From Kai to Kiwi Kitchen
New Zealand Culinary Traditions and Cookbooks
Edited by Helen M. Leach 
Key Points
* Food history anthology from Montana-shortlisted author
* Early Polynesian cooking and colonial cookery to the present
* Marsden Fund grant-winning research
* Well illustrated in colour and b/w
The Book
In the past two decades, cuisine and culinary history have attracted increasing attention, with both popular and academic books reflecting the growth of interest. Recipes are both sensitive markers of the socioeconomic conditions of their times and written representations of a culture's culinary repertoire yet, despite the vast number of cookbooks that survive, they have not been the primary focus of research projects. Acknowledgement of their potential contribution to our understanding of culinary history has been slow. This book is a first in its field.
The book opens with the three Macmillan Brown Lectures given by Helen Leach at Canterbury University in 2008 and broadcast on National Radio in 2009. The second part is comprised of essays by a number of contributors from a major research project that looked at Kiwi cookbooks, supported by the Marsden Fund.
The essays explore several themes in New Zealand's food history, including the adaptation of British and Maori culinary traditions in the nineteenth century and the fate of the Maori tradition in the twentieth, external influences on New Zealand cookery (previously thought to be predominantly British until after World War II), the transmission of cookery knowledge between and within generations, the impact of changing technology on cooking methods and recipes, nutritional advice in community cookbooks, and the transition from modernism to postmodernism, as seen in the cookbooks of Aunt Daisy and Lois Daish.
This book will entertain anyone interested in food, New Zealand history or domestic culture.
Contents
Preface PART I: The Macmillan Brown Lectures, 2008 1 Maori Cookery before Cook Helen M. Leach 2 Cookery in the Colonial Era (1769–1899) Helen M. Leach 3 Culinary Traditions in Twentieth-Century New Zealand Helen M. Leach / PART II: Cookbooks and Culinary History in New Zealand 4 Changing Kitchen Technology F. Jane Teal 5 The Uptake of Nutritional Advice Janet Mitchell 6 Putting Fish Back on the Menu Duncan Galletly 7 Guiding the Culinary Tradition: The School of Home Science Raelene Inglis 8 Cooking on a Dais: From Daisy to Daish Michael Symons Contributors Acknowledgements Works Cited Index
Editor
Helen Leach is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Otago. Her most recent book, The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand's Culinary History (Otago University Press, 2008), was a finalist in the Montana Book Awards in 2009. She has also written two books on garden history, co-authored nine others, and published over 60 articles in journals worldwide.
Publication details
In-stores November 2010
Culinary History / Anthropology
Paperback, 235 x 155 mm, 208 pp, illustrated in b/w and colour
ISBN 978 1 877372 75 9, $40.00, £17.50 UK
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