143
Chapter 6
Capital and the Modern Kitchen
Commentators who reject the view that post-war immigration had any impact on
Australia's changing food habits frequently point to something more fundamental as an explanation: industrialisation. As Humphrey McQueen has said: "The migration of capital has been more influential than the migration of consumers or shopkeepers."'
Indeed, industrialisation, or capital, has brought about, and continues to bring about, tremendous changes in the way people eat. In 1950, it was still possible to pinpoint a tynica; v, worth of meals eater. hy most of the Angier -Ceitic nopulatior.. Then. people ate man\ of the same things. prepared in much the same way from the same ingredients as their neighbours. Though there were some socio-economic differences, most meals still fell within an English framework based on certain raw ingredients. That is not true today, even when one accounts for class differences.
Today, supermarkets all across Australia stock foods from Thailand, India, Italy, Greece,
Mexico, China and many other countries. The sheer availability of ingredients means that people can now pick and choose what to cook, and what they choose may be significantly different from what their neighbours have chosen. The food manufacturing and retailing industry has made it far easier for all Australians to cook 'ethnic,' as we shall see below.
But what they have also done is made it far easier for Australians not to cook at all. A 1999 survey of Australian food habits indicated that 90 percent of Australians use 'not-home-
1 H. McQueen, Strong, black and deadly, The Australian's Review of Books, December 1999, p. 23. 144 prepared' food in a week, with almost four meals per week falling into this category. 2 Of the meals prepared at home, a growing number are assembled rather than cooked; the
`home-meal-replacements' sold by supermarkets are a billion-dollar industry, with the largest segment being chilled and cooked meals that only need to be reheated. 3 The Sydney
Morning Herald appeared to have its finger on the pulse of the nation when it published an article entitled 'The Death of the Kitchen.' According to the article, "The household cook of the '90s [relied] on recipes of eight words: 'Pierce plastic cover and heat for two minutes.'4 Local, regional and national foods have all become more global, more processed and more packaged. This is largely due to industrialisation.
It is not within the scope of this chapter to examine industry's role in the growing 'fast foodificat9n` a meal r. contemporary ustraiiL, though th ramification:_ art pr:n -ounc — and not just on a nutritional level. 5 Rather, this chapter will show how the food industry marketed new foods to the Australian public in the post-war years, and how it helped influence the adoption of ethnic foods as a result.
Industrialisation vs. immigration
Michael Symons argues that Australia's post-war ethnic food boom was almost entirely the result of industrialisation. He maintains that because Australia never had a peasant society, it could not develop a cuisine of its own and instead had to turn to 'industrial' cuisine: preserved and transportable food brought from Britain at first, followed by food processed
2 G. Slattery, Accept no imitations, The Age Food, 11 May 1999. 3 S. Mangosi, Tie-and-Sandwich Corner Shop Threatened by Dynamics of Fast Food Industry, BIS Shrapnel News Release, 18 May 2000. 4 D. Macken, The Death of the Kitchen: Will Cooking Survive the 1990s?, The Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum, 7 September 1996, p. 10s. 5 G. Stansbury, Arresting Fast Food, M/C A Journal of Media and Culture, vol. 3, no. 2, June 2000, (hap://www.media-culture.org.au/0006/food.himl. 145 and supplied by the growing domestic and international food industries. 6 "The lack of a peasant experience — or, conversely, our total history of industrialisation — explains why we have traditionally cared less about food than any other people in history," he says.?
