With the arrival of winter here in the Blue Mountains I bought a packet of Golden Crumpets. My partner Rob and I both commented that it was exactly the same red and gold packet we remembered from our 1950s Tasmanian childhoods. It also had that unusually soft plastic wrapping.
Now I think this company actually started in Tassie. According to the Tasmanian Archives it was incorporated in November 1950. The first mentions I could find of Golden Crumpets in the vast, national newspaper archive TROVE are from Launceston and Hobart in the very early 1950s.
That piece was published in 1952. The Launceston factory was located in Charles Street.
Mr Hasting’s machine had been installed a year earlier at the crumpet factory in Hobart.
MACHINE FACILITATES CRUMPET MAKING
A Hobart firm has installed an automatic machine – the only one of its type in Tasmania – which can make 20,000 dozen crumpets a week…..A 30ft gas oven cooks the crumpets evenly as they pass under gas jets on a conveyor belt. (The Mercury. Mar. 30 1951)
Hastings was in Hobart at the time to supervise the ‘running-in’ of the plant.
PROMOTING GOLDEN CRUMPETS
Here are a couple of Golden Crumpets’ early advertisements;
Source – The Mercury, May 20 1954
A quiz has always been a great way to create interest in a new product. In August 1951 The Mercury published this beauty;
And the winner was………
Here is another snippet that pretty well proves Golden Crumpets began in Tasmania;
Mr Jack FitzGerald, director of the Golden Crumpet Co., will leave Hobart for New Zealand on Tuesday to investigate the possibility of forming companies there. (The Mercury, Jan, 26 1952).
The food section of Fitzgeralds department store was one of the first outlets for the crumpets.
In 1986 the original company was wound up, along with Golden Crumpet companies in other states.
The entire business was acquired by George Weston Foods, which sensibly retained the name and used the same packaging. I’m delighted the crumpets are still available. To the joy and comfort of hot, toasted crumpets we can add the warm glow of nostalgia.
I currently put them in the toaster, which is not ideal. However, as I have a wood stove I’m going to buy a toasting fork, open the door of the stove, and brown them by the coals.
SOURCE – PINTEREST
As for toppings, well that’s only limited by one’s imagination; Vegemite, cheese, smashed avo! 😎
The Full Catastrophe. 😋
I’m not sure that I see them on cafe breakfast menus now that I think about it, but they definitely should be.
Here is a sweet topping of Orange & Raisin Compound Butter, invented by…. me! You just chop some raisins and soak them overnight in orange juice. Then you drain the raisins, and combine them with some honey and grated orange rind. Finally, incorporate everything into the butter. You can also add crushed cashew nus.
The following images appeared recently on the Golden Crumpets’ Facebook Page. I love them.
FINALLY, WITH APOLOGIES TO GOLDEN CRUMPETS, HERE IS HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN.
