While we’ve been dishing up small tasty morsels about food in colonial Australia, local Sydney author Charmaine O’Brien has created a banquet of tastes, both culinary and social, in her latest book, The Colonial Kitchen: Australia 1788- 1901. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). Taking us from hearth-side cookery in bushman’s huts to the most elegant dining rooms in the land, this book introduces us to homely housewives, servants struggling trying to meet the culinary needs of the squattocracy, influential cookery writers and entrepreneurial restaurateurs. Continue reading →