The
white colonisers of Australia suffered from Alliumphobia, a fear of
garlic. Local cooks didn’t touch the stuff and it took centuries for that fear
to lift. This food history of Australia shows we held onto British assumptions
about produce and cooking for a long time and these fed our views on racial
hierarchies and our place in the world. Before Garlic we had meat and potatoes;
After Garlic what we ate got much more interesting. But has a national cuisine
emerged? What is Australian food culture?
Renowned food writer John Newton visits haute cuisine
or fine dining restaurants, the
cafes and mid-range restaurants, and heads home to the dinner tables as he
samples what everyday people have cooked and eaten over centuries. His
observations and recipes old and new, show what has changed and what hasn’t
changed as much as we might think even though our chefs are hailed as some of
the best in the world.
