Billycan

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.

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' (also 'Spondonicles') is used to lift a hot billy.

"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.

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'.

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.

Billy in Australian literature

Henry Lawson

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

quote|The swagman tramping ’cross the plain;Good Lord, there’s nothing sadder,Except the dog that slopes behindHis 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.| [http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/verse/popular_humorous/butwhatuse.html But What’s the Use]

quote|I mind the days we played at campWith billy-can and swag,...| [http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/verse/skylineriders/soldierbirds.html The “Soldier Birds”]

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..."

References

*

External links

* Citation
last = brislib
author-link = http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U206015
title = 'Swinging the Billycan' - Making Tea in the Australian Bush
date = 2003-01-22
year = 2003
url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A896628
access-date = 2007-02-16
* [http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/FAQ_Cooking.htm Billy Grips or Spondonicals]