Charmaine O’Brien Charmaine O’Brien i(7238453 works by)
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1 The Taste of Class : Colonial Australian Food Writing, Fact or Fiction? Charmaine O’Brien , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , no. 26 2014; 'Writers of Australian history, including food history, typically present the same negative stereotypes of colonial eating habits with little attempt at holistically examining and explaining the context and circumstances informing food choices in the period. Nor has there been significant challenge to these unsavoury representations. This paper looks at how social class may have influenced period reportage on the cookery and eating practices in Australia in the nineteenth century with particular reference to meat consumption. ' (Publication abstract)
1 Hannah Maclurcan : Colonial Queen of Cookery Books Charmaine O’Brien , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , no. 24 2013;

'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)
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