Collection of Australian stories and recipes contained within a history of Australian cooking and eating habits, from colonial times to the present. Includes photos, source list, further reading and index. Author is Associate Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney.

Named one of New York Times Top-20 Cookbooks of 2006. Have you ever wanted to host a full evening of Indian food, culture, and music? How about preparing a traditional Balinese banquet? Or take a trip to Cairo and enjoy an Egyptian feast? The Ethnomusicologists' Cookbook takes you around the world on a culinary journey that is also a cultural and social odyssey. Many cookbooks offer a snapshot of individual recipes from different parts of the world, but do nothing to tell the reader how different foods are presented together, or how to relate these foods to other cultural practices. For years, ethnomusicologists have visited the four corners of the earth to collect the music and culture of native peoples, from Africa to the Azores, from Zanzibar to New Zealand. Along the way, they've observed how music is an integral part of social interaction, particularly when it's time for a lavish banquet or celebration. Foodways and cultural expression are not separate; this book emphasizes this connection through offering over thirty-five complete meals, from appetizers to entrees to side dishes to desserts and drinks. A list of recommended CDs fills out the culinary experience, along with hints on how to present each dish and to organize the overall meal. The Ethnomusicologists' Cookbook combines scholarship with a unique and fun approach to the study of the world's foods, musics, and cultures. More than just a cookbook, it is an excellent companion for anyone embarking on a cultural-culinary journey.

An amusing anthology of Australian cooking by some of our most popular writers.

What do you need to know to prosper as a people for at least 65,000 years? The First Knowledges series provides a deeper understanding of the expertise and ingenuity of Indigenous Australians. For millennia, Indigenous Australians harvested this continent in ways that can offer contemporary environmental and economic solutions. Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe demonstrate how Aboriginal people cultivated the land through manipulation of water flows, vegetation and firestick practice. Not solely hunters and gatherers, the First Australians also farmed and stored food. They employed complex seasonal fire programs that protected Country and animals alike. In doing so, they avoided the killer fires that we fear today. Country: Future Fire, Future Farming highlights the consequences of ignoring this deep history and living in unsustainable ways. It details the remarkable agricultural and land-care techniques of First Nations peoples and shows how such practices are needed now more than ever.

Tasmania to London. 800 hitchhiking trips. One year. Intrepid traveler and author Jamie Maslin does it again as he undertakes one of the most grueling, enlightening, and hilarious journeys of his life. How many rides does it take to hitch from Tasmania to London? Intrepid traveler and rogue wanderer Jamie Maslin decides to find out. The Long Hitch Home is a vibrant travelog of well-researched social, cultural, and historical introductions to the score of countries Maslin passed through. Whether writing about the exotic backstreets of cities few of us will get to see firsthand, or the unique geographical wonders of far off countries, Jamie Maslin gives a thrilling account of what it is like to hit the road and live with intensity and rapture.

The Murray cod is Australia’s largest and most iconic freshwater fish. Tales of the species have long been part of Australian folklore and this book describes its history, biology, cultural significance and conservation. The Life and Times of the Murray Cod reveals the many roles the species has played throughout the history of the continent, from its place at the heart of the Aboriginal creation story of the Murray River, its role as a food source for explorers surveying inland Australia in the early 1800s, to it forming the basis of a commercial fishing industry up to the early 2000s. Living for upwards of half a century and growing to astonishing sizes, today the Murray cod is a hugely popular target for recreational fishing, but its future is anything but assured. In the face of climate change, river management and fishing pressure, much needs to be done to ensure this extraordinary fish swims confidently into the future. The Life and Times of the Murray Cod draws on historical, anecdotal and scientific sources to reveal what makes this remarkable species so special, and will appeal to fishers, natural resource managers, conservationists and any reader interested in natural history.

2007 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first publication of One Continuous Picnic, a frequently acclaimed Australian classic on the history of eating in Australia. The text remains gratifyingly accurate and prescient, and has helped to shape subsequent developments in food in Australia. Until recently, historians have tended to overlook eating, and yet, through meat pies and lamingtons, Symons tells the history of Australia gastronomically. He challenges myths such as that Australia is 'too young' for a national cuisine, and that immigration caused the restaurant boom. Symons shows us that Australia is unique because its citizens have not developed a true contact with the land, have not had a peasant society. Australians have enjoyed plenty to eat, but food had to be portable: witness the weekly rations of mutton, flour, tea and sugar that made early settlers a mobile army clearing a whole continent; and the tins of jam, condensed milk, camp pie and bottles of tomato sauce and beer that turned its citizens into early suburbanites. By the time of screw-top riesling, takeaway chicken and frozen puff pastry, Australians were hypnotised consumers, on one continuous picnic. But good food has never come from factory farms, process lines, supermarkets and fast-food chains. Only when we enjoy a diet of fresh, local produce treated with proper respect, when we learn from peasants, might we at last have found a national cuisine and cultivated a continent.