September 2024I first came across Ludwig Leichhardt in High School where he was just one of the white explorers I studied in my Australian history class. I came across him …
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Big Mulch
Long form articles published and unpublished
Anzac Soup, Curried Galahs, and Sea Weed Jelly. The Western Mail’s 1938 Bush Recipe Competition
5 September 2024
August 2024In March 1938, the Western Mail (a weekly newspaper in Western Australia) announced the opening of a ‘Bush Recipes Competition’.Our new competition “Bush Recipes” is open from now until …
Hooke(d). Restoring George England Hooke’s 1905 fruit preserving book to Australian food history.
23 August 2024
August 2024In 1905 George England Hooke published Australian Fruit Preserving. A Practical Treatise on the Best Methods With Instructions for Making – Jams, Marmalades, Jellies, Conserves, Pickles, Sauces and Chutneys …
2024Bill Harney’s Cook Book first published in 1960 is unique among Australian cookery books on two counts. First, it deals almost exclusively with recipes for cooking native animals and plants. …
Twelfth Cakes, Fancy Biscuits and Kangaroo Soup. Pastry cooks and confectioners in the early colonies of Australia
24 June 2024
June 2024Lately I’ve been fascinated by some aspects of early colonial foodways that I overlooked in my history of food in Australia. As redress, I have written about nurserymen who …
2021The Echuca Coffee Palace, situated at the south end of High Street, on the west side, is a new addition to the architectural features of the town. It consists of …
2024Straight after school we headed for the fish shop opposite the station. One or two would stay with our bags at the bus stop while the rest of us went …
2024I had occasion lately to eat a stick of cabanossi, a thin, dry, red, spiced and smoked crumpled sausage. It produced a food memory of lounge rooms and wine bars …
May 2024In April 1834 the Hobart Town Courier published ‘Some Remarks On the Roots and Other Indigenous Esculents of Van Diemen's Land’. I think I can safely claim this as …
4 April 2024Lately 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 …
Paul van Reyk March 2024One of the unexplored areas of Australian culinary history is the place of colonial nurserymen (and the documentary evidence is that they were all men) in …
Paul van ReykThe Aristologist: vol 14: p 9- 35. Napier, New Zealand. 2023Recently my culinary curiosity has been circling around the story of the eggplant in Australia. The fat, glossy …
February 2024For the last twenty years I have been a food historian/ food writer focusing on Australian cuisine. In the course of doing research for my book True to the …