History in the Baking workshop pairs with Food play

Theatregoers can enhance their experience of NORPA’s season of Food by learning how favourite cookbooks or recipes can speak to their personal history at a special workshop being led by SCU food historians and writers.

’History in the Baking: Recipe Workshop, presented by Dr Adele Wessell and Dr Moya Costello, will complement the Force Majeure and Belvoir co-production of Food. Participants are asked to bring their favourite cookbook or recipe to the workshop which is being held on Lismore on Saturday, July 12.

Dr Adele Wessell, a food historian and senior lecturer, said the way people eat was related to how they applied ideas and influences to the food resources they have available and their knowledge about cooking.

“Cookbooks provide a rich and valuable way to look at the past. Traditionally, cookbooks and recipes were thought of as blueprints for meals and even as manuals for conservative values.

"More recently we have recognised their aesthetic value – and acknowledged how little cooking might be done from them! On a continuum of approaches to history and food, there are those who approach both as a scientific endeavour and, at the other end of the spectrum, those who approach them as art. But these things miss something important: that cookbooks and recipes are about more than what we eat.

“Cookbooks can be seen as history in several ways. They are documents and blueprints for interpretation of the past. They give meaning to the past by representing culinary heritage. They trace important historical developments: migration, travel, reform movements and popular culture.

"As a representation of our food culture, cookbooks can tell us how we understand health, economics, geography, technology, politics and social consciousness. They speak to our personal history, family background, ethnicity and the places where we live.

“While it is not possible to experience food in the same way it would have tasted in the past, passing recipes on is one of the ways we inherit our food culture. What is often surprising when we look at recipes is not just how much things have changed, but how many things remain the same,” Dr Wessell said.

The interactive workshop will see participants explore recipes and cookbooks as sources for history, family and the places where people live.

Food and wine writing lecturer Dr Moya Costello will reflect on the storytelling aspect of cookbooks.

“Cookbooks are stories within stories, narratives that are both factual and imagined, everyday and fantastic. Cookbooks contribute to authoring a narrative of self, space and time,” said Dr Costello.

In particular, she will be looking for cookbooks that include food and wine pairing.

"Wine, like food, is product of the earth and, historically, it has both cultural and spiritual significance,” Dr Costello said.

“Wine can set the dreaming, remembering mind in action. Just the aroma and appearance of wine can act as triggers which open doors onto our pasts. Like food, wine develops identity and belonging."

EVENT DETAILS
‘History in the Baking: Recipe Workshop’, Saturday July 12, 4.30pm to 6pm at Lismore City Hall.

Participants are asked to bring their favourite cookbook or recipe.

The workshop is free but bookings are essential on 1300 066 772 (9am-2pm Monday to Friday) or at boxoffice@norpa.org.au

Photo: Australian Home Cookery, circa 1930, contains 850 tested recipes and practical hints on marketing, invalid cookery, preserves, pickles, beverages, parties, carving, table arrangement, preparing menus and culinary terms. (Credit: National Museum of Australia collection).