DAVID ADAMS takes a look at the origins of an Australian icon…
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PICTURE: Robyn Mackenzie (www.istockphoto.com) |
News recently that there’s been a new bid to put the lamington in the Guinness World Records Book with the creation of a 1320 kilogram whopper ‘lammo’, has got us wondering about where it came from?
Sure, we know sandwich was named after Lord Sandwich and the pavlova after Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova. But what about that Australian-made icon, the lamington?
Turns out the lamington, according to the Australian National Dictionary Centre, may well owe its name to Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, the 2nd Baron Lamington (aka Lord Lamington), who served as the Governor of Queensland between 1896 and 1901.
The story – which was reported in the Courier Mail back in the early Eighties – goes that the chef at Government House in Brisbane, Armand Gallad, was called upon to feed unexpected guests at very short notice. Having some left over sponge cake, he apparently dipped the slices in chocolate and covered them in coconut. And thus a star was apparently born.
Among alternative versions are that Gallad accidentally dropped sponge cake in some chocolate and later added the coconut. There have also been claims that the lamington originated in Scotland or New Zealand and that it was actually named after Lord Lamington’s wife and not Lord Lamington.
Lord Lamington himself is reported as having later having referred to the lamingtons in a somewhat derogatory manner.
The lamington has evolved it first started appearing in Australian cook books in the early 20th century and now comes in various varieties – strawberry and lemon included – often with cream or jam in the middle. It’s spawned the phrase ‘lamington drive’ which refers to the selling of lamingtons as a fund-raising exercise and even has it’s own national day, 21st July.
If you have a word you’d like to know the origins of, simply send an email to origins@sightmagazine.com.au.
