Review of 'Voracious: The Best New Australian Food Writing', Paul McNally (Ed.) (2011) Prahran, Vic: Hardie Grant Books, 191 pp., ISBN: 9781742701202, p/bk, AUS$29.95

Abstract

This collection of food writing is aptly titled. The prominence of food-related content in the the media, including the print media, suggests that Australians are voracious when it comes to food, whether consumed vicariously or otherwise. The most passing glance at a bookshop or newsagent shows that food, and by extension drink, generates a robust sector of the publishing industry, and this is confirmed statistically through such sources as the Audit Bureau of Circulations and Neilsen BookScan. Dunstan and Chaitman observe that 'seldom has the relationship between the growth of a culture and the publishing industry been as as symbolic in the case of book and magazine publishing and food and wine in Australia in the past few decades' (2007: 333). In this, of course, Australia is part of a wider phenomenon in English-speaking countries that have seen not only the flourishing of the celebrity chef and its commercial offshoots but also, as a sobering counterpoint, the voicing of concerns regarding the social, ethical and environmental implications of food production and consumption. As a consequence, food writing - a very broad term for works that take food as their subject matter, and encompasses a range of forms and styles - is now well recognized as a professional specialization.