Billycan

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For the dolls or icons called Billycan, see billiken

A billycan, more commonly known simply as a billy or occasionally as a billy can, is the traditional Australian utensil for boiling water, making tea and cooking anything liquid on a campfire.

Contents

[edit] Using a billy

Billy tea is made by boiling the water in a billy, adding the tea immediately after removing the billy from the fire, and allowing the tea to draw for a time. Then often one of several methods is employed to make the tea-leaves settle to the bottom of the billy before pouring, preferably into mugs known as pannikins.

A 'Billy Grip' or more colloquially 'Spondonicals' is used to lift a hot billy.

[edit] "Billy Tea"

"Billy Tea" is also the registered brand name of a popular brand of tea long sold in Australian grocers and supermarkets, but this Billy Tea makes equally good tea in a teapot, and conversely any good black tea will make well in a billy.

To boil the billy most often means to make tea, but coffee is also made occasionally, either instead of or as well as.

[edit] Etymology

There are many theories on the origin of 'billy':

  • It was derived from the local indigenous language billa, meaning creek.
  • It was derived from North of England slang 'billy', meaning mate.
  • A corruption of 'bally': Scots language meaning milk-pail.
  • Large 'bully beef' cans may have been cleaned out to become the first billys. This became 'bullycans' then 'billycans'.

[edit] Methods of settling the leaves

There are two common methods for settling the leaves; one more spectacular than the other.

The first method is simply to tap the side of the billy with a stick until the leaves settle.

The second, more dramatic method, is to stand away from any overhead obstructions and swing the billy in a vertical circle.

[edit] The billy in Australian literature

[edit] Henry Lawson

A billy features in many of Henry Lawson's stories and poems. Some examples:

The swagman tramping ’cross the plain;
Good Lord, there’s nothing sadder,
Except the dog that slopes behind
His master like a shadder;
The turkey-tail to scare the flies,
The water-bag and billy;
The nose-bag getting cruel light,
The traveller getting silly.

- But What’s the Use.

"'I’m going to knock off work and try to make some money,' said Mitchell, as he jerked the tea-leaves out of his pannikin and reached for the billy." - Mitchell’s Jobs.

"The hatter warmed up the tea-billy again, got out some currant buns, which he had baked himself in the camp-oven,..." - The House that was Never Built

"Then he made a fire in the kitchen, and hung the kettle and a big billy of water over it." - A Child in the Dark, and a Foreign Father

"I started early, and Mary caught up to me at Ryan’s Crossing on Sandy Creek, where we boiled the billy and had some dinner." - ‘Water Them Geraniums’.I. A Lonely Track.

"Mitchell and I turned off the track at the rabbit-proof fence and made for the tank in the mulga. We boiled the billy and had some salt mutton and damper." - The Lost Souls’ Hotel

"Brewing his tea in a billy-can under the bough of a shady tree." - The Swagman by Elaine Bannister.

"Then he went to the camp-fire to try some potatoes which were boiling in their jackets in a billy, and to see about frying some chops for dinner." - The Loaded Dog.

I mind the days we played at camp
With billy-can and swag,...

- The “Soldier Birds”

"Then he lifted his swag quietly from the end of the floor, shouldered it, took up his water-bag and billy, and sneaked over the road, away from the place, like a thief." - An Incident at Stiffner’s

[edit] Banjo Paterson

Banjo Paterson's most famous of many references to the billy is surely in the first verse and chorus of Waltzing Matilda:

"And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled..."

[edit] References

  •  Emerson, Ken (w), "The Warrumbunglers" The Warrumbunglers Bushed!  (1983)  The Dominion Press - Hedges and Bell (23-24)

[edit] External links