Dairy Chains: Consumer Foodways and Agricultural Landscapes

Food is significant as an agent of social change as well as being the subject of activism. The focus of this paper is on nature’s “perfect food”, milk, in the 1950s, a period of social transition that offers fertile space for reconstructing food activism and giving it a history. Australia’s dairy industry is the country’s largest processed food industry and the fourth largest of the nation’s rural industries. Milk is a fruitful site to consider the relationship between people and their food, production and consumption, the intimate way we bring our food into our bodies and the experience of farmers with personal connections to the ecosystems in which they live. Dense networks connect farm producers and consumers. The dairy industry will be considered as a site of production and consumption where considerable political activity was concentrated in the 1950s. These themes are illuminated in the paper by briefly considering two groups of women caught up in very different family labour systems defined by their relationship to milk – housewives active in the state associations campaigning around milk prices and quality and farm women. The transformation of rural life, home and food culture during this period impacted on both groups of women, it was from their work that they expressed a position and identified, and both engaged in complex processes of negotiation that, I argue, have generated and sustained other movements

Iconic dishes, culture and identity: the Christmas pudding and its hundred years’ journey in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and India

Asserting that recipes are textual evidences reflecting the society that produced them, this article explores the evolution of the recipes of the iconic Christmas pudding in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and India between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. Combining a micro-analysis of the recipes and the cookbook that provided them with contemporary testimonies, the article observes the dynamics revealed by the preparation and consumption of the pudding in these different societies. The findings demonstrate the relevance of national iconic dishes to the study of notions of home, migration and colonization, as well as the development of a new society and identity. They reveal how the preservation, transformation and even rejection of a traditional dish can be representative of the complex and sometimes conflicting relationships between colonists, migrants or new citizens and the places they live in

Dairy Chains: Consumer Foodways and Agricultural Landscapes

Food is significant as an agent of social change as well as being the subject of activism. The focus of this paper is on nature’s “perfect food”, milk, in the 1950s, a period of social transition that offers fertile space for reconstructing food activism and giving it a history. Australia’s dairy industry is the country’s largest processed food industry and the fourth largest of the nation’s rural industries. Milk is a fruitful site to consider the relationship between people and their food, production and consumption, the intimate way we bring our food into our bodies and the experience of farmers with personal connections to the ecosystems in which they live. Dense networks connect farm producers and consumers. The dairy industry will be considered as a site of production and consumption where considerable political activity was concentrated in the 1950s. These themes are illuminated in the paper by briefly considering two groups of women caught up in very different family labour systems defined by their relationship to milk – housewives active in the state associations campaigning around milk prices and quality and farm women. The transformation of rural life, home and food culture during this period impacted on both groups of women, it was from their work that they expressed a position and identified, and both engaged in complex processes of negotiation that, I argue, have generated and sustained other movements

The way to a heart : food for love

The connection established between pleasure and food has a long history in recipes for love. Cooking literature has reflected and shaped our ideas about home cooking as well as romance and can be read as a historical source for understanding those ideas as they were expressed in the past and in terms of what has endured over time. Considering cooking as a language that expresses love advances our understanding of the preparation of food as an emotional performance. The way to a heart, like love itself, is also historical rather than timeless. The shift in focus from advice to single women on how to win a man, to the newlywed on culinary skills to ensure a happy married life through to blogs promoting food as seduction, highlight changes in gender roles and sexuality that reinforce the significance of culinary literature as examples of material culture that reflect their time and place and the changing meanings of home cooking and love

Having our cake and eating it too: a reading of royal wedding cakes

There is no more basic commodity than food, but the expanding scholarly attention it has received also highlights its complexity. This article focuses on a food close to many people\u27s hearts: the wedding cake. In particular, it discusses the style, form and consumption of royal wedding cakes to explore what this reveals about Australian identity. The cultural inscriptions and influences of royal wedding cakes reflect the intersection between food and national identity; however, this is a multifarious relationship between nation, race, gender, class and sexuality that is neither static nor certain. Despite changes in Australia\u27s relationship with Britain after the Second World War, the monarchy remains a living and popular institution. The popular imagining of empire and royalty persists, as evidenced in the popularity of royal weddings and the influence of royal wedding cakes. This influence is not, however, one way: a distinctive new style of wedding cake developed in Australia has changed that of Britain. Deconstructing the wedding cake in this way provides scope for challenging the narratives of both the potency and decline of empire in terms of Australia

Timescapes: flooding and memory

Floods are agents of both physical and psychological change. Their power to affect cultures and the environment can be enduring, even in areas where regular flooding is an accepted geographical feature. This selection of essays presents floods from the perspectives of science, history, theology, psychology, law, art and music to explain the natural and societal causes and consequences. Also includes recollections and anecdotes from those who have actually experienced floods, and will appeal to students and anyone interested in the need for understanding and management of this compelling natural phenomenon

Conversations on the river: engaging students in community oral history projects

This paper explores an attempt at bringing together the academic pursuit of scholarship with a university\u27s engagement with the community through an innovative exercise in community oral history. It also raises questions about the role of location as a stimulus to memory and storytelling. \u27Conversations on the river\u27 was an event organised by Southern Cross University, Lismore, as an exercise in engaged student learning. Members of the Lismore community were invited to come down to the Wilson River to share their stories about the setting, with their memories recorded by university students. These contributions to the local oral history collection later informed the creation of heritage story sites along the river. The recording of private and shared memories in public helped both to create and sustain community links with the university and to provide a forum for the generation of public history. The paper offers insights about the process of undertaking community oral histories with students, and explores the strengths of this approach as an exercise in community engagement