4 April 2024
Lately I have become interested in how recipes published in cookery print media – columns and feature articles in newspapers and magazines, cookery books – shaped Australians’ understanding of South Asian cuisines – Indian, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi. My interest is as an Australian food historian from a Sri Lankan Burgher background.
I have written about how Sri Lankan cookbooks in Australia developed an understanding of Sri Lankan cuisine. During my research for that paper I came across recipes for South Asian dishes in the Australian Women’s Weekly (the Weekly from here on). Freida Moran has described the Weekly as ‘a recognised cultural mediator with popular impact.’ Writing about the food editors at the Weekly Lauren Samuelsson says ‘The wide reach of women’s magazines amplified the food writers [in this case the food editors] social and cultural influence. In 1947 the Weekly claimed it sold over 700,000 copies each week. In 1977 the Audit Bureau of Circulation found that the Weekly had a circulation of over 850,000 and that an average issue was read by 3,444,000 people aged 14 and over. The Weekly was then well-placed to shape Australians’ understanding of South Asian cuisines. Samuelsson also wrote ‘While historians have acknowledged the influence of the Weekly on Australian domestic food culture, there has yet to be an in depth study of the way the Weekly constructed and communicated food culture to its readers. This paper skirts the edges of this for South Asian cuisine.
