Table Of ContentBarBara Santich
‘Barbara Santich is one of the few people
in australia who writes about food,
cookery and flavour, and all that entails,
with a winning combination of sense
and sensibility.’ – Gay Bilson
WakeField PreSS
L o o k i n g f o r f L a v o u r
Œ
BarBara Santich is an author, researcher, teacher and
internationally acknowledged authority in food history.
Fundamental to her work is a belief that what, how and why we
eat is intimately connected to our culture. Looking for Flavour,
recognised by the Food Media club of australia as the best soft-
cover food book in 1996. is not only an individual adventure but
also a key to understanding other societies.
Barbara Santich is also a respected academic at the
University of adelaide where she introduced postgraduate
courses in both food writing and food history and culture.
B a r B a r a S a n t i c h
Œ
L o o k i n g f o r f L a v o u r
Œ
Wakefield Press
1 the Parade West
kent town
South australia 5067
www.wakefieldpress.com.au
First published 1996. this expanded edition published 2009
reprinted 2011, 2013
this edition published 2013
copyright © Barbara Santich, 1996, 2009
all rights reserved. this book is copyright. apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of
private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the copyright act, no part may
be reproduced without written permission. enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.
designed by liz nicholson, design Bite
illustrations by danny Snell
typeset by clinton ellicott, Wakefield Press
national library of australia cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Santich, Barbara.
looking for flavour [electronic resource].
Bibliography.
iSBn 978 1 74305 207 5 (ebook: pdf).
1. Food habits – australia – history. 2. Food – history.
3. cookery, australian – history. i. title.
641.30994
Œ
f o r a . E . D .
x
‘When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,’ said Piglet at last,
‘what’s the first thing you say to yourself?’
‘What’s for breakfast?’ said Pooh. ‘What do you say, Piglet?’
‘I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?’ said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
‘It’s the same thing,’ he said.
a.a. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
x
c o n t E n t S
ForeWord by Gay Bilson
Œ viii ˇ
introdUction to the Second edition
Œ 1 ˇ
lookinG For FlavoUr
Œ 41 ˇ
taSte and cUltUre
Œ 51 ˇ
taSteS oF aUStralia PaSt
Œ 59 ˇ
the FaScination oF MarketS
Œ 70 ˇ
MarketS in Sicily: a Medieval PreSence
Œ 84 ˇ
Mediterranean inSPiration
Œ 90 ˇ
the art oF cUiSine
Œ 100 ˇ
reciPeS and riGhtS
Œ 107 ˇ
rUSSian MarketS: a FeaSt For the FeW
Œ 116 ˇ
PUttinG cUiSine into cUltUre
Œ 123 ˇ
toWardS an aUStralian cUiSine
Œ 131 ˇ
oPPortUnity loSt
Œ 139 ˇ
SconeS, SPonGeS, anzacS and laMinGtonS
Œ 147 ˇ
the riSe and deMiSe oF the kanGaroo SteaMer
Œ 155 ˇ
reGionaliSM in aUStralia
Œ 165 ˇ
an aUStralian BanqUet, 1984
Œ 175 ˇ
MetaMorPhoSeS oF the BanqUet
Œ 184 ˇ
BaStille day at claret and itS ‘rePaS coMMUnal’
Œ 192 ˇ
a SUrrealiSt BanqUet, 1993
Œ 197 ˇ
Food and PerForMance, Food in PerForMance
Œ 203 ˇ
on GaStronoMy
Œ 212 ˇ
WritinG aBoUt Food
Œ 222 ˇ
the MeaninG oF Food
Œ 231 ˇ
FlavoUr FirSt
Œ 240 ˇ
veGS and Meat
Œ 248 ˇ
ProFeSSor lUcUllUS in the tWenty-Second
centUry
Œ 260 ˇ
Sin and Well-conSidered indUlGence
Œ 270 ˇ
BiBlioGraPhy
Œ 280 ˇ
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f o r E W o r D
x
early in 2009, at a Barossa valley winery, a lunch cooked by two
dedicated permaculture growers and chefs, Michael voumard and
ali cribb, made an emphatic statement about changes in regional
australian expectations of flavour and cooking techniques. although
the food said it all and needed no champions except by its contented
consuming, one person at the table was moved to blame Silesian
immigration for food unsuitable to the climate and these Germanic
traditions and concomitant nostalgia for barricading Barossa cooks
from modernity and climate-dictated kitchen practice. this seemed
a tad unfair to me, even reactionary, and more about marketing
by abuse than anything else. the blame was as much a sign of the
culinary times as was the meal.
every course we ate depended on, or was supported by, the
productive garden this Barossa winery supports. even the chickpeas,
which bound a yabby soup, had been grown here. one of the many
courses was served in three parts, all of which featured very young
green beans picked that morning. the first was beans, rocket and
a béarnaise sauce that rescued French haute cuisine from any
imagined slump. the second was beans cooked in the southern indian
way, with coconut and mustard seeds, curry leaves and chilli. the third
was beans prepared as though we were in South-east asia, combining
the flavours and textures of salted duck eggs, tiny sautéed peanuts,
fish sauce, shallots, lemongrass, lime juice and chilli.
With the exception of saffron, spices and peanuts, the produce we
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Looking for fLavour
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ate was local. it was spectacularly fresh and full of flavour: zucchini,
tiny onions, beetroot, peas, salad leaves, herbs, apricots, white and
yellow peaches, black mulberries and cape gooseberries, but it was
the three green bean dishes which made one think about profes-
sional australian cooking. you would be forgiven for thinking this
meal, and particularly the use of the beans, as being all over the place.
one minute you were swiping a bean through a perfect béarnaise and
wholeheartedly thanking the French for the sophistication of haute
cuisine; in another mouthful, the lovely rounded flavours and textures
of the indian sub-continent’s coconut palm and spice country seduced
us, and with the next we were assaulted by pungent thai flavours
with their perfect combination of sweet, salty, sour and hot elements.
the main course, by the way, was local pork ‘adobe’ which beckoned
Mexico to join a united nations of cookery.
and, yes, the meal was, literally, all over the place. For someone
like myself who still worries that i’ve transgressed by serving a meal
made up of dishes from different parts of india, or worse, mixed
Muslim with hindu dishes, or worse still, often think i should leave
indian food to indians in india (age and puritanism the factors,
i suppose, but also validated by the fact that food tastes and smells
differently in situ), this lunch, which was near globally inclusive,
should have finished with confession rather than Mexican organic
coffee. anthropologist Ghassan hage might conceivably feel sympathy
for my dilemma as he has written much about the imbalance of power
between the host and the migrant, making the point that in culinary
terms, multiculturalism in australia has benefited the ‘host’ and made
an object of the migrant. this i think is true of the educated middle
class who gain much of their culinary curiosity and knowledge through
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