Nevertheless, there have been times Australians have cared about food — namely in the
1850s, the 1880s and the post-war years — although Symons maintains that these `waves of interest' in food occurred because of revolutions in transportation, the food industry, and the kitchen and not because of concurrent waves of immigration, which he claims were coincidental. Symons writes:
In the first step, the agricultural and industrial revolutions in England fed a newly estate-less bourgeoisie, who installed the first ranges, employed French cooks and
en.ic.)yed the groceries of other lands...A second step in the I 880s brought the great food companies based on the railways, roller-mills. refrigeration, brand names and chain shops. Processed foods again shook preconceptions about eating and drinking....Finally, considerable investment throughout the 1960s and 1970s took cooking out of the home and into the factory. The saturation advertising of multinational food corporations persuaded consumers to experiment once again with taste sensations.8
Certainly, developments in transportation, household appliances, shopping and the food industry resulted in tremendous changes in the availability and nature of foods and their preparation. But consumers are not entirely passive recipients of the mandates of industry, as Symons likes to suggest:
6 The debate over the existence of an Australian cuisine has been a vigorous one, but with the exception of how it relates to the wide scale adoption of ethnic foods in this country, it is beyond the scope of this thesis. To explore the subject in further detail, see Graham Pont s response to Michael Symons no peasantry/no cuisine premise in Upstart Gastronomy: A Cuisine without Peasants, presented to the Third Symposium of Australian Gastronomy: A Multiculinary Society, Adelaide, 1988 and Barbara Santich s Australian Culinary Xenophobia in the same publication, as well as Ruth Riddell (1989) and Cherry Ripe (1993). 7 M. Symons, One Continuous Picnic, Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Ringwood, Victoria, 1984 (1982), p. 12. 8 ibid., p. 228. 146
With supermarket selling, the processors manipulated both food and us. Market researchers identified gaps, food scientists devised new styles of foods, packaging companies created fetching guises, home economists found recipes to sell them, and advertising agencies presented us with persuasive social models.9
Industry will rarely produce a product for which it believes there will be no demand. And consumers will not buy products that do not fulfill their needs and desires. As Karl Marx said, "Nothing can have value without being an object of utility." 10 So while industry can influence or manipulate consumers to try an innovation, it cannot force them to adopt it if the innovation does not meet certain criteria relating to relative advantage, compatibility,
trialability and observability (see Chapter 4). Thus far. all those who have commented on the profound and permanent changes that have occurred in Australian food habits durin g the last 50 years – whether by stating that the cause was immigration or industrialisation – have missed the point. It is the innovation itself that matters. There was a reason Australians began experimenting with ethnic foods after World War Two – and a reason Italian food was the first they chose to bring into their homes: the relative advantage in adopting Italian food after World War Two was very high, higher than that of any other cuisine.
Neither immigration nor industry could have caused the wide-scale adoption of something that did not speak to a broad segment of the population; they could only facilitate the process. Immigration helped by exposing people to new foods via interpersonal channels of communication and by being the first suppliers of those foods. Industry helped by reaching
9 ibid., p. 195. 10 K. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1, 1867, Chapter 1, Section 1. 147 a far wider audience via mass media channels of communication and by greatly expanding the availability of those foods. Immigration and industry are not mutually exclusive. As we have seen in Chapter 5 and will further examine here, immigrant-owned businesses like
San Remo and D'Ortogna played a significant role, too. Whether they are of the multinational or 'mom-and-pop' variety, companies become change agents when they embark on advertising campaigns and promotions to encourage the adoption of their products.
Change agents and mass media channels of communication: advertising
What are change agents? Change agents influence consumers' innovation decisions in a
direction they deem desirable. Often. they do so by undertakin g a campaign that "intends to
generate specific outcomes or effects in a relatively lar ge number of individuals. usually
within a specified period of time and through an organized set of communication
activities."'
Rogers defines change agents as individuals working on behalf of change agencies, such as
an agricultural extension agent talking to farmers about a new seed on behalf of the World
Bank or the Department of Agriculture. But food manufacturers and food retailers are also
change agents in that they seek to influence consumers' decisions regarding their products –
in other words, they seek to persuade consumers to buy, and ideally adopt, their products –
and they frequently undertake advertising campaigns and special promotions as a form of
communication, often via mass media channels of communication.
11 E. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 4th edn, The Free Press, New York, 1995, p. 344. 148
hs
Ij
IS _SERVING I he Fighting SW/feel U l grant twat slew predsactic:n 4 Savoy Macaroni, insetted mod wilier Nutrifenth-- which leaves little for she fallu at home. Later you ll he aisle weskit" all yea want of these Continental Delicacies.
J-41.4)09 NUTRIFOODS .+Aducthava. , siut.a&alt. •arty otithAA
In the mid-1940s, Savoy Nutrifoods, a Leichardt-based company in Sydney that produced dry spaghetti and macaroni. found itself in the unusual position of reminding consumers why its proauct were appealinL even thouar: to were unavailable fo7 purchase. 7 -1,DuLl
World War Two ended in August 1945, rationing was phased out only gradually so that
Australian producers could still continue to send food parcels and exports to Britain and to troops still overseas. Savoy was not able to supply consumers with its spaghetti and macaroni until almost a year after the war ended, but it embarked upon an intensive campaign in the pages of the Women's Weekly just after the war's end to keep Savoy spaghetti and macaroni on consumers' minds, if not on their plates. Here is a sampling of some of their advertisements, most of which were accompanied by a drawing of a mustachioed chef in a toque:
Savoy Nutrifoods: Macaroni, Spaghetti – `The Food of 50 dishes": The Fighting Services still want most of our production of Savoy Macaroni, Spaghetti and other Nutrifoods – which leaves little for the folks at home. LATER you'll be able to enjoy all you want of these Continental Delicacies. Savoy Nutrifoods Pty Ltd 20 George St. Leichardt, Sydney'2
