Oh, for a French wife?: Australian women and culinary francophilia in post-war Australia

This paper considers the contribution of women to culinary practice in Australia in the post-war era. Focusing on Melbourne and Sydney, it begins with a brief history of the influence of the French on restaurants and ideas of haute cuisine in those cities, before profiling a number of prominent women cookery teachers and food writers. We explore the part women played in promoting French cookery in Australia in the post-war period by considering the role of women as instructors in cookery demonstrations and classes as well as their contribution to food writing. Although researchers have ‘reclaimed’ the working lives of many forgotten creative women artists and fiction writers, women as teachers, food writers, chefs and cooks have received much less attention. Yet, many women in the post-war period maintained viable, lengthy and influential careers in the culinary field in Australia, and thereby influenced Australian foodways, both inside and outside of the home. This preliminary survey is intended to form part of what Rosemary Ferguson Webb has called ‘the ongoing feminist historical project of understanding the feminine contribution to the idea of Australia’.