Aunty Sylvie’s Sponge: Foodmaking, Cookbooks and Nostalgia

Why does foodmaking matter? It does partly because it holds within it so much of everyday life, thought and activity across time, place and generation. This article explores women’s embodied foodmaking knowledge as ‘thoughtful practice’. It examines cookbooks as a form of nostalgia and explores aspects of gustatory nostalgia in the creation of ‘manuscript’ cookbooks and their variation in the twenty-first century. It also reconstructs, in part, the history of a family – of sisters, aunts, grandmothers, mothers, daughters – as told through cookbooks and, in particular, a recipe for sponge cake

Anzac Biscuits - A Culinary Memorial

Anzac biscuits form an integral part of commemoration of the Anzac tradition in Australia. Symons (1982) argues that Anzac biscuits may be regarded as only one of two distinctly Australian foods. Inglis (1998) does not mention them in his work on memorials, yet it is possible to argue that Anzac biscuits may be regarded as a culinary memorial (Hillier 2002).The story of Anzac biscuits has become mythologised in Australian cultural history and is an important signifier of Australian national identity. However, the origin of Anzac biscuits is contested, in particular the 'moment' of invention, including the naming and origin of the recipe. Moreover, Anzac biscuits have such a central place in the Australian public memory that it is not necessary to gain permission from the Minister of Defence to use the word 'Anzac' in relation to Anzac biscuits (Topperwien 1997).This paper seeks to propose that Anzac biscuits are a culinary memorial, that they represent a lasting commemoration of the Anzac spirit. Through an examination of a number of texts, including cookbooks and recipes, I will argue that Anzac biscuits represent a unique window into exploring Australian national identity and public memory

Sweet Grief

Sweet Grief is an autobiographical, experimental and fragmented account of the writer’s final months with her father. The narrative is centred around a shared food ritual—eating millefeuille—which becomes almost impossible after her father experiences a stroke. The piece is anchored by the human need to swallow. It draws together food, family, memory, grief, love, a global pandemic and the impact of bureaucratic decision-making. This reflection is multi-layered, like the millefeuille. Her father’s stroke occurred during the COVID pandemic when Western Australia effectively closed its border for 697 days, requiring the author to quarantine, twice. It explores the ‘messy’ emotions around food when a loved one must learn to swallow again and portrays the way in which food plays a ‘sticky’ role in familial relationships

It was another skin: The kitchen as home for Australian post-war immigrant women

This article examines the importance of the kitchen for immigrant women who arrived in Australia in the late 1940s and 1950s. Using oral history interviews with 27 immigrant women I examine the multiple and overlapping ways in which they 'make' home. Women construct home through the kitchen by re/negotiating the kitchen space to ensure that the kitchen and their central placement within it produces a 'feeling' of being 'at home'. Women shape the architecture and design of the kitchen in terms of their own understandings of the discourses of efficiency and domesticity, and also through colour and decoration, to 'make' the kitchen home. These understandings will be explored through nuanced readings of the immigrant women's stories of their kitchen lives

We still mourn that book: Cookbooks, recipes and foodmaking knowledge in 1950s Australia

Oral history interviews were conducted with forty-eight women in the year 1998 that were wives, mothers, housewives and homemakers in Western Australia in the 1950s. The results of this study showed that women use cookbooks and recipes as a guide, but they apply their learned skills to make the food hence their foodmaking knowledge was transformative which indicated a level of competence and confidence that was gained with practice

Chop, Taste and Read: Examining Stephanie Alexander's Diary Cookbooks

Stephanie Alexander is central to any discussion of food and food writing in Australia; she may reasonably be considered Australia's Elizabeth David. This article examines two of Alexander's cookbooks written in diary format, Stephanie's Seasons (1993) and Stephanie's Journal (1999). Although the diary format is an unusual way to present a published cookbook, women have used this method, most commonly in manuscript cookbooks, never intended for publication. What makes Alexander's diary cookbooks unique is that they were written with the intention of being published. Diary cookbooks provide a means of incorporating aspects of a writer's everyday life with cookery writing and recipes. Importantly, the diary cookbook allows the writer to explore the minutiae of everyday life, including cooking and eating, whilst simultaneously articulating the performance of multiple identities--in Alexander's case, as entrepreneur, mother, restaurateur, friend, writer, daughter, community leader, activist, and chef

"It was another skin": the kitchen in 1950s Western Australia

This thesis examines the meanings of the kitchen to women who were wives, mothers, housewives and homemakers in the 1950s in Western Australia. It uses qualitative data collected from oral history interviews with migrant and Australian born women. Importantly, this thesis provides insight to women's everyday lives and analyses practices, such as cooking, ironing, budgeting, shopping, dishwashing and decorating which provide the women of my study with power. Central themes of this thesis include, examining the meaning of home and kitchen design, including discourses of efficiency and scientific management, decoration and consumption of appliances; analysing how practices of the kitchen inform women's multiple subjectivities; and the articulation and exercise of power throughout these practices.This research examines dualistic knowledge which has devalued women's position in the kitchen. Such dualistic knowledge is the basis of Western philosophy and informs not only patriarchal discourses of domesticity, femininity and efficiency, but also dominant architectural and design theory. Feminist poststructuralist theory, standpoint theory and feminist architectural theory provide a means of exploring women's knowledge and space of the kitchen. Such theories break down binaries and emphasise differences in/between women and explicate their practices (including the use of space) which encourage multiple identities. The kitchen is explored to show how dominant discourses reinforce gendered notions of women's work in the kitchen; also how women actively engage with architecture and design shaping it to suit their social relations and work processes within the kitchen; and the architecture and design of the kitchen is analysed as a means of examining women's input to design and decoration. Importantly, the thesis examines points of resistance - where women perform their practices, design their kitchens and decorate them in ways that perhaps were not intended by the dominant discourses.Thus, the thesis argues that women actively re/negotiate their embodied practices they disrupt, subvert and conform to patriarchal discourses of the kitchen in order to articulate a valued position within the kitchen

Aunty Sylvie’s Sponge: Foodmaking, Cookbooks and Nostalgia

Why does foodmaking matter? It does partly because it holds within it so much of everyday life, thought and activity across time, place and generation. This article explores women’s embodied foodmaking knowledge as ‘thoughtful practice’. It examines cookbooks as a form of nostalgia and explores aspects of gustatory nostalgia in the creation of ‘manuscript’ cookbooks and their variation in the twenty-first century. It also reconstructs, in part, the history of a family – of sisters, aunts, grandmothers, mothers, daughters – as told through cookbooks and, in particular, a recipe for sponge cake