Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Jan O’Connell, NewSouth, $34.99.
Rejoicing comes naturally as you realise Australians are spoilt for culinary choices since we live in a foodie paradise. This is a guide that looks at our country’s rich culinary history by tracking the nation’s diets from the early settlers, including how things have evolved and changed over time.
O’Connell takes us there one dish at a time and the result is nothing short of a food mecca. Writing about Australia’s food revolution, O’Connell started delving into Australia’s culinary past and found that the timeline, by its nature, showed how the story of our food had unfolded.
This book takes 150 years of that timeline – from 1860 through to 2010 – and looks at how our eating (and drinking) habits, the way we shop and our food production methods, have evolved.
This is a ‘tasty and sometimes surprising culinary journey …’ Abundantly illustrated, this book looks – decade by decade – at what we’ve eaten, how we’ve produced and prepared our food and how we’ve shopped.
Within the lifetime of today’s Baby Boomers, there have been revolutionary changes in how we eat. The standard Anglo–Irish staples of meat and potatoes haven’t disappeared. They’ve now been joined by the likes of pizza and kebabs. Where once we had two takeaway options – fish and chips – now the choices are endless.
Never bland, this is history in digestible chunks with big helpings of tasty trivia and a generous dash of nostalgia. How did Tim Tams get their name? Why was Australia’s first commercial olive oil produced in a prison? Why were revolving restaurants so popular? You’ll come back wanting a second helping.
Take this journey as it explores interesting facts and stories (some not well known) over the years, tracing the development of Australian food through agriculture, manufacturing, cookbooks, social history and popular culture.
