Big Mulch

October 2025 One is perfectly safe in asserting that the art of cookery is the art of civilisation. In this Australia of ours, the lack of imagination concerning excellent wine and good …

In October 1911 newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne carried reviews of The Bush Boy’s Book (from hereon Bush Boy’s) by Donald Macdonald. Under this title Mr. Donald Macdonald, the well-known member …

September 2025  This paper is a response to the National Food Security Strategy: Discussion Paper. Note: This is a compilation from the various texts cited with little editorialising from me. Why …

September 2025 In 2021 the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) published Edible insects: A roadmap for the strategic growth of an emerging Australian industry. ‘With the global population predicted …

2025 On the 7th of June 1933 a new magazine hit newsstands across Australia  – the Australian Women‘s Weekly (called the Weekly from hereon).  Lauren Samuelson writes of the Weekly: It’s hard to …

This is my grandmother Ada de la Harpe's recipe book. I did a version over a decade ago and have finally gotten around to posting it. There's an introduction to …

July 2025 ‘Bursting out from under the rainforest canopy or rising up from the desert floor wild foods deserve to be tasted, tried and understood.’ This is a brief look at how …

July 2025 I recently had occasion to re-visit Charmaine Solomon’s The Complete Asian Cookbook published in 1976. ‘My aim  in writing this book’, Solomons said in her Foreword, ‘ has been …

June 2025 In July 1988 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC) screened something quite new in Australian television. Starting with a montage of a man in a khaki shirt, blue  green …

June 2025 Pigeons, squabs and the Wonga Wonga at the Australian Table 1864 - 1964 June 2025 To be LET, For Five Years certain, or any time less, as the Tenant shall require. …

June 2025 The article looks at seven native plant cookbooks written by Indigenous cooks and chefs between 2006 – 2025. It looks at the authors’ reasons for writing the book, summarises …

2025 Few people know how useful cocoa-nuts are in cooking.  They can be used in both the sweet and savoury dishes and, as many old Indians will tell you no curry …

2002 There’s no getting away from it. Food, sex and politics have been inextricably linked since Adam and Eve dallied with a snake over an apple in the Garden of Eden. …