Publisher's Synopsis
The past two centuries have witnessed a dramatic transformation in the place of food and eating in the Australian public consciousness, from the essentials for survival to personal hobby, lifestyle and public entertainment. Culture is a product of communication; the key to understanding the transformation is the record of public conversations about food and cooking. The conversations are found in the records of early European settlers, newspapers and magazines, and electronic and social media. The voices are those of regulators, celebrity chefs, cookery teachers, purveyors of food and kitchen appliances, journalists and consumers. The people asserted their preferences through newspaper correspondence columns, contributed recipes and community cookery books. Communication explains why Australian cookery remained stubbornly British for a century and a half, why it turned multicultural and how it emerged as a defining feature of popular culture.
