Book
| Comments
|
| "Fondue and Table Top Cookery" - Marion Howells, 1971. | Fondues were all the rage in the 70s. This book makes them easy. |
| "Chinese Village Cookbook" - Rhoda Yee, 1975. | Uncomplicated food, with very interesting descriptions of Chinese village life. |
| "Outback Cooking in the Camp Oven" - Jack & Reg Absalom, 1982. | A camp oven is a deep iron pot with a close-fitting lid. It is placed in the coals of a campfire, and more coals are shovelled on the top. The food then cooks from all sides, just like in an indoor oven. The cooking part is easy - getting the fire just right takes practice. |
| "Easy-Stages Cook Book" - Good Housekeeping, 1972. | Books like this are a great way for beginners to learn to cook and are also a good source of simple recipes for all of us. |
| "A Taste of Kashmir" - Geeta Samatani, 1995. | Kashmiri curries are richer and creamier than Indian ones. This book is an excellent introduction to the cooking style of this part of the sub-continent. |
| "Classic Country Cooking" - Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen, 1992. | Good plain home-style cooking from the wife of a former Premier of Queensland. Her most famous recipe is for pumpkin scones. |
| "Yum" - Terry Durack, 1996. | As much a journey through his life and through his eating and cooking experiences as it is a recipe book - but a fascinating read and with interesting illustrations - starting with the front cover. |
| "The Wok" - Gary Lee, 1970. | I taught myself how to use a wok from the recipes in this book - I still have my original wok from the early 70s - a heavy steel, very black and well-seasoned thing that lurks in the bottom of the pantry. |
| "A Little Scottish Cookbook" - Paul Harris, 1988. | A little book that Judy, my wife, likes to look at from time to time to remind herself of her heritage (several generations back). |
| "Stir-Fry" - Diane Rossen Worthington, 1994. | A book from a Time-Life series. This is one of the best books that I know of to learn about stir frying all sorts of foods. Not Australian, but good anyway! |
| "The Baby Boomers' Cookbook" - Helen Townsend, 1991. | Recipes for those who grew up in Australia in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s - some of which are better forgotten. How our food has changed since then!! |
| "Bon Appétit" - Ian Parmenter, 1993. | The book from the Australian ABC TV series, Consuming Passions. |
| "Don Dunstan's Cookbook" - Don Dunstan, 1976. | Compiled by a former Premier of South Australia, it is a fascinating insight into food in the 70s in South Australia. |
| "Risotto Around the World" - Tamara Milstein, 1996. | Not an Australian food book, but risottos originated in the countries that many of our immigrants came from, so they are well-established as an item on Australian menus. |
| "A Gourmet's Guide: Food & Drink from A to Z" - John Ayto, 1990. | Not an Australian book, but great fun to read and learn from. |
| The Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook series. | Over 30 different titles in this series - good food, beautifully illustrated. Theme books like "Starters and Soups", "Almost Vegetarian", "Chinese", "Easy Thai Style", "Chocolate", etc. |
| "The Wok" - Gary Lee, 1970. | My first Asian cookbook, bought in 1975 when we bought the wok that we still use. It - the wok - is well-seasoned now, and delicious to cook with! The book is full of simple recipes that even I could follow and succeed with. |
| "Cuisine Gourmande" - Michel Guérard, 1977. | A very politically incorrect book! But the food is wonderful. Published when Cuisine Minceur was at its peak, the author claims that "the complete absence of flour-based sauces will help keep the greedy cook slim - cream, butter and feather-light pastries take their place." |
| "A Good Plain Cook: an edible history of Queensland" - S. Addison & J. McKay, 1985. | A wonderful collection of recipes from all eras of Queensland's history, mixed with photographs, newspaper extracts, and advertisements from the time. |
| "Convicted Tastes: food in Australia" - R. Beckett, 1984. | The story of how Australians have fed themselves since 1788, the year of our first permanent European settlement. |
| "The Australian Heritage Cookbook". | Recipes with an Australian flavour for all occasions - with lavish numbers of colour photographs of the food and the country. |
| "The Proud Tradition of Australian Cooking" - Jan Berry & Helen Wearing-Smith, 1993. | A collection of recipes for the 1920s and 1930s, with illustrations of advertisements from those years. The authors have updated some of the ingredients, which is a pity, but it does not spoil the overall effect. |
| The Terrace Times Minimum Effort Maximum Effect Australian Cookbook" - Helen Arbib, 1990. | This is her tenth cookbook, all with The Terrace Times theme. This one contains a collection of old Australian recipes from cookbooks dating back to 1864. |
| "The Australian Country Kitchen" - Helen Vellacott, 1995. | The subtitle of this book is "A book of fine old recipes for contemporary cooks." Like most of the books listed here, this one also has some wonderful snippets of information and advice from the old books about cooking, foods, and life in general. |
| "Rabbit on a Shovel" - 'Lummo', 1993. | More than 100 basic bush recipes for Aussies cooking around the campfire. |
| "The Australian Hostess Cookbook" - Hanna Pan, 1969. | 40 hostesses from around Australia share their favourite party recipes and menus. |
| "The Complete Asian Cookbook" - Charmaine Solomon, 1976. | Yes, I know that this is not an Australian cookbook. But Charmaine Solomon's books are the best around, and I couldn't resist adding this one to the list. I learnt to cook Asian food from this book. |
