Earning a Crust

Book excerpt: This unique combination of local, cultural and family history explores the lives of the men and women who worked in the baking trade in the regional Queensland town of Warwick during the century after the town's establishment in 1861. What emerges is a microcosm of Australia as it was until the rapid technological changes and societal shifts that began in the 1960s. Printed in colour and enriched by anecdotes and scores of photographs, advertisements, and newspaper clippings, the book is both a record and an affectionate reflection on an era characterised by hard work, enterprise, resilience and optimism, and provides a rare glimpse into traditional bakeries where magicians in aprons and baker's caps turned flour, yeast, salt and water into the wonder of bread. Beginning with background about Australia's and Queensland's early bakeries and flour mills, it tells the stories of some of Warwick's remarkable baking pioneers. It also traces the history of Warwick's flour mills and the successive owners of the large bakehouses known to have existed. Woven into these stories are broader events that affected all of Australia (immigration, two world wars, and the Great Depression) and the theme of hope of building a bright and prosperous future through hard work and enterprise. The book includes a list of some 160 owners, bakers, pastrycooks and carters identified as having worked in the trade in Warwick over the century concerned, as well as sections dealing with bread distribution, the bread-making process, ovens and other essential equipment, the role of various baking associations, and the importance of institutions such as the Bread Research Institute in contributing the science that turned baking into the bread manufacturing industry. Useful sources of further information about Warwick's history are also included and some concluding reflections.