Food History

I’m incapable of deep intellect tonight. My mind is still in the Middle Ages. (While I remember, hi to any students who managed to find me here – you’ll find the Medieval recipes here. I’ve made a sudden and unexpected decision to make the chicken with orange sauce for dinner on Friday night. I was going to make chicken in herbes de Provence and balsamic vinegar sauce. Now I want to make both. Can four people eat two medium-sized chooks?)

Today’s book isn’t really a cookbook. In fact, it isn’t a cookbook at all.

There are a bunch of volumes that we buy cheaply for children and for small presents. They seldom make the review pages and they usually have lots of pictures. These books look ephemeral, but they can be very important. They’re the ones we grab off the shelf when a friend asks about a subject and knows nothing. They’re the ones we start with ourselves, when life just gets too difficult. They appear as if by magic in libraries and schools.

I’m not going to give an evaluation of how good the history is in this particular volume. Really, I wanted to explain (because I really am in teaching mode tonight, for which I apologise profoundly) that it isn’t always the deeply scholarly and pedantically accurate that helps train our minds to understanding the past. It’s books like Kathleen McArthur’s Bread and Dripping Days. An Australian growing up in the 20’s.

Writers who work on these volumes seldom get praise for their work, but we owe many of them a great deal. They’re one of the most important elements in transmitting memory in a manner that’s acceptable and understandable. They break down ideas and explain them. They’re a key element – on other words – of cultural transmission.

Many of these authors take great care and make their text as accurate as they can. Very few have luxuries of time or scholarly space.

I’m not saying not to use them unjudgingly. I do suggest, however, that you take the time to appreciate them.

The food section in Bread and Dripping Days is only five pages long. Five narrow pages. About 1500 words. This word length is perfect for an introductory overview. In those 1500 words, McArthur looks at how Australian eating custom has changed deeply since World War I and where it has changed from.

It’s not detailed enough for many of us. None of these books are. I can argue with lots of specifics. What I can’t argue with is the need for books exactly like this as one of the foundations of the bridge we need to cross to understand our own culinary history and foodways. Never underestimate them.