12 Australian Women's Weekly, 10 November 1945, p. 31.
149
Savoy Nutrifoods (The Food of 50 Dishes): Macaroni, Spaghetti and fathers... Scarce now... because the Fighting Services still want these sustaining high-protein foods.... But Later... you'll be able to enjoy these Continental Delicacies as often as you want.13
Savoy Nutrifoods: Savoy is the name of that wonderful Continental-style macaroni and spaghetti made here in Australia and equal to the world's finest. Very little now but there'll be plenty later when good times are back.14
Savoy Nutrifoods: From sunny Australian wheatfields come nourishing, muscle- building Savoy Nutrifoods... – spaghetti, macaroni and others. 1/2 lb. Makes a Meal for Four. Always say "Savoy!"15
So how was Savoy trying to influence the adoption of its products via these advenisernems? FirK and fort.T,-::::,-;„ ach, emphasised tha, Savo; 1.. uI ,:ifoods r patriotic company doing its duty by the armed services, which wanted its products. The reason its spaghetti and macaroni were not available to consumers was because they were
in high demand elsewhere. This was designed to appeal to consumers' patriotism and help convince them that Savoy Nutrifoods' spaghetti and macaroni were valuable products.
To further emphasise the latter point, Savoy inserted numerous references in its
advertisements to the products' many positive attributes in the hopes of persuading
consumers it would be to their relative advantage to buy Savoy macaroni and spaghetti
(when available). According to Rogers, diffusion scholars have found relative advantage to
be one of the best predictors of an innovation's rate of adoption. 16 As mentioned in Chapter
13 Australian Women s Weekly, 5 January 1946, p. 4. 14 Australian Women s Weekly, 20 April 1946, p. 46. 15 Australian Women s Weekly, 27 July 1946, p. 41. 16 E. Rogers, p. 216. 150
4, relative advantage has to do with an innovation's low initial cost, its convenience of use, the immediacy of the reward, and any social prestige it may confer.
In terms of a food, that means that if a food is relatively inexpensive, versatile, easy to prepare, and can provide the consumer with some degree of social prestige, then the chances it will be adopted sooner rather than later are very high. And if that food also fits into previously established food patterns easily, can be readily purchased (war-time not withstanding) and happens to be nutritious and tasty, then the chances are even better. Like many companies before and after it, Savoy Nutrif000ds knew the way to influence adoption was to show how its products' many positive qualities made them ideally suited to meet the needs of Australian consumers. Luckily for Savoy, spaghetti and macaroni actually met nkan:. Ey' criteria for succt'ssli acoptioi..
In its advertisements it mentioned spaghetti and macaroni's versatility ("The Food of 50 dishes"), nutritional properties ("high-protein," "nourishing, muscle-building," etc.), economy ("1/2 lb. Makes a Meal for Four,") familiarity/Australianness ("made here in
Australia and equal to the world's finest," "From sunny Australian wheatfields") and the prestige involved in preparing a 'foreign' dish ("Continental Delicacies," accompanied by a drawing of mustachioed chef in toque, presumably an Italian one). It helped that the innovation could be billed as 'delicious' and 'satisfying,' too. Spaghetti and macaroni were almost perfect scorers on the scale of adoptability.
By July 1946, Savoy's advertisements stopped mentioning the products' unavailability and started emphasizing their preparation, so perhaps by then they were becoming more widely available to the general public. It is hard to know how successful Savoy's campaign was, however. Its advertisements got smaller and smaller toward the end of 1946, and then never 151 again reappeared in the pages of the Women's Weekly. Either Savoy did so well it no longer needed to advertise in the Women's Weekly, or it went out of business or was purchased by a larger company, an event that was occurring more and more frequently as large food manufacturers discovered that smaller ones were on to something good. All traces of Savoy seem to have disappeared by the late 1940s. Nonetheless, it managed its mass media campaign as best as it could have done under difficult circumstances, and while Australian consumers may not have specifically adopted Savoy products in subsequent years, they certainly came to recognize the positive characteristics of spaghetti and macaroni so clearly presented in Savoy's advertisements. The company, however short-lived, did what it could to influence the adoption of dry pastas.
i Lt• cotipit of decades is) ,attc, spaanct-L: kval.
