Writing about food : significance, opportunities and professional identities

Food writing, including for cookbooks and in travel and food memoirs, makes up a significant, and increasing, proportion of the books written, published, sold and read each year in Australia and other parts of the English speaking world. Food writing also comprises a similarly significant, and also growing, proportion of the magazine, newspaper and journal articles, Internet weblogs and other non-fiction texts written, published, sold and read in English. Furthermore, food writers currently are producing much of the concept design, content and spin-off product that is driving the expansion of the already popular and profitable food-related television programming sector. Despite this high visibility in the marketplace, and while food and other culinary-related scholarship are simultaneously growing in reputation and respectability in the academy, this considerable part of the contemporary writing and publishing industry has, to date, attracted little serious study. Moreover, internationally, the emergent subject area of food writing is more often located either in Food History and Gastronomy programs or as a component of practical culinary skills courses than in Writing or Publishing programs. This paper will, therefore, investigate the potential of food writing as a viable component of Writing courses. This will include a preliminary investigation of the field and current trends in food writing and publishing, as well as the various academic, vocational and professional opportunities and pathways such study opens up for both the students and teachers of such courses.