September 2024
In 1948, Roy Geechoun published Cooking the Chinese Way. It contained ‘thirty popular recipes with detailed and precise instructions so that you can now cook real Chinese meals at home without any difficulty’.
Geechoun’s was not the first English language Chinese cookery book published in Australia. In 1946 an unnamed Chinese recipe book is noted as being sold at a fete. In 1947 the Australia China Association, of which Geechoun was a former Chairman, published a booklet ’50 Recipes for Famous Chinese Dishes’. Both appear to have been ephemeral, single editions only. Geechoun’s book, on the other hand, went through several editions the last noted by the National Library of Australia in 1958.
Who was Roy Geechoun, why did he write the cookery book, and what was ‘cooking the Chinese way’?