again regularly advertised in its own ri ght in the Women's Weekly, perhaps because it was
available and because the time had not yet come for it to be reincarnated into new, Italian-
style dishes as opposed to more traditionally English ones. Before the war and for a time
afterward, spaghetti was a very simple dish: it was usually layered with sautéed tomatoes in
a casserole, topped with grated cheese and baked. Its lack of meat relegated it to the ranks
of a luncheon or supper dish. It is doubtful that those who prepared it thought of it as a
particularly Italian dish at that point. Susan said her mother never prepared foreign foods
but used to make spaghetti:
[It was] spaghetti and tomato sauce or stewed tomato with spaghetti and things like that.... It's just one of those things you grow up with and you just always have it on the shelf. [Then when] immigration started, from Italy and so forth, ... it went into pizzas and all the different pasta. – Susan (1931, rural Armidale, NSW)
152
Although advertisements for dry spaghetti and different pastas in specifically Italian forms
did not begin to reappear in the Women's Weekly until the 1960s, spaghetti and macaroni
never left the magazine's pages. During the war years, the Women's Weekly billed spaghetti
and macaroni as foods that were easy on the ration book. It also suggested that war-time
austerity may actually have helped Australians adopt more nutritious and interesting foods:
Some shortages have made us perhaps more conscious of food values and correct methods of cooking. Not such a bad thing after all. Australia has always had the best food but not always the best cooks in the world. Here's some contriving that may be as good for the culinary skill as for the soul."
How to VC-11-E-T-C-H One of the Women's Weekly's suggestions included adding our meat ration, --b ir Elisabeth Cooke spaahett'. and macaroni to meat casseroles. The implication was Marra-on
s.:71(.1.60 clear: cooki• with pasta contributed food value and inv2rest to 111 e. Party i • r • thit ,. 1,1e /nadir raven rite • reweee -•••••• popping us, 011• lit all UK goider, eruity Women 's Weekli , played a dual role in Manx. iitit at, What I differ everyday meals. Thus. the let, who, ynu drenu It up Is a ng Tn0■111,1 with a green. green wand se peas nestliag Its Chow hem! Naturally, tilt be itabiconine illah--and a IniablY influencing the adoption of new foods: it served as a medium for astaildna one at that. Macaroni Vegetable Ring
V.., 11 001, .41
advertising by food companies, and also generated its own ..etk ate Hula. In belling apse weir? for 20 rniautee, drain. lake the airepe enure by lu milk and the Krlded•rbiL,ing., ntltior and .tittering until thlelt (14 c influential notions of what should be cooked, how, when and by reamy. Mk with the mane• tail, add I Uri/nib/1 s•dash ftrtittd. r. and pour Into Ereproor nith dIsh—sPribble breaderumba, Ilake in Nee/rate evnre whom. Though this chapter focuses on the former role, the latter i. ter 16 athletes.. kno. a dep reasiftn to the Centre ansesenni MAI ant esetitta Mt With the W race Oaralele whit will be discussed in Chapter 7. aite Wee. nerves lax. ►h.► "th sok0► t; $0.1. .111
Apart from making regular appearances in recipes, dry spaghetti and macaroni were also
continually present on the advertising pages of the Women's Weekly in relation to a variety
of sauces and cheeses, although they themselves were not being advertised. In 1950, Kraft
ran article-like advertisements in the Women s Weekly entitled: "Kraft Cheddar: How to
S-T-R-E-T-C-H your meat ration." One way to do it was by making a new version of
17 Australian Women's Weekly, 11 August 1945, p. 33. 153 macaroni cheese called macaroni vegetable ring with Kraft cheddar cheese; the recipe was provided.
Heinz also took the opportunity to advertise its products as the perfect accompaniments to spaghetti:
Heinz "57" Sauce, Heinz Tomato Sauce: Another prime favourite and appetiser is Heinz Tomato Sauce. It's fine in Haricots, popular in place of mustard with a grill, and splendid with crumbed or grilled sausages. And of course, there's nothing like it when you serve Spaghetti dishes.18
A full-page ad from May 1945 gets right to the point, instructing readers to use Heinz
Tomato Sauce "liberally when you make the Cheese and Tomato Sauce for Spaghetti
nothiro: jusi
Maxam also felt that spaghetti and macaroni were t perfect accompaniments to its cheese. It claimed its recipes were different, easy and economical additions to the menu.20
• Tinned Spaghetti
And then there was tinned spaghetti. For many Australians, tinned spaghetti is synonymous with Heinz, which has been in Australia for more than 100 years. According to the company's official history, the first Heinz products arrived in Australia from America in the 1880s to satisfy the tastes of American miners working the goldfields. 2 ' The H.J. Heinz
Co. Pty. Ltd. was officially incorporated in Australia in 1935, and its first Australian-made product was bottled horseradish, though the company immediately installed canning
18 Australian Women s Weekly, 20 January 1945, p. 14. 19 Australian Women s Weekly, 5 May 1945, p. 30. 20 Australian Women s Weekly, 1 July 1950, p. 55. 154
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equipment in its Richmond, Victoria plant. It was producing baked beans by the end of
1935, and tinned spaghetti and soups shortly thereafter. 22 It has been the tinned spaghetti market leader for decades.
