ABSTRACT
In 1976, Don Dunstan, Premier of the State of South Australia, produced his own cookbook. In it, he declared: ‘Australia is not merely a European outpost in Asia. We are already a multi-racial society and we will have a greater racial admixture in the future’ (1976: 28). Stressing the rich cultural resources of the region, Dunstan then urged Australians to ‘get out your chopping board, your cleaver, and your wok’ (1976: 88). Two years before, in Singapore, Mrs Lee’s Cookbook had appeared. Compiled by Mrs Lee Chin Koon (‘Mama Lee’, the mother of Lee Kuan Yew), the book’s project was to record the ‘art’ of Nonya cooking for generations who were no longer taught its ‘secrets’ within domestic kitchens.1 Indeed, Mrs Lee feared that Nonya cooking would die due to recent social and cultural changes – changes in the amount of time women were prepared to spend on domestic cooking, together with the Singapore Government’s political project of ‘making’ Singaporean identity (Lee 1974: Introduction; Solomon 1976: 240). Nearly thirty years after Mrs Lee’s book was published, Australia’s Northern Territory Government, in promotional material, declares its capital city, Darwin, as ‘Australia’s Asian Gateway’ and the official ‘home’ of ‘the best curry laksa in Australia’ (Northern Territory Government 2003: 43).
