Mock Brains

Brown & Polson's Cornflour, Uncle Toby's Oats recipe book: containing tested recipes for the preparation of many delightful summer and winter dishes, sauces, biscuits, puddings, etc. C.1930

One of the most prevalent types of cookbook to appear in Australia in the first half of the twentieth century was that intended to promote a particular service or product. These have been estimated as representing 46 percent of the overall market. Companies like Uncle Toby’s and Sanitarium produced many cookbooks to promote their wares. The Seventh Day Adventist Church, the owners of Sanitarium, even had its own publishing house; the Echo Publishing Company. They saw great value in cookbooks as a means to disseminate the church’s particular approach to diet and to cross promote its manufactured food products to a wider audience that might not otherwise have come in contact with them.

Many of the recipes in these types of promotional books tried to expand on the traditional uses of their products. Uncle Toby’s Oats, for example, saw oats as more than just a breakfast dish and provided recipes for lunch and dinner dishes. This recipe for Mock Brains comes from a 1930s cookbook published in conjunction with the manufacturers of Brown & Poulson’s Cornflour. I leave it up  to you to decide if this is a dish you wish to serve up to your family!