Friday Night at Faheem’s
5 July 2026
Introduction: I have never seen Neil Perry on a Friday night at Faheem’s Fast Food in the Inner-West Sydney suburb of Newtown. That is where I head a couple of times a month …
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Big Mulch
Long form articles published and unpublished
Out of the Garden and onto the Streets: The limits of Epicureanism in achieving gastronomic justice.
3 July 2026
In her review of my book True to the Land. A History of Food in Australia, Gay Bilson wrote: Gloriously social and educative though the Symposium [of Australian Gastronomy] has been, …
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 …
Remembrance of Restaurants Past
27 June 2026
Talking with a friend recently we began remembering ‘ethnic’ cafes and restaurants we used to frequent in the 70s and 80s that closed down years ago. I asked Facebook Friends what …
Sparking a love. A review of some retailers in the bush food/native food industry in Australia.
19 June 2026
Having put in my order for a native foods Christmas Pudding my mind turned to wondering what the bush food/native food retail sector - businesses that sell bush food/native food …
Food Slut Manifesto
12 June 2026
Food increasingly became alienated from the body over the latter half of 20th century. Its material, its preparation, its distribution and its consumption became hostage to the banal aesthetics of …
Veganising the Australian table. The increased demand for Plant Based Meat Alternatives (PMBA)
30 April 2026
It’s estimated that 2.5 million people in Australia, 6% of the adult population, identify themselves as vegan. This is expected to be more than 11% by 2032. The reasons people …
No longer overlooked. South Asian women and their contribution to South Asian cuisine at the Australian table.
13 April 2026
When speaking or writing about South Asian cuisines in Australia, women’s contributions are rarely mentioned other than Charmaine Solomon and her Complete Asian Cookbook of which more later. This article …
It made it fun to fight. The Boy’s Own Bake-Off
20 February 2026
One of the early fund-raising events for the HIV/AIDS charity Bobby Goldsmith Foundation was the Boys Own Bake-Off. This article draws on interviews with Bake Off competitors, attendees and hotel …
A paper presented at the 2nd Australia’s Homosexual Histories Conference at the University of Melbourne, 5-6 November 1999 Two moments in the global history of fags, dykes and food resonate across …
Ozifying Spices. A brief look at a selection of spices at the multiculinary Australian table prior to 1900.
1 January 2026
Recently I have been writing about South Asian cuisines at the multiculinary Australian table. Spices are a key element in them, giving dishes their characteristic flavour. I felt it was …
November 2025 This article reviews formal meals and menus for imagined meals focussed on Australian native foods across 160 years from 1864 – 2024. The meals were: The first and second experimental dinners …
October 2025 The quandong is used in the back country for making jam, but as it consists chiefly of stone and skin, with comparatively little pulp, it is not a good …
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Recent Posts
- Soy sauce fish bottles and pizza savers. Ending the use of single-use plastic.
- Unbelievably mouth-watering dishes. Indian cuisine in the Australian Women’s Weekly online Food page
- It’s a wrap. Chocolate bars, health, and ethical practice
- Portable, powdered, effervescent. S(n)ippets of lemonade at the Australian table 1806 – 1906
- Know how to Cook a Plain Dinner. A review of advertisements for employment of men as household cooks1803 – 1853.
