I’ve been looking through an array of historic cookbooks, Australian ones in particular. Which means titles from the later nineteenth-century to the mid-twentieth. Because ‘old’ is not so old here when you’re talking about publications. Books about First Nations foodways are a relatively recent addition to our culinary shelves.

There are many ways of reading a cookbook. The ones I’m looking at are top heavy with cakes—large, small and special occasion, biscuits, scones, sweet puddings and confectionary. Most have a segment on Invalid Cookery which gets me wondering: are contemporary ‘dietaries’ (gluten-free, lactose intolerant, etc) the twenty-first century equivalent? There’s a lot of boiling and a number of surprising vegetable inclusions—salsify and pigweed, for example. Even mangelwurzel—which sounds like a character from Harry Potter, but is part of the beetroot family.

But it’s what’s not there that interests me. Mushrooms for instance. Some of these cookbooks have not a single mention, let alone any recipes involving mushrooms. Something to explore further given my fascination with all things fungi …

Several of these older cookbooks have been digitised and you can read them online. Here are the links to a couple:

The Kingswood Cookery Book by H F Wicken
Harriet Frances Wicken published the first edition of her Kingswood Cookery Book in London in 1885. A revised, Australian edition of her book appeared in 1889 and went through six editions to 1913.

The Antipodean Cookery Book and Kitchen Companion by Mrs Lance Rawson
Wilhelmina (Mina) Rawson is recognised as the first female cookbook author in Australia. This book, published in 1895, includes instructions for cooking parrots, sand eels and ‘excellent wallaby soup’.