21 H.J. Heinz Co. Pty. Ltd., History, http://w ,Av.heinz.con-LatChttni/about us/historv/hornc.av, 2005. 22 ibid. 155
But during the war years, Heinz, like Savoy Nutrifoods, ran into difficulties. It was unable to supply domestic consumers with tinned spaghetti and other products because of tinplate shortages, although it did provide the armed services with almost 12 million tins of spaghetti, Irish stew, soups and other items.23 Though the general population may have had some trouble finding spaghetti, Australian soldiers were eating it regularly.
So were their American counterparts. Americans had begun to adopt spaghetti and tomato sauce during the 1920s,24 but a $1.3 million advertising campaign undertaken by the macaroni manufacturers association in 1930 and 1931 drove home the point that spaghetti was nutritious and economical, too. For people living in a time of war and Depression, this was reason enough to adopt. That spaghetti was an inexpensive, convenient. tasty and
FdSr,, tht meat sauce in its 1942 cookbook despite the fact that Italy had fought on the enemy side.
Levenstein says its popularity and ease of preparation made it a standard in armed forced mess halls.25
Some observers claim that American troops in Australia were the ones responsible for influencing the adoption of tinned spaghetti, 26 although it was already being produced in
Australia before the start of the war. Certainly, Americans needing to mass produce rations for their Australia-based troops helped transform Australia's food industry,27 and many of the leading food companies advertising in the Women's Weekly were U.S.-based
23 ibid. 24 H. Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993, p. 29. 25 ibid., p. 122. 26 R. Marshall, War Peace: rationing and rebuilding — 1940s life in Cottesloe, Western Australia," John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, http:/john.curtin.edu.aull 940s/health\ , 2002. 27 M. Symons, p. 129. 156 multinational corporations like Kraft and Heinz. Their size gave them leverage during the war years that other companies simply did not have.
For example, both Savoy Nutrifoods and Heinz's spaghetti products were rationed during the war and shortly afterward. Unlike Heinz, Savoy did not have a wide range of other products to fall back on, and so found itself in a difficult position vis-a-vis its domestic consumers. Heinz had a far larger range of food products and used that to its advantage.
Recognising that spaghetti was an ideal war-time food, it did its best to promote other available Heinz products that complemented it, as in the ads shown previously for Heinz
"57" sauce and tomato sauce. Thus, Heinz successfully maintained a link in consumers' minds between it and spaghetti. because by mid-1950. when tinned spaghetti was again
could boas: abc)tr: rnark?..t
Follow the Favourite: Heinz delicious cooked Spaghetti: Women themselves have made Heinz delicious Cooked Spaghetti first favourite. They buy more of it than any other brand, as proved by independent surveys. It's an all-time winner... so tasty, so economical... so satisfying.28
Women A few months later, Heinz ran a full-page photo • %M OWN have nude Heinz 4A 0 Cooked Sp►glietti first favourite. They buy MOTS spread describing and illustrating the many ways its of it than any other brand, as proved bir tinned spaghetti could be incorporated into family independent frt. /t4 0-.44att iitt ner., so meals: 'straight from the tin, just heat and eat, 'with meat balls,' `with poached eggs,' `in sandwiches,'
`with sausages and apple rings:'
28 Australian Women's Weekly, 3 June 1950, p. 45. Underlining as in the advertisement. 157
Heinz Spaghetti, Plain or Fancy It's Wonderful! .... That's why Australian housewives buy more of it than any other brand... as proved by independent studies.... Heinz Delicious Cooked Spaghetti is so convenient, so economical that you'll want to use it often. Use it for the tastiest breakfasts, teas and lunches...and as a sandwich spread.29
Here again, spaghetti was billed as tasty, economical, versatile and convenient, with the
Heinz brand in particular being marketed as prestigious because it was the most popular.
While other companies could not claim to manufacture the preferred brand of tinned spaghetti, they, too seemed to have hit on winning formulas for advertising their products.
