Australian Cookbooks: An Exhibition
June 4th 2009 09:41
The 'War Chest Cookery Book' published in 1917
It's a vibrant and fascinating culinary story tracing food trends and curiosities from the 1860s to the present.
"The first known Australian cookbook broke away from the traditional Englishfare with a mix of some wonderful localised dishes, using ingredients like black swan, emus, kangaroo and wombat," said Pat Turner, curator of the show.
A rare edition of the book 'The English and Australian Cookery Book ' (1864) by Tasmanian parliamentarian, Edward Abbott is held by the State Library.
"Cookbooks are a fantastic social record of the time. They document the impact of food on war, celebrations, the Great Depression and migration and of new technologies, such as fridges and microwaves," Ms Turner said.
"For example, war cook books had recipes for meatless dishes because of meat rationing and during the Depression cookbooks emphasised fruit preserving and jam making, because people were growing so much fruit in their own backyard."
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Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
Comment by Anonymous
I know what you mean! I have a 1960s CWA cookbook from my grandmother and I adore it! I'd be checking out second hand book stores and garage sales I reckon!!
Sam
Comment by samaritan
Fringe Faith
Samaritan's Stories
Looks like a great exhibition. Pity it's so far away.
My favourite cookbooks is the Nursing Mothers of Australia cookbook. I don't know how old it is, but pretty old. My mum had it and passed it on to me. It is always the first place I look whenever I want to try and find a recipe for something specific.
Samaritan
Comment by samantha-elley
There's nothing like the tried and true cookbook in every household.
I have my own hand-written one which I started when I wanted to keep my favourite recipes in one place. I even took it overseas with me when I travelled for 2.5 years so I could write down all the exotic recipes I came across. I still use many of them today.
Sam