Recipes for a Nation: Cookbooks and Australian Culture to 1939

Cookbooks are an ideal medium through which to chart many of the transformations occurring in Australian society. They were a ubiquitous presence in almost every Australian home from the earliest days of European settlement. These humble recipe books, however, embodied more than food and domestic culture they also mirrored many other aspects of the society that produced them.

In this paper, as the pre-submission oral presentation component of my candidature, I will present an overview of my work covering the objectives and contents of my thesis entitled Recipes for a Nation: Cookbooks and Australian Culture to 1939. I will also draw on one of the chapters of my thesis to present some preliminary results and conclusions. Here I will examine the role of cookbooks in the dissemination and promotion of new domestic technologies in Australia. In particular it will trace the part played by cookbooks in the introduction of the most essential appliance in the kitchen, the stove. It will also highlight the manner in which cookbook authors used their expertise beyond the pages of their books to promote and instruct in the uses of domestic technologies

Blake Singley is a PhD Candidate in the School of History at the Australian National University. His thesis examines the manner and extent in which cookbooks reflected and influenced developments in Australian culture and society from the early colonial period until the 1930s.

 

Date & time

Wed 15 May 2013, 4.15–5.30pm

Location

Mc Donald Room, Menzies Library

School/Centre

School of History

SHARE

Updated:  20 July 2017/Responsible Officer:  Head of School/Page Contact:  CASS Marketing & Communications