Nothing like Cocky's Joy and damper - beats marshmallows around a campfire any day.

My mum used to use 'blue bags' to whiten whites in the washing & she had a bottle with a rubber stopper that had holes in the metal cap that she used to dampen the clean washing down & roll it up before ironing & she ironed EVERYTHING!

If we got sunburnt we were told to wash the area with soda water & apparently tomatoes took the sting out too. What about vinegar for blue bottle stings? I think they use ice now. We always had a bottle of pink calamine lotion for itches like mozzie bites & mozzie coils to repel them.

My dad had a bbq made from a plough disc, it was a concave disc made of steel with a hole in the middle for the fat to drain and sat on top of a 44 gallon drum with a hole cut out at the bottom for air flow. We also used it for the back yard incinerator to burn anything like newpaper etc... laws against that now...

Pawpaw ointment is a wonderful aussie ointment for everything from burns to dry lips. Nothing strange about any of these things to me...except the ironing routine ;)))

So, who here uses pegs to keep open packets closed?

For example - cereal, rice, sugar, bags of jatz crackers??

I seem to loose tupperware containers like socks in the washing machine, so I have given up buying plasticware. I just close the bag/packet with a peg.

Simples!

Pegs are good.

those blue bags were a bluing agent made whites look whiter, they don't sell any more like old fashioned water softener. There is a mr. clean it that was always using these things, but you can not find them anymore.

Ok vicky I give you some of that, but not all. Some are just hot weather or beach things, born and raised in FL, I know.

1. Watermelon and spitting seeds - heck when i was pregnant, we had a preordained slot in the fridge for the watermelon, minimum 3 a week.

2. Every Sunday took my son to the beach. til I was 18, every sunday on the boat to a better beach- well parents thought so anyway.

3. Back home mom had lime, orange and grapefruit trees, I had a kalamundin tree.

Oh and Christmas lights, every year, at least one night.

Are the beets cooked or raw?

don't know much about outhouses, though i know they had them in md in the 80s. We have fly screens too. don't think even our flies are that bad though. I have always wondered where these people live that have all this open to the outdoors, but no screens? Do they not have mosquitos, deer flies, horse flies, bees, moths, blue bottle, etc.

Now one thing they did Baltimore, that i never heard of before moving to md, though i thought of doing myself. They used to paint the screens on the houses, apparently makes it more private, just looked really cool!

Baltimore’s painted screens: beyond the bungalow | Baltimore Brew · More Info

The painted screens are a Baltimore thing, like 'zinc' for sink and ladies out scrubbing the marble row house steps in East Baltimore in the early mornings! I know I am back in Oz (I have been transplanted to both the UK & the US ...FL & MD) because there is sliced beet on the burger & a Hill's Hoist rotary clothes line in most suburban back yards and I can get Passionfruit to put on my Pavlova with the other tropical fruit & berries.. You can still buy Bluo which my Mum used in the copper to boil white sheets, we also put it on Bluebottle jellyfish stings. Some Aussie bush homes still have a strip of flypaper hanging in the kitchen. Most of the housekeeping things that are Australian are related to our harsh climate and the long distances we travel as well as brand names like Sunlight soap and Vitawheats . Cookies are biscuits and biscuits are Scones!

yep, tis what i said, but would it not be cool if we all had painted screens. Did you live Eastern shore Md? In small town we had several aussie visitors and a couple lived there. We also used fly strips there, and here in de. Never used in FL though. It is strange how some things relate and others not.

In spite of our flying bugs etc hardly anyone has a screened pool though. I lived in Towson and then in the Highlandtown area of Balto. Love the Eastern Shore. Have a crab cake for me please...Yum

What about the Tim Tam Slurp, milo n milk before bed and hot hot summer nights with a ceiling fan clicking in the darkness.

Unique household custom to Australia? Keeping the fly screen door shut with a

"Shut the bl. door ya ---------- were ya born in a tent or what?"

I'm afraid I draw the line at a Tim Tam slurp. Chocolate has to be very cold for me.

We don't have a Bunnings in our town, but their three competitors, we do. My family know not to throw out the hardware catalogues, I love them!

Avocado and Vegemite on toast.

Anzacs dunked in sweet tea.

Vanilla Slice cook-off.

Hmmmm.......... I'm noticing a trend here - they're all food related....

You can keep all of those, 7weed! I will eat a bit of vanilla slice, although Houzz is making me put on weight due to reduced exercise!

7weed .................... LAMINGTONS .................... you forgot the Lamingtons.

No idea what any of those are, but are not all great cultures judged by their food?

chook here they say barn, but that is odd since i grew up in the city and we knew little about barns.

Checking the underneath of your plastic outdoor chair for redbacks before u start the barbie,

and shaking out your shoes if they have been sitting outside for any creepy crawlies. Calling into the servo to pick up a couple of bags of ice to chuck in the esky, cos your meeting your mates 'thusarvo' for a couple of snags and a few 'cold ones'.

Remember the days of lamington drives? Working all day with coconut and chocolate and probably breaking every health regulation in force today. I'd add a photo except this site won't let me anymore.

Stelle, I find banging the shoes together, hard, once upside down gets the spiders out more easily. I can so relate to checking the chairs as I'm arachnophobic. 7weed, My kid has gone off Vegemite so I was interested to hear on Houzz this year that the recipe is different. Haven't tried it with avocado. Like Anzac bikkies very much, but not sweet tea, that reminds me of what they used to give for shock.

