There will only ever be one ‘Cri’
JOHN ANDERSEN looks back at times gone by at The Criterion Hotel, where thousands of locals created memories they have never forgotten
IN the 80s, with live music in the beer garden, the Criterion was a great place for a Sunday ‘sesh’. For a long time the Cri, along with the Newmarket under Marg and Jim Anstey, were the ‘go to’ places for a top steak.
Townsville’s Sir and Lady Lunchalot’s could be found at either establishment washing down prime cuts with Wolf Blass Yellow Label Shiraz.
And then of course there was the late night music venue upstairs in the Cri known as the Parachute Club where people of all ages were guaranteed a jump.
There were even Grab a Granny nights.
Talk about free-wheeling times.
It’s a shame all of this heritage is about to bite the dust, literally.
I was driving my father around the city once and he spotted the Cri and recalled a failed visit there to buy beer during WW2.
He had escorted a boat load of Japanese POWS down from Milne Bay in New Guinea to the old Quarantine Station at Pallarenda.
From there, no doubt, they were taken to the POW camp at Cowra in NSW.
His mates had taken up a collection and tasked him with the job of buying as much beer as he could to bring back to PNG.
He’d gone to the Cri with pockets full of cash only to be told they were only selling beer to the American soldiers.
He wasn’t too impressed and I doubt, if he was still around, he wouldn’t be too concerned to hear the pub that turned its back on Australian soldiers was headed for oblivion.
Do you casually scan the recipe sections in newspapers?
Waste of time, I know, but we still do it, hoping beyond hope there will be a recipe that doesn’t require hours of preparation and a trip to India or Mongolia to find the ‘special’, never-heard-of-before ingredients.
And when it comes to mushrooms, the more obscure the better.
They never include the common ones you can buy in Woollies or Coles.
That’d be too easy.
I don’t know about you, but it gives me the shiitakes.
And, you know what?
Just once, just once I’d love to see a recipe for corned beef.
I came to the belief long ago that a lot of the people who prepare recipes for publication are
snobs who want to show off how superior they are to the general populace, that being us, the plebs, the great unwashed, the hoi polloi.
There is plenty of interest out there, but pigs will tap dance their way across the sky before you see corned silverside or corned brisket pop in a newspaper recipe section.
IT’S A RECIEPE ONSLAUGHT
YOU watch, we’re coming into Christmas now so brace yourself for an onslaught of recipes on glazing hams, cooking turkeys and making plum pudding.
As if we don’t know how to cook a turkey. As if we don’t know where to buy a good plum pud.
As if we care about glazing a ham.
This is nothing more than culinary wankery and has to be one of the biggest time-wasters ever invented by humankind.
How many people out there have corned beef for Christmas lunch?
Plenty.
I used to phone people up and ask them what they were cooking for Christmas.
A lot of them were fattening a pig or a turkey, a lot were doing chooks and ham and here and there were a few corned beefers.
One old gent out on station told me he and his wife were having hot corned beef with sliced white, buttered bread, and a bottle of rum.
“You can’t beat a hot corned beef sandwich, mate,” he said.
Hard core, I know, but what a bush Christmas!
SO, back to corned beef.
We were having people for dinner this week and the usual debate raged about what to serve.
All the usual suspects like leg of lamb and rolled roast were canvassed until I announced corned beef.
“Not everyone likes corned beef,” the head chef announced. “Okay,” I said.
“Name one person we know who doesn’t like corned beef. Just one person.” I had thrown down the gauntlet. It was a fight to the death. And then in the same amount of time it takes the top eyelash to meet the bottom eyelash, as in the blink of an eye, she said “Wayne Flanagan”.
This rocked me to the core, because as soon as she said it, I knew she was right.
Memories of a mealtime from more than 20 years ago flooded back.
Not everyone will know Wayne Flanagan, who, for many years, was a member and volunteer instructor at the Arcadian Surf Life Saving Club.
He was one of those countless people who give up so much of their time for the good of the community, but apart from grateful parents and club members, never receive any wider recognition for their untold hours of unpaid work…in Wayne’s case this work was with young lifesavers.
Wayne came around home for dinner one Sunday night after a board paddling session in Ross Creek.
He was carrying two or three ‘tallies’ of XXXX Gold which he proceeded to drink from the bottle (he’s a class act).
Corned beef was served.
There was even white sauce with caperberries. “I don’t eat corned beef,” he said. You could have heard a pin drop.
Stunned silence.
Eventually there was a chorus from around the table “you don’t eat corned beef?
Everyone eats corned beef.”
Even the two little Nippers who had been at training with him turned ashen.
Never in their short lives had they heard such blasphemy.
For me, when standing in the kitchen a few nights ago, discussing what to cook for the dinner guests, that terrible moment of shock and awe from all those years ago came flooding back.
There had been a person in our house who had openly stated they didn’t like corned beef.
It’s like having the Angel of Darkness in your living room.
I think we cooked Wayne some chicken.
I’m pushing for corned beef this Christmas. The head chef wants prawns and ham and has given corned beef the thumbs down.
The votes are still coming in, but so far I’m losing.
Even the former Nippers have joined the Opposition party and voted for prawns and ham.
To hell with the Independent Commission Against Corruption, I’m going to stick in a bribe of a couple of loaves of sliced bread, plenty of cold butter and a bottle of rum?
That might do the trick and get me over the line.