Cooking The Books

National Library of Australia News - January 1998

It is difficult to pinpoint when cookbooks stopped being practical guides for housewives or servants and assumed a broader role as books to be browsed through and enjoyed by people of all ages and sexes. According to the National Library of Australia’s senior principal librarian (information services), Averill Edwards, it was probably the publication of the Time-Life series of cookbooks in the 1970’s which had the most significant impact on the way Australians cook. This series, focusing on individual cuisines from around the world, brought cooking out of the kitchen and into the wider community. “They were coffee table books in a sense. [Cooking] became acceptable as an interest not just for women but for men as well,” she said.

Tracing the way cookbooks have changed over the years tells much about our social history, a concept which will be explored in a display which runs at the library until mid-1998. Many early Australian cookbooks reflect a strong British affiliation which gradually gives way to a clearly Australian identity and most recently to a strongly multicultural orientation. Instead of the meat and flour-based dishes which dominated works like the “Schauer Cookery Book”, first published in 1909 and reprinted many times thereafter, today’s bestsellers are more likely to include dishes such as the Kangaroo with Asian Leaf and Pink Grapefruit Salad in Kenneth Leung’s just-released “Fusion”.

The ethnic influence on home-cooking is a direct result of the influx of migrants to this country after the Second World War. Prior to that, there was little exposure to other cuisines, apart from the ubiquitous Chinese restaurant located in just about every country town (and its food was not something that was replicated at home). About the only “ethnic” recipe to be found in cookbooks pre-1960 was for curry, and even so it would have been made with a mild-tasting curry powder rather than a full-flavoured curry paste. Further, it emphasised the British influence, which in turn reflected links with India.

In stark contrast, today’s cuisine has the boundaries between East and West so blurred that the term “modern Australian” usually means a blend of Mediterranean and Asian ingredients and techniques, sometimes with Australian native ingredients thrown in for good measure. This multiculturalism is also reflected in the equipment used – whereas nearly every Australian household once had an electric frypan, the appliance is now more likely to be a wok. One cookbook which strikes a chord with many Australians is the Davis gelatine book, issued free to consumers on request. Before refrigeration became widespread, entire cookbooks for desserts based on gelatine and condensed milk were published; fresh milk and cream became more common ingredients afterwards.

Appliances, then as now, were inevitably accompanied by cookbooks focused on the use of that appliance, which means that they too provide a fascinating insight into the way people have cooked over the years - pressure cookers (rarely used today), Vacola preserving equipment (experiencing a resurgence in popularity), microwave ovens, blenders and food processors, and most recently, spice grinders. It was the acquisition by the library of a collection of old cookery ephemera such as this which indirectly led to the forthcoming display. When a friend offered Averill Edwards a copy of the old Davis gelatine book, an early Sunbeam mixmaster book and various other publications which had been tucked away in her kitchen drawer, a check of the library’s contents revealed it did not have anything of the sort.

“Because we are now interested in documenting popular culture, they are quite significant,” said Edwards, a passionate cook. A chance discussion with the director of public programs and fellow “foodie”, Katie Bramich, about the acquisition of the collection, led to the suggestion of a cookbook display. Morgyn Phillips, from the public programs’ education section, says the display will be a departure from the ones usually held around Australia Day each year, which are usually centred around historical themes such as James Cook. It promises to be a small but very colourful display which appeals to a wide-cross section of people, an important factor given that it opens during the peak holiday period.

Among the themes to be explored is the way in which cookbooks document the changes in agriculture and food technologies that have led to the increased availability and acceptance of a diverse range of produce. Responding to consumer demand, supermarkets stock ingredients once considered exotic - bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, coriander – as well as manufactured products such as laksa paste, balsamic vinegar and couscous. Yet a look at “The Accomplished Ladies Rich Closet of Rarities” (London, 1699) will turn up instructions for roasting an udder or stewing carp, products which have most certainly disappeared from our menus – although food fashions, like others, sometimes go around in circles!

In recent decades, Australia’s wine industry has flourished and many culinary publications now make recommendations about wine accompaniments, or routinely include wine among recipe ingredients. Cookbooks say something, too, about contemporary thinking on social issues such as health. Recipe booklets from the National Heart Foundation and books like Gabriel Gate’s “Good Food For Men”, endorsed by the Anti-Cancer Council, may tell future generations about the state of our health in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Reflecting the changes in lifestyles over the years, titles such as “The Compleat Servant-Maid” (London, 1711) and “The English and Australian Cookery Book: Cookery for the many, as well as for the upper ten thousand”, published in Australia in 1864 with a title that no-one would be so pretentious to use nowadays, have given way to subjects such as cooking for one or two, or preparing delicious meals in a hurry. It is no longer assumed that women are homemakers first; many cookbooks are targeted at working people with quick, easy-to-prepare recipes. There are even cook books directed specifically at men (“Good Food For Men”, “Fit Food For Fellas”) Alternative lifestyle choices have made vegetarian cookbooks both abundant and popular.

With cookbooks accounting for a large percentage of the books published in Australia today, it is difficult to think of a subject which has not already been covered, which could account for the current proliferation of books by popular chefs whose near-celebrity status is used to entice the reader. Neil Perry’s “Rockpool” and Christine Manfield’s “Paramount Cooking” are good examples – beautiful to look at and a wonderful source of inspiration but with recipes that only the most serious cooks are likely to attempt. The increasingly sophisticated aesthetic design of cookbooks has become a strong marketing tool, but it seems that only a small percentage of recipes contained in any one book are actually cooked.

Publishers have turned to more specialised subjects - such as pasta, microwave cookery, Asian cuisines – in preference to core publications like “The Commonsense Cookery Book” and huge comprehensive volumes like “A Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts” (London, 1856) which has recipes for everything from spruce beer and candies to zabaglione. A recent exception is Stephanie Alexander’s book, “The Cook’s Companion”, which despite its hefty $75 price tag, was snapped up by those eager to hone their cooking skills.

Now that cookbooks are something to be read and savoured rather than slavishly followed, more and more of them are exploring the connection between people and their food, such as John Newton’s “Wog Food” which has recipes interspersed between the oral histories of migrants from the Mediterranean region. This fascination with people’s lives extends to current popular magazines such as “Vogue Entertaining”, which enable readers to take a peek into the homes and lifestyles of others, usually those they aspire to be like.

Magazines, like books, are a great indicator of cooking trends. The National Library holds an almost complete collection of magazines such as the “Women’s Weekly”, “Woman’s Day” and “New Idea” dating back to early this century, all of which have carried recipe pages since the beginning. Today, even the Internet has not escaped the interest of keen cooks, who exchange information over the Web and search out sites on a wide range of topics from chocolate to ice-cream, coffee and chillies.

Many of the older works and all the recent books mentioned in this article are held in the library’s collection, the latter acquired via legal deposit which requires that one of every book published in Australia be forwarded to the library. Margaret Dent, who was previously responsible for the Rare Books collection and now heads the humanities subject team, says some of the early works carry messages which are as relevant today as they ever were. “The Art of Cookery” (1709), for example, describes the garnishing of dishes but notes that “just because something’s fashionable it doesn’t mean it fits with a particular dish”.

The vast number of cookbooks published in Australia each year indicates that food and culinary interests are no less central to Australian culture than they are to any other culture. The display will envitably surprise some viewers with the abundant reflections they provide on social life and change. Says Averill Edwards: “The display will say a lot about Australia’s history, its cultural development and domestic life. It’s a social history without even trying.”

© Christine Salins

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