Our Agricultural show had a competition in making lamingtons, one year. I think the sponge should be very fresh. Yes, I remember lamington drives through the school and girl guides, but those were commercial ones in packs.

What about bringing a plate of pumpkin scones?

I prefer date scones that my nanna always made for our visit with lots & lots of butter melting on them fresh out of the oven...YUM!

My other nanna always had Arnott's Honey Jumbles at the ready to go with a cuppa! A curious soft ginger biscuit with crunchy icing half pink & half white...double YUM!

Flo Bjelke Peterson wife of former Qld premier Joe was famous for offering her pumpkin scones to visiting vip's & he was among other things a peanut farmer known for knocking down historic buildings in the dead of the night during his Premier day's...nothing strange about any of that???

Flo Bjelke Peterscone was known for her pumpkin variety even in Victoria.

Strange fact from this interesting page of facts...Unusual facts about Australia

"Alcohol- It has been reported that the first European settlers in Australia drank more alcohol per head of population than any other community in the history of mankind."

Ahhhhh........................... so it is all their fault!!!

Home made Ginger beer was interesting in my childhood home for the fact that it had to be stored safely in case it exploded....I never drank it though I had to help clean up the aftermath of a few accidents...If we were good dad would also make great pikelets with lot's of jam & cream...Triple YUM!

On the plus side, the Hills Hoist (much better than the old clotheslines
I knew as a kid in Canada), dual flush toilets and wine casks. On the
negative side, Vegemite (it's inedible unless you were born here),
poisonous snakes and spiders, paralysis ticks (nearly killed my dog) and
road roundabouts (what were you thinking?!). I'm of two minds about
tin roofs, separate toilets, meat pies and preferential voting.

Now I get the wine cask thing, you are talking about paper boxes not oak casks. are the round abouts the type where you have no light, but go around a circle? or like nj where they have no lefts? Both can be quite the pain. Tin roofs, late 1700s is earliest ref in america. Please please keep the bugs, a tick killed my beautiful pup. Do you have the dreaded coconut crab too?

i bet coconut crabs would make a whole meal if you like that sort of thing?

Havingfun - we invented the plastic bladder that allows for wine to be stored in cardboard casks. Tin roofs can be deafening in a downpour, separate toilets allow for more versatility in bathrooms, especially for families, meat pies take a lot of hard work to burn the calories and don't forget our voting is compulsory too.

I bet no one else has Balmain Bugs either.

Yeah, that is what i got when i looked it up it just did not clarify the bag or box, oll, thanks. I know tin roofs, we had those in FL, online does not clarify where, but started in 1700s, all over US. Maybe come from england since we both have? Meat pies we have. American is pot pies, spanish - empanadas, i forgot the name for greek and armenian. We fought for the right to vote, but it was forced on you? Can you go to jail? Sounds harsh. Although we normally only have about a 30% show rate. i do not know who they are, but since my guys never win? It isn't people like me. lol

oh and i don't think we have balmain bugs.

I don't look at compulsory voting as being forced on us - just more ensuring people take responsibility. I'm sure the people who fought for the vote would be very upset to think people nowadays don't take it seriously. Of course you don't actually have to cast a vote, just show up, register and write whatever you like on the ballot sheet which will then make your vote informal. Informal votes can still tell a story, like candidates not doing their jobs. Only a $50 fine for not showing up.

Bugs are Aussie - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibacus_peronii

There's Moreton Bay Bugs as well as The Balmain variety. Yummo.

And I forgot to mention Christmas beetles, Bushfires, collecting cicadas, Christmas bush, Christmas bells, fake holly decorating a hot Christmas pudding when its 40deg C, and eucalyptus oil as part of my circulating blood volume. Vive la difference and vive les similarities!!! This thread has been such fun. Thanks & cheers to all of youse. (That is said in PA as well, and there are roundabouts in Massachusetts now I come to think of it.)

Inordinate amounts of seafood for Christmas Day meals!

And I think it's worth noting @havingfun that although you may be able to relate some of these Australian habits/things used to particular States or towns in America, the Aussies listing them here are talking about things we do as an entire country! So they're perfect suggestions for this post! Lol ;-))

ok, i will go, i just like seeing more in common than disparate, i did not know it was about that. But one last thing before i go, tin roofs are everywhere in america, but we do not like to nominate people to royalty those things, i have discovered kinda rub us wrong. so there is one significant difference.

I freeze any smelly rubbish until bin day - fishy stuff like prawn peelings and meaty wrappers mostly. I do the peg thing too, on the frozen peas mostly :-)

jdublya...I freeze smelly things too...especially field mice brought in by the cats!! Need to warn guests if I ask them to get something from the freezer !!!

Haha, I hear you Snow_Momma. I was freezing mice bodies during a plague several years ago and taking them to a wildlife park for their snakes. I had bags of mice in my freezer at that time, hundreds of the little furry suckers.

I know the vegemite, kraft discussion was a little while ago- but would just like to add my 2 bobs worth! Kraft bought Vegemite in 1935- so if they changed the recipe you would have to be quite old to remember what it tasted like prior to 1935 ...

What about the good old Lamington drive, kids using the Hills hoist as playground equipment, home made slip and slides made with rolls of plastic liberally dosed with dishwashing liquid to ensure that there'd be tears sooner rather than later. In our house growing up - calamine lotion, tea tree oil worked as cure-all's for just about everything.