sticker-up

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

I.


n. sc.

a bushranger.

1879. W. J. Barry, `Up and Down,' p. 197:

«They had only just been liberated from gaol, and werethe stickers-up, or highwaymen mentioned.»

II.

n.

a term of early bush cookery,the method, explained in first quotation, being borrowed fromthe aborigines.

1830. `Hobart Town Almanack,' p. 112:

«Which he cooked in the mode called in colonial phrase asticker up. A straight twig being cut as a spit, the sliceswere strung upon it, and laid across two forked sticks leaningtowards the fire.»

1852. Mrs. Meredith, `My Home in Tasmania,' vol. i. p. 55:

«Here I was first initiated into the bush art of `sticker-up'cookery . . . the orthodox material here is of course kangaroo,a piece of which is divided nicely into cutlets two or threeinches broad and a third of an inch thick. The next requisiteis a straight clean stick, about four feet long, sharpened atboth ends. On the narrow part of this, for the space of a footor more, the cutlets are spitted at intervals, and on the endis placed a piece of delicately rosy fat bacon. The strong endof the stick-spit is now stuck fast and erect in the ground,close by the fire, to leeward; care being taken that it doesnot burn.» «. . . to men that are hungry, stuck-up kangarooand bacon are very good eating.» . . . «our `sticker-up'consisted only of ham.»

1862. G. T. Lloyd, `Thirty-three Years in Tasmania andVictoria,' p. 103:

«Pounds of rosy steaks . . . skilfully rigged after the usualapproved fashion (termed in Bush parlance a sticker-up'),before the brilliant wood fire, soon sent forth odours mostgrateful to the hungered way-worn Bushmen.»

Related Words