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<v Speaker 1>I've got very powerful Devon memories, Matt. You see kids

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<v Speaker 1>being pushed around in the supermarket now, sitting in the

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<v Speaker 1>trolley with an iPad. But when I was a kid

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<v Speaker 1>in canber in the eighties, I was sitting in the

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<v Speaker 1>trolley with a packet of devon. My mum would the

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<v Speaker 1>first storf in a supermarket would be the deli counter.

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<v Speaker 1>She would get six slices of Devon and they'd wrap

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<v Speaker 1>it up in paper, and then she'd give it to

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<v Speaker 1>me in the trolley and I would eat it while

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<v Speaker 1>we went around the rest of the supermarket. It was

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<v Speaker 1>sort of quite cheap entertainment.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh why do I understand that so well? You know,

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<v Speaker 2>with lunches today there are sort of this myriad of

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<v Speaker 2>one hundred thousand types of snacks. So there's all sorts

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<v Speaker 2>of musally sugar free musli bars and different sort of

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<v Speaker 2>types of seaweed. That's sheets of seaweed that's graded in

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<v Speaker 2>different thicknesses and got different condiments and flavors of different

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<v Speaker 2>types of seaweed sheets.

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<v Speaker 1>Here's some of Matt's essay, which you can read in

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<v Speaker 1>full at the Australian dot com Are you right now?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh? Dinner time? In the nineteen seventies, I tell my

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<v Speaker 2>children over dinner, closing my eyes with the pleasure and

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<v Speaker 2>simultaneous pain of remembrance. What was it like? Dad? Tell us,

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<v Speaker 2>tell us, what did you eat well? I said, we

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<v Speaker 2>didn't have organic stuff way back then. Anything organic just

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<v Speaker 2>meant it had either been grown in the earth or

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<v Speaker 2>was rotting back into the earth. What did I eat well?

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<v Speaker 2>Tripe for starters, stripes tripe the stomach lining of a

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<v Speaker 2>cow or a sheep or a pig, cleaned, trimmed, cooked

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<v Speaker 2>and served with white sauce and onions. My daughter placed

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<v Speaker 2>her hand across her mouth. It was awful. Nobody laughed.

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<v Speaker 2>Stomach lining, I stressed. Then there was lambs fry and bacon.

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<v Speaker 2>The lamb's liver, that was the fry bit wrapped in

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<v Speaker 2>bacon to make it even remotely edible. My youngest almost

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<v Speaker 2>dry wretched. But I was on a roll, a roll

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<v Speaker 2>of horror rissoles, endless rissoles, and curried sausages or normal

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<v Speaker 2>sausages with some sort of tined curried powder sprinkled on top.

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<v Speaker 2>My eldest, a vegetarian, quietly belched. A lot of things

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<v Speaker 2>seemed to come out of tins. My youngest son said, quizzically, yes,

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<v Speaker 2>they did, I said, because we never knew when there

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<v Speaker 2>was going to be a nuclear war, so at least

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<v Speaker 2>when the bombs hit, we'd have plenty of tins of

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<v Speaker 2>pineapple and apricots and we'd survive. The children were silent.

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<v Speaker 1>I know.

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<v Speaker 2>My youngest wanted to ask how the tins managed to

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<v Speaker 2>survive a nuclear holocaust, but he refrained. I've wanted to add, Look,

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<v Speaker 2>I'm not blaming my parents or a generation of adults

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<v Speaker 2>that were entrusted with our luncheons. They worked with what

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<v Speaker 2>they had. My father, for example, born in the late thirties,

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<v Speaker 2>so his childhood was a sort of directly influenced by

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<v Speaker 2>the depression, so of course off all et cetera was

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<v Speaker 2>just part of the course. And of course in the

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<v Speaker 2>seventies came the great movement of quote buying in bulk,

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<v Speaker 2>so if you bought in bulk then you could save money.

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<v Speaker 2>Everything came in this sort of giant, almost forty four

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<v Speaker 2>gallon style drum tins of full of processed fruit. And

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<v Speaker 2>Dad would and it's a funny, old fashioned word that

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<v Speaker 2>you'd only use with wine nowadays, Mum would tell you

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<v Speaker 2>your dad's decanting the veggiemite, because you'd buy it in

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<v Speaker 2>a drum and then you'd decant it to a smaller

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<v Speaker 2>jar so that it was more manageable, and you might

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<v Speaker 2>get twenty jars out of the drum that was sealed

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<v Speaker 2>up for the next decantation. So it's just a completely

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<v Speaker 2>different planet.