Rosella, an Australian company that had been making tinned spaghetti, jams and tomato- based products since the turn of the century, went straight for the convenience and versatility angle:
Rosella Cooked Spalii-iett ire Cheese with Tomato Sauce: A quick, eas\ meal. Roseik Spaghetti with tasty Cheese, cooked to perfection, and ready to serve for breakfast. lunch or dinner.30
• 21 change in advertising
In the early post-war years, food companies producing spaghetti in Australia repeatedly emphasised attributes of the product that are directly related to the successful adoption of an innovation: its low cost, convenience of use, benefits (in this case, nutritional) and the immediacy of the reward: namely, that it could be prepared quickly. Aside from Savoy
Nutrifoods, most companies did not yet emphasize its foreignness, which in a very short period of time would contribute to its prestige. But they did go for the familiarity route, striving to make a connection between spaghetti and existing values – Savoy made clear its
29 Australian Women's Weekly, 11 November 1950, p. 88. 30 Australian Women's Weekly, 14 June 1950, p. 48. 158 spaghetti and macaroni was produced in Australia's own sunny wheat fields, a smart move in a country that has always liked the idea of 'buying Australian.'
By the mid 1950s, however, Italian food had become increasingly popular and its foreignness was now a socially prestigious asset. Kraft ran a full-page ad in 1955 suggesting its Cheddar cheese be used to make Tasty Ravioli. "Add a Continental touch to your menu with this unusual yet simple-to-make dish," the ad said. The ad included recipes for the ravioli pastry, the cheese and parsley filling, and the meat sauce (which included a clove of garlic), accompanied by a huge photograph.31
Other advertisements began to specifically mention an Italian connection – often by the addition 01 a cri° witri niustach,:,:. Kraft, which. by riov makiriL a rangt- o: spaghetti dinners, completed the image by giving its chef an earring. 32 It further emphasised the point by incorporating the world 'Italian' in the names of its products:
`Kraft Spaghetti and Meat Balls – Italian-Style' and 'Kraft Italian Style Spaghetti dinner'.
Kia-ora figured that two foreign pedigrees were better than one and did its utmost to sell its products as both Italian and American. In a February 1966 advertisement, Kia-ora tried to convince consumers its tinned spaghetti was so Italian that Italians themselves would be eager to get their hands on some. The advertisement shows Kia-ora's 'Spaghetti and Meat
Sauce' and 'Spaghetti and Meat Balls' placed next to wooden crates marked 'Export.' The slogan? "So good we could export it to Italy!"33 Scarcely a month later, it claimed its
31 Australian Women s Weekly, 27 April 1955, p. 75. 32 Australian Women s Weekly, 15 March 1961, p. 76. 33 Australian Women s Weekly, 9 February 1966, p. 27. 159 spaghetti was actually made from an American recipe: "America's tastiest, sauciest, best- loved spaghetti... now made by Kia-ora!"34
Heinz did not suggest its products were so good they could be sent to Italy. Instead, in a
1961 ad it claimed its products actually came from there: "From the cafes of Rome to your table at home!" The full-page advertisement for Kraft Ravioli featured a drawing of a man with a moustache holding an Italian flag, with a man and woman sitting at a table eating the ravioli."
How to make continental salads you ll love French or Italian, ETA oniv ETA adds tile Atistr,ilian accent. ETAvou got r,otines,o, yuirRoy
ETA, a maker of salad dressings, got into the linguistic aspects of food adoption, claiming:
"Only ETA speaks French & Italian with an Australian accent" in an ad for French and
Italian salad dressings. 36 Other ETA advertisements echoed similar themes:
34 Australian Women s Weekly, 30 March 1966, p. 31. 35 Australian Women s Weekly, 12 April 1961, p. 56. 36 Australian Women s Weekly, 24 November 1971, p. 2. 160
By the late 1960s, more advertisements began appearing for dried pastas (as opposed to tinned) and other Italian-style foods, a reflection that more Australians were beginning to prepare these dishes at home. In fact, the word 'pasta' was now more widely used – perhaps
in part because of a 1966 Women 's Weekly feature entitled 'Pasta' that described various types of pasta and featured lasagna and a baked rigatoni dish. 37 In 1971, a Leggo's-Milano
advertising campaign featured ads for spaghetti bolognese, spaghetti marinara and spaghetti
and meatballs, all made with Leggo's brand
tomato paste and Milano spaghetti, and all
featuring recipes accompanied by how-to S the Classic taste in drawings. Because of its tomato pastes, tomato paste. Leggo's (now owned by U .S .-based
)lot claims playa: u par. ir
Australians to Cook. Italian."3'
The Italian theme was reinforced in advertisements for pizza-related products. In October
1971, nine years after the first immigrant-owned pizza place opened in Sydney,39 one year
after the first Pizza Hut arrived on Australian shores, and three months after the Women 's
Weekly ran a cooking feature entitled 'How to Make A REAL ITALIAN PIZZA,' Heinz
introduced a pizza spread in a two-page advertisement. The company offered two varieties
of sauce: a spicy one labeled 'Italian style' and a milder version labeled 'Australian style.'
