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Contemporary food writing continues to gain visibility, featuring across media platforms from publishing to television and online forms. Kathryn Hughes writes that food writing has “evolved its own elaborate ecosystem, bristling with sub-genres, starting points, cross-currents and trip wires” (2010). In an attempt to negotiate the complexity of this ecosystem, this paper defines and then suggests a range of ways of describing and grouping one sub-genre of food writing, the food memoir. Focusing on memoirs of professional culinary lives, these groupings include categorising by subject matter and content, as well as in terms of authorial approaches to writing these kinds of memoir. It does not provide a definitive definition or set of categories as, while proposing these various sub-groupings, it was instructive to see how fluid they needed to be, as many memoirs can be classified in various ways. Instead of attempting to proscribe inflexible definitions and categories, this investigation is instead motivated by the belief that finding new ways to discuss and contextualise the food memoir provides a pathway into understanding how the authors of food memoirs function as writers and understand themselves as creative professionals. As such an exercise, moreover, provides a workable means of mapping and thinking about these writers’ career trajectories, it may also assist in determining training and experiential pathways for those wishing to enter the field, or develop existing careers in food writing.
Professor Donna Lee Brien (BEd, Deakin; GCHE, UNE; MA (Prelim.), USydney; MA, UTS; PhD, QUT) is Professor of Creative Industries and Associate Dean, Research & Postgraduate, in the School of Creative and Performing Arts at CQUniversity, Australia, where she also chairs the Creative and Performing Arts Special Interest Research Group for the Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre (LTERC). Widely published on Australian food writers and their influence, Donna’s biography John Power 1881-1943 is the standard work on this expatriate Australian artist. A Past President of the national peak body, the Australasian Association of Writing Programs, Donna is currently the Commisioning Editor, Special Issues, of TEXT: The Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture and a Foundation Editorial Board member of Locale: The Australasian-Pacific Journal of Regional Food Studies. With Dr Adele Wessell she is the Founding Co-Editor of the new Australasian Journal of Food Cultures. She has most recently edited the ‘Pig’ issue of MC Journal with Dr Wessell and the ‘Food’ issue of The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture with Dr Toni Risson. Current research includes projects on forgotten Australian food writers and OLT projects on doctoral examination studies and fostering leadership in the creative arts.
11 September 2012
