Mentions, papers and meals. An overview of the engagement of Symposiums of Australian Gastronomy with Australian multiculinarism

    25 May 2025

    May 2025

    Symposiums of Australian Gastronomy (SAGs from hereon) are biennial events begun in March1984 that bring together food historians, food writers, academics, cooks and people interested in food and foodways to discuss all things culinary.[1]

    Each SAG has a theme. The theme of the 3rd SAG in 1987 was ‘A multiculinary society’. Anthony Corrones in the lead paper Multiculinarism and the Emergence of Gastronomy said:

    Gastronomic thought in Australia has already gained a great deal from the influence of multiculinarism. The impact of the various ethnic cuisines here has been broad and complex, and although many have written about it I doubt that we have an adequate account yet.[2] [3]

    This paper traces multiculinarism as expressed in SAGs 1 – 22 through brief mentions in papers, as the subject of papers, and in meals served at the SAGs.

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    [1] SAG 1 described itself as ‘ a balance of what we term “theoreticians”, “practitioners” and “passionate amateurs” ‘. Proceedings of the First Symposium of Australian Gastronomy 1984 p. iii

    [2] Corrones, Anthony, Multiculinarism and the Emergence of Gastronomy, Proceedings of3rd Symposium of Australian Gastronomy 1987 pp. 17 – 27

    [3] Page numbering has sometimes been hazardous. I give the page number from the Proceedings of each SAG as published.

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    Small Mulch

    Paul van Reyk
    My first essay on food was in Year 10 - people seemed to like it. It took me 56 years to come back to it, so I have a lot of catching up to do. My focus is on Anglo-Saxon settler culinary ways in Australia, roughly from the first days of colonisation to the 1960s - 1970s. I particularly write about stuff that has not been written about before but is very much a part of the Anglo-Saxon Australian table. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I do writing.