Activism and the everyday : a cookbook to promote world peace

In 1950, the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW) published Cookery around the world, a cookbook, containing recipes sourced from six million country women, all members of associations of country women in twenty-five countries. Australian country women contributed to this book through their branches of the Country Women’s Association (CWA). The ACWW recognised that country women, whether they lived in Australia or Iceland, were ‘good cooks’, skilled both in the kitchen and in their use of home-grown produce (ACWW 1950: Preface). This book with its collection of global recipes, would, through its recipes, be ‘a common bond of friendship with the world’ (Preface). Sarah Pink argues that everyday practices (such as cooking) must be understood as part of wider environments and activities. As such, they are the starting point for activism in a series of different contexts (Pink 2012: 28-9). This paper uses recipes from Cookery around the world to both unravel the book’s intent and purpose in a world recovering from World War II, and link the everyday work of country women to activism intended to achieve global understanding and world peace.