Peter Brinkworth was born in 1942 in Tumby Bay on the east coast of South Australia’s Eyre peninsula. It’s home to some of the best seafood in the world, but his momentous contribution to Australian cuisine has very little to do with fish.



Peter Brinkworth is Jodie’s dad. Peter Brinkworth invented chicken salt.



Last week I wrote in the Guardian about the origins of Australia’s most beloved seasoning. It involved a story that swirled around my childhood, that my schoolfriend Jodie’s dad might have had something to do with it. The machinery of the internet began to whirl.

At the weekend I received a Facebook message from Helen Brinkworth, Jodie’s mum, that seemed to confirm the rumour. Separately, an unverified user calling himself “Peter Brinkworth” commented on the piece offering that the chicken salt on sale today bears “little resemblance to the original”.

If you read my piece on Chicken Salt last week you NEED to see this development on my Facebook and in the comments! I feel like I just blew the lid on Watergate! pic.twitter.com/o1FclM20uI — Adam Liaw (@adamliaw) April 8, 2018

Then came the final piece of the puzzle – an email from Jodie herself, who had recently returned to Australia after more than a decade in France. Mildly indignant to discover I’d spent the best part of 30 years quietly questioning her honesty, she sent me her father’s phone number and encouraged me to get the story “from the horse’s mouth”. I was straight on the phone.

“G’day, Adam,” came Peter’s voice on the end of the line. “I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

Peter’s parents, Ron and Ivy Brinkworth, were broadacre farmers growing cereals on the Eyre peninsula, and he has always stayed close to his farming roots. He was a stock agent for Elders for much of his working life, farmed poultry for a while, and in the early 1970s found himself as proprietor of Brinkworth Poultry, Game and Seafood – a wholesale food supplier in Gawler.

The Brinkworths had a small shop attached to the wholesale warehouse where Peter and his daughters roasted chickens over charcoal and fried chips in beef tallow for direct sale to a hungry public. It didn’t have a name or even a sign, but Peter says most people just called it “The Gawler Chicken Shop”.



At the time, Australia was just finding its feet when it came to the idea of a quick chicken dinner. Broiler chickens raised specifically for meat had only started to gain popularity in the 60s and, before that, chickens in Australia had been dual-purpose birds providing both eggs and meat. Those earlier breeds took months to mature, so chicken was a relatively expensive meat more suited to a Sunday roast or special occasion. Broilers matured faster, lowering the cost of chicken, and those favourable economics gave rise to the local chicken shop.



Chickens were seasoned lightly in the early days of chicken shops – a bit of bread stuffing inside, just salt and pepper outside. If you were one of the many customers for whom stuffing wasn’t to taste, there was little option other than a bland bird.

Peter says he has always suffered from a tendency to try too hard to do things a little bit better. It was this instinct that led him to try his hand at improving the recipe of his chickens. He mixed his original chicken salt in the shed where they prepared the birds for roasting. It was a blend of ingredients from his kitchen, as well as a few wholesale products from his warehouse.

It’s great on anything! Steaks, chicken … even on eggs in the morning Peter Brinkworth

His original chicken salt included onion powder, garlic powder, celery salt, paprika, chicken bouillon and monosodium glutamate. The vibrant orange-yellow colour came from the addition of curry powder. He can’t remember the specific brand but, as a lifelong Keen’s man, he suspects it might have been that.



Keen’s is an interesting addition. It’s an Australian blend developed in Tasmania in the 19th century and, while curry powders abroad usually contain cumin for its distinctive “curry” taste, Keen’s does not. This may explain why its mild blend of sweet spices doesn’t dominate when chicken salt is used as a chip seasoning.



I ask Peter if he remembers the exact quantities. “Not after all these years,” he says, “But it wouldn’t be hard to work it out. I still remember how it tastes.”



The seasoning was an instant hit at the Brinkworths’ chicken shop, and soon Peter was making batches in his back shed, pouring it between two red 10-litre buckets to mix it. The bouillon was particularly problematic, Peter recalls. If the quantities weren’t right it would clump and clog the shaker. Peter would shake the salt all over the chickens, inside and out, before roasting.

Peter’s eldest daughter, Tina, worked at the chicken shop after school, and says they received so many requests for the salt that they started selling small plastic bags of it over the counter for just a few cents, so people could add it to their own chickens at home. It wasn’t long before it progressed to the chips.

In the late 70s the Brinkworths were hit by tragedy. Peter lost his middle daughter to cancer and the turmoil led him to simplify his business holdings. He sold Brinkworth Poultry, Game and Seafood to the Mitani family, primarily as a wholesale business, but the retail shop went along with the sale – which included Peter’s recipe for his original chicken salt.



Peter is retired now, and these days he steers clear from the commercial varieties of chicken salt. He prefers instead to mix his own version as he always has, which he always keeps on hand in his kitchen. “It’s great on anything!” he says. “Steaks, chicken … even on eggs in the morning.”

He’s a little bemused by his place in Australian food history. It’s one that might have been forgotten if it hadn’t been for Jodie.

“Jodie wouldn’t even have been born when we first made the chicken salt, but she’s always been fascinated by it – telling her friends about the salt we used back in the day.”

After speaking for an hour, its time for Peter to go. He has to pick up Jodie’s kids from school but he invites me around for dinner next time I’m back home in Adelaide.

“We’ll get Jodie and the families around and cook something,” he says. “I’ll even mix you up a batch of chicken salt.”