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<v Speaker 1>After the break. How post war frugality and industrialized food

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<v Speaker 1>production shaped childhood diets. Australia was lucky to avoid the

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<v Speaker 1>strict rationing of post war Britain and we didn't have

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<v Speaker 1>the unfettered corporatization of food that has cursed the United

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<v Speaker 1>States and led to a situation where Donald Trump's nominee

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<v Speaker 1>for Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Junior mixes conspiracy theories

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<v Speaker 1>about vaccines and fluoride with ideas on food that for

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<v Speaker 1>Americans might sound radical, but for Australians seem quite reasonable,

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<v Speaker 1>like that kids' breakfast cereals shouldn't contain artificial colors and

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<v Speaker 1>that most of our food should be unprocessed. In Matt's

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<v Speaker 1>seventies Brisbane childhood, there were some early adopters who believed

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<v Speaker 1>food should be fresh and wholesome.

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<v Speaker 2>Indeed, I had a great friend of mine at the

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<v Speaker 2>school whose mum I look back on her now and

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<v Speaker 2>think how progressive she was. That they literally had their

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<v Speaker 2>own They actually had a goat in the backyard of

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<v Speaker 2>their suburban house in Brisbane, so they would drink goat

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<v Speaker 2>fresh goat milk. She would grow her own veggies. Having

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<v Speaker 2>said that, he did go to hospital briefly with malnutrition,

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<v Speaker 2>but apart from.

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<v Speaker 1>That, that's a small price to it.

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<v Speaker 2>It is, but there were pockets, but that was considered

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<v Speaker 2>sort of highly unusual, if not something to be suspect about.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So, like so many things about modern parenting, we

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<v Speaker 1>try to smack our kids a bit less than our

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<v Speaker 1>parents smacked us. We may try to lay our own

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<v Speaker 1>emotional baggage on them a bit more lightly than our

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<v Speaker 1>parents laid their emotional baggage on us. How do you

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<v Speaker 1>interpret the way we are feeding our children as a

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<v Speaker 1>kind of indication of the kind of parenting people in

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<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty four in Australia are trying to live by.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, If I shout at the dog, my children are

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<v Speaker 2>slitely all over me, about to report me to the RSPCA.

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<v Speaker 2>But you cannot be aggressive, cruel, et cetera to this animal.

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<v Speaker 2>But sensitivities, it does go to a point where sensitivities

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<v Speaker 2>are completely different than you know. Maybe my kids will

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<v Speaker 2>be reflecting as I'm reflecting today on the norms of

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<v Speaker 2>when they were children and how things have changed dramatically

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<v Speaker 2>for their own children. Maybe we all just try and

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<v Speaker 2>put our shoulder to the wheel and do the best

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<v Speaker 2>we can in the moment that we live. I do

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<v Speaker 2>reach some points with my kids where I just think,

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<v Speaker 2>for a flash of a moment, oh, for God's sake,

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<v Speaker 2>let them have it and let them be kids for

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<v Speaker 2>ten minutes. Are we limiting them and strangulating their childhood

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<v Speaker 2>too much? I will literally sneakily buy the kids ice

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<v Speaker 2>creams and say just go for it, but don't tell mom.

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<v Speaker 1>All right, Well, I'm off to buy a roll of

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<v Speaker 1>Devon and some of the fool sugar tomato sauce. That's

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<v Speaker 1>another big treat these days. You're supposed to give the

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<v Speaker 1>kids the stuff that doesn't have any sugar and isn't

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<v Speaker 1>as nice.

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<v Speaker 2>Good luck in finding the Devon, I mean, I would

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<v Speaker 2>go to the pet section because some of it does

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<v Speaker 2>look to my ancient mind, does look quite appetizing compared

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<v Speaker 2>to what we had as kids.

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<v Speaker 1>Matt Condon is a senior writer with The Australian. You

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<v Speaker 1>can read Matt's full essay right now at Beaustralian dot

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<v Speaker 1>com dot au slash health, along with a suite of

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<v Speaker 1>other inspiring and informative yarns about the science, ethics, and

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<v Speaker 1>taste of good health today. Ah, thank you, that's very funny.