Books on the Menu: Australian cookbooks

A unique display called Australian cookbooks, featuring reproductions from the State Library of NSW's vast cookery book collection will be on show at Orange City Library, Byng Street, Orange during F.O.O.D. Week 17  26 April. Come along to meet State Library of NSW Australian cookbooks exhibition curator Pat Turner on Wednesday 22 April from 5.30pm  7.30pm at our special Books on the Menu event as she talks about the cookbook collection and curating this wonderful travelling exhibition. View rare cookbook titles and first editions including The English And Australian Cookery Book (1864); The Antipodean Cookbook (1897) by one of the earliest cookery book writers, Mrs Lance Rawson, who emphasised the value of bush tucker from her learnings with Aboriginal people; War Chest Cookery Book published in Sydney in 1917 to raise money for the war efforts; and Cooking the Chinese Way (1948) by Roy Geechoun, the first Australian book devoted entirely to Chinese cooking. Also hear from local foodies talking about their favourite cookbooks and recipes. No matter what your taste, you're sure to discover something delicious. Yum!

And most people would recognise the woman pictured -Margaret Fulton in her celebrity chef heydey! Margaret Fulton OAM, food writer, began writing cookery pages in women's magazines in the early 1950s. The first of her many cookbooks, The Margaret Fulton Cookbook, was published in 1968. It sold more than a million copies and remains a staple in many kitchens around the country. Fulton's sensible and practical approach to food is the key to her popularity. In 1999 she published I Sang for My Supper. Part memoir, part social history, the book documents her life and the changing social and cultural scene in Australia from the 1920s to the present.