Historiographic Foodways: A Survey of Food and Drink Histories in Australia

Abstract

This essay is a survey of the field of food and drink history in Australia since the 1970s. It discusses the range of research and picks out key historiographic aspects: the search for an Australian cuisine; regional food cultures; connection between sources and historical interpretation; and the interdisciplinarity of food and drink history. It suggests that as food and drink histories have broadened beyond a search for culinary traditions and a gastronomic sensibility, so our understanding of food and drink in Australian history has deepened. It also argues that food and drink history is more than textual knowledge in books and articles: television programs and exhibitions held in museums and libraries, for example, have enhanced our understanding of food and drink histories. and the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, respectively. Moreover, there is a wide range of topics in the field: gastronomy, nutrition, drink cultures, cuisine, diet, home economics, dining and agriculture, which at times seem to exist in isolation from each other. In addition, there are diverse theoretical and methodological approaches including statistical data, memoir, literature, cookbooks, oral history, symbolism, experience, ritual, material culture and cultural studies. Perhaps,then, in the first instance, it is the interdisciplinarity and hybridity of scholarship which marks the field of food and drink history in Australia.From the perspective of a historian, questions about food and drink are profoundly historical. The answers add to our knowledge about food preparation, presentation and consumption, and evaluative notions of cuisine and gastronomic quality. Food and drink can be used as a means to generate fresh understandings of broader historical forces to do with migration,