Already the sauce was being re-invented, because in addition to being used for pizza, Heinz
recommended its use in sandwiches, on top of chops, and as a dip.4o
37 Australian Women s Weekly, 20 April 1966, p. 52. 38 Leggo s, Teaching Australians to Cook Italian, Simplot Australia Pty. Ltd., http://www.simplot.com.au/tiostineicotv SimSite.nsf/0/9FA4F I A F4211E57CFCA256F271100D2D 112005, 2005. 39 S. Meacham, Tracking down a piece of history, in Good Living, The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 July 2002. p. 14. 40 Australian Women s Weekly, 13 October 1971, p. 52 161
Through its advertising campaigns, the food industry was able to reinforce the characteristics of various Italian foods that made them so appealing to consumers: their economy, versatility, taste, nutritional value, convenience, familiarity and also their
Italianness,' which added to their prestige. This industry-sponsored mass media channel of communication complemented interpersonal channels (knowledge obtained one-on-one via friends, family, and shopkeepers), cosmopolite channels (immigration) and localite channels (shops displaying new foods). Advertising was instrumental in adding to consumers' awareness knowledge (the knowledge that an innovation exists) and how-to knowledge (the knowledge of how to use the innovation). "When an adequate level of how- to knowledge is not obtained prior to the trial and adoption of an innovation. rejection and
discontinuanct
Incentives
Another way to influence an adoption decision is through the use of incentives, which are
"direct or indirect payments of cash or in kind that encourage some overt behavioral change
that often entails the adoption of an innovation." 42 In other words, incentives frequently
persuade people who might otherwise not have adopted an innovation to do so.
Because innovators and early adopters often have higher socio-economic status than later
adopters, the use of incentives can help equalize the diffusion process. 43 An innovator may
buy a new product purely for its novelty despite its price, but many other people would
rather wait for a sale or some other type of incentive to buy. Obviously, this is an important
consideration when the innovation is a relatively expensive one, such as a computer or
41 E. Rogers, p. 166. 42 ibid., p. 219. 43 ibid., p. 221. 162 another technological item, or when it involves significant shifts in cultural norms, such as family planning in developing countries.
With food, there are cultural shifts involved in adopting foods that are significantly different from those eaten in one's childhood, for instance when someone becomes a vegetarian in a family of meat-eaters, or when an Italian decided he prefers Pad Thai to his mother's pasta e fagioli. But generally, the financial risks involved in adopting new foods are already fairly low, so further incentives make adopting new foods even more appealing.
Frequently used food-related incentives include discounted prices and coupons. And prize- winning competitions not only generate sales, but frequently generate re-invented recipes that provide yet more hove-to knowled ge tc ever-expandinl: consumer bast_
An examination of the Women's Weekly during just one year, 1961, shows that there were
16 advertisements for food product competitions alone, apart from the many other company-sponsored competitions for beauty products or household goods. Hardly a month went by without prizes being offered to consumers to buy certain products and fill out entry forms, or to come up with winning recipes containing those products. An anonymous
£1200 `Women's Weekly Cornflour Recipe Competition' advertisement ran seven times from February to April and prominently featured the ultimate prize: £400 and a trip to
Tahiti for the best recipe.44 In April, Nescafe took up where the cornflour competition had left off, and ran an advertisement for its 'Nescafe Giant Count the Beans Contest!: complete with 1,043 prizes and a 43-day trip for two on Pan Am airlines. 45 It listed the winners in July, and then published a coupon in September for half-off a coffee carafe. In
44 See Australian Women s Weekly, 8 February 1961, p. 38. 45 Australian Women s Weekly, 12 April 1961, p. 38. 163
May, Milo claimed that "Everyone Wins a Prize In This Great Milo Spot-the-ball
Competition,"46 and the Women 's Weekly launched another anonymous competition, this time for Dairy Food Recipes, with cash prizes totaling £3005. It listed the winners in
August.47 September was a busy month, with two more anonymous contests for recipes made with canned fruit and butter, respectively, as well as the launch of Heinz's "Look
What You Can Win – Heinz Spaghetti 'Dream Kitchen' Competition" featuring numerous household appliances to be won by consumers who purchased any one of four varieties of
Heinz tinned spaghetti." Heinz ran four ads for the competition in September and October.
• Golden Circle
Perhaps Nestle. Heinz and other companies were so keen on competitions because of the great success of Golden Circe. Australia' s leading pineapple producer. had had three years previously with its own recipe competition. The Golden Circle factory, established in
Brisbane in 1947 by pineapple growers eager to meet demand for the product by American personnel in Australia, exported most of its product to Britain until its contracts expired in 1953-54.49 The company then found itself with a lot of pineapple in a country that until then was not accustomed to eating much of it. According to Symons, Golden Circle decided to expand the domestic market by embarking upon a multi-faceted marketing strategy. One tactic was to hold a series of regular promotions in conjunction with chain supermarkets during the peak processing periods of June-July and October-November to distribute new recipes for pineapple.
46 Australian Women s Weekly, 31 May 1961, p. 40. 47 Australian Women s Weekly, 2 August 1961, p. 4. 48 See Australian Women s Weekly, 27 September 1961, p. 41. 49 M. Symons, p. 189. 164
Another was to increase sales by persuading consumers pineapple could be used in ways
other than as a simple 'sweet.'
Care must be taken to ensure that the consumer was not put to great trouble, or obliged to strain her budget.... We must avoid exotic dishes requiring expensive ingredients... It meant creating versions of familiar, everyday dishes that included pineapple and could be presented in the most attractive way, pictorially.50
To that end, Golden Circle anonymously backed a cookery
contest in the pages of the Women's Weekly in 1958. It was a
successful campaign. Tens of thousands of recipes were
submitted in several categories and the £500 winning recipe.
"Pineappi.' Gourmet Dessert," IATas published ir colour. Soon,
women's magazines be gan to regularly feature recipes with
pineapple, independent of Golden Circle, and readers began
submittin g unsolicited pineapple recipes.5'
Some of the women interviewed for this thesis also cooked with pineapple in those early
days and their recipes show that Golden Circle had certainly achieved its goal of persuading
consumers that pineapple was not just a sweet. Kathleen used to make a Hawaiian chicken
dish with pineapple that her grown son still recalls with great fondness. Sarah combined
two tinned favourites in the same dish: tinned spaghetti with pineapple and sausage. Eileen
remembers one particularly exotic dish she tasted.
I had an auntie who had a shop and she always used to go to Sydney to visit buyers and they'd take her out to exotic restaurants and I remember the very first exotic thing she
50 ibid., quoted on p. 191. 51 ibid., pp. 191-192. 165
brought home, and it must have been the 60's, the recipe, and it was slaw, cole slaw and it was done with onion and pineapple and a lemony vinaigrette dressing and I can remember that very, very clearly as highly exotic. She came back all excited. – Eileen (1937, Cessnock, NSW)
Australia had become a pineapple-eating nation. As Symons would be quick to point out, this happened because a food company wanted to increase the sales of its product. It also helped that the product met many of the criteria for successful adoption: it was inexpensive and versatile and though it was a new food, it could be used in familiar ways. "The tremendous success was founded partly on the fruit's magic appeal to Anglo-Saxons – slightly exotic and yet safe with all manner of dishes." 52 That Australians came to appreciate pineapple's many positive qualities was due largely to Golden Circle.
Localite channels of communication supermarkets
Like pineapple, pasta was also slightly exotic yet safe with all manner of dishes, and like
Golden Circle, producers of Italian-style foods acted as change agents. They influenced adoption via the mass-media advertising of tinned spaghetti, dry spaghetti and other complementary products (cheese, tomato paste, sauce, etc), as well as other Italian-style foods such as salad dressings and pizza mixes – and by supplying those products and offering incentives to buy them. But food manufacturers could not have achieved such success without the help of what was itself an innovation in the 1950s: the supermarket.
In post-war Australia, supermarkets were innovations themselves, not only providing consumers with new ways of buying new foods, but also transforming the retail and geographic landscape in the process. Their success was predicated on two factors: the
52 ibid., p. 188. 166 refrigerator and the car. The former allowed for weekly, rather than daily shopping, and the
latter allowed consumers to drive to the huge new supermarkets that were cropping up in the suburban areas of all major cities and cart home a week's worth of groceries. By 1955,
73 percent of Australian homes had refrigerators 53and by 1968, car ownership had soared to one car per every 2.8 people), 54 or more than one per family.
Coles and Woolworths went into food retailing in 1958, buying up numerous grocery
chains at every opportunity. In 1960 they each opened large, free-standing supermarkets.
Coles's were known as 'New Worlds' and were based on American supermarkets.
Coles supermarkets generally had upwards of 12,000 square feet of selling space. as
many as 14 checkouts,... extensive refrigerated displays and added features such as
'magic carpet - automatic doors. oafeL and play corners for oniiorer
In 1968, Coles opened its 100th New World store in Tooronga, Victoria; Woolworths had
