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'Cookbooks have recently attracted considerably scholarly attention for what they have to offer to the study of food and gastronomy. Cookbooks also feature in discussions about popular culture, gender and media, history, literature, ethnicity and national culture for the insights they provide on a range of subjects. This collection brings together a series of case studies which demonstrate different ways of looking at writing, reading and publishing cookbooks through the lens of different themes: culinary culture and gastronomy; historical perspectives; cookbooks as popular culture; and writing, publishing and selling cookbooks. Taken together, these articles reveal how cookbooks provide a range of insights into everyday life and community relationships. Equally they show that cookbooks are a wonderful example of material culture; they have historic and social value that make them important in both institutional and personal collections. The focus on Australasian examples makes a distinctive contribution to food studies as well as to food writing in our region.' (Authors introduction)
'When Hannah Maclurcan wrote and published Mrs Maclurcan’s Cookbook in 1898 she was running the up-market Queen's Hotel in Townsville. The book largely provides instruction for reproducing the English style cookery typical of colonial Australia, but something else is bubbling up in this book: distinct local flavour. Instead of specifying indigenous British foods such as turbot and damsons she gives recipes for the preparation of Australian species of fish and seafood, and a range of –then–unusual fruit and vegetables that had been introduced and flourished in the tropical climate of North Queensland. There is also a hint of Asian flavour in some of the dishes and rumour suggested the Maclurcan took many of the recipes in the book from the Chinese cooks she employed in her hotel. This paper will explore Maclurcan as a culinary entrepreneur and the impact of locality on her cookery, and challenge the popularly accepted idea of the culinary ‘ineptitude’ of colonial Australia’s Anglo-Celtic cooks and the mono-cultural cuisine they are purported to have served up.' (Author's abstract)
'First published in 1878, Mrs Lance Rawson’s cookery book and household hints was the first cookbook of its kind to provide recipes and household hints specifically tailored for life in colonial Australia. Over a long and prolific career, Wilhelmina Rawson instructed her readers on more than mere culinary matters, her works were also guides on what a colonial lifestyle should look like. Cookbooks are valuable cultural artefacts that mirror many aspects of the society that has produced them. They not only codify culinary and domestic practices but also codify wider cultural and social practices. Rawson’s books, such as The Antipodean cookery book and The Australian enquiry book, provide fascinating insights into life at turn of the century Australia.' (Author's abstract)
'This paper discusses the cookbooks written by Australian food writer, Maria Kozslik Donovan. A prominent advocate of Continental and Asian cookery in Melbourne in the 1950s, Donovan wrote and illustrated a number of very popular cookery books. This article profiles her cookbooks – Continental cookery in Australia (1955); Epicure’s corner: world recipes(1956); The Far Eastern epicure (1958); The Blue Danube cookbook (1967); and, Astrology in the kitchen (1971) – in the context of her international career as a food writer.' (Author's abstract)
'Food has been receiving an increasing amount of scholarly attention, with researchers exploring every aspect of selection, preparation and consumption and, so too is the idea of food in fiction. In creating stories, from short -run paperbacks to prize-winning novels, writers utilise food to communicate the everyday and to explore more complex concepts such as the class system and cultural diversity. Food also has the capacity to add realism to fiction with many authors putting as much effort into conjuring the smell, taste and texture of food as they do in bringing their characters to life. This article is an investigation of how cookbooks and fictional works are reflections of each other in terms of creativity, function and structure: they tell us stories, provide education and have neat beginnings, middles and ends. In some instances the two forms are so closely entwined that a volume will concurrently share a narrative while providing instruction in the culinary arts. In particular, this article explores the recipes found within crime fiction, a genre that has a long history of focusing on food in a variety of contexts; from the theft of food in the novels of the nineteenth century to the more modern utilisation of various types of food to administer poison. Recent years have also seen some crime fiction writers proffer a central protagonist working within the food industry, drawing connections between the skills that are required for food preparation and those needed to catch a murderer. ' (Author's abstract)
