What recipe books reveal

Susan Luscombe chats to Helensburgh food historian Dr Lauren Samuelsson

loved Women’s Weekly cookbooks. These books are all at least 40 years old and I still make these dishes today. They are also marked by samples from the cooking process (which is a bit gross).

I am not in the habit of making notes on my recipes but I do remember my mother annotating the Crispy Fish in Chilli Sauce recipe from her copy of the Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook. Her note read: “Cut down on the chilli!” The exclamation mark says it all.

What does this say about me and my family?

I’m not sure really, other than that we were fairly adventurous in that era of eating, emerging from our colonial history. I am sorry to report that this love/obsession has not been passed on to my two sons, although they are both keen cooks.

I asked Lauren about her thoughts on cookbook annotations and their significance.

“I think that these little notations in the margins of the books are a really important historical source,” Lauren said.

“I have a copy of the Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook where someone has written ‘Dad & Mum’ beside the recipe for Combination Chop Suey and ‘Bishops, Earkes, Byrnes, Thomases’ next to the Chicken Chow Mein. I don’t know who owned this book before me – it was an op shop find – but I love to imagine someone planning a dinner party for their friends and family, leafing through the cookbooks and choosing recipes they thought would suit.

On March 29, Helensburgh’s Dr Lauren Samuelsson (pictured) joined fellow food historian Dr Alison Vincent to discuss the intertwining of family and food history across cultures and time in a University of Tasmania webinar titled ‘More than a Story: Food and families’.

Both historians have researched different areas, looking at the history of cooking, eating and drinking. For her PhD at the University of Wollongong, Lauren studied The Australian Women’s Weekly recipes and cookbooks to discover how they influenced food and family culture from the 1930s to the 1980s.

Coming from a Women’s Weekly cookbook family of the 70s and 80s, I am drawn to Lauren’s research and findings.

Particularly interesting to me is Lauren’s observation that a well-used cookbook will fall open to the most popular page and often have scribbled notes that give insights into the food culture of the family at that time.

This prompted me to revisit three of my most

“Both recipes have a big tick beside them, so perhaps we can assume they were a success.

“We are usually quite disconnected from the process of actually cooking when we are looking at old recipe books, so these scribbles and splatters help to connect us to people from the past.”

Lauren said it was hard to pick her favourite Women’s Weekly cookbook but, no matter the recipe, she’s never had one fail “aside from user error”, which is why they were so popular.

“The A4-size softcover books (Chinese Cooking Class, Best Ever Recipes, Children’s Birthday Cake Book) are so accessible (and low cost), which allowed people to choose cuisines that they either loved or would like to try. I think this made for a lot of adventurous cookery, and probably promoted comments like the ‘Cut down on the chilli!’ – as people adapted the recipes to their tastes,” she said.

Have you got a book or recipes that have been handed down through generations? Share them with Susan via the Get In Touch page at theillawarraflame.com.au

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Prices on the rise

When can we expect real estate prices to be back at their 2022 peak?

We’re now consistently seeing house price growth across every Australian capital city. Like every downturn, we’ve seen prices fall far less than what’s generally predicted. Housing markets almost always surprise with strength on the upside and see far less robust declines when the market turns.

If prices continue to rise, when can we expect them to be back to their 2022 peak? Assuming the rate of price growth continues as it has over the past three months, median house prices could be back to where they were at the peak of 2022 in September 2023. These dates could change, however. We’re likely at the peak of interest rates and if they start to come down this year, this will accelerate price growth. More negatively, if unemployment starts to rise, this could slow the pace of change.