Warren Fahey

I enjoyed this book, but I found it extremely biased towards the Eastern States (for example, some of the foods here in Western Australia go by different names, or have different sayings attached to them). It's frustrating to get a book on 'Australia' and find that the author - by and large - means Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

In addition, I was disappointed with how much global information was supplied in lieu of information on Australian lore regarding some of the foods (which show more is - after all - what this book presents itself as). If I wanted about 20 pages on global meanings and associations with herbs, I'd look elsewhere. What I was really hoping for, was a lot more emphasis on the varying Australian associations with foods and our rich cuisine cultures.

That said, what Australian-specific lore that was in the book, was informative and interesting - if biased towards the Eastern states! It's a great contribution to the patchwork of Australian culture, and I very much enjoyed the different sayings, poems, songs and traditional recipes peppered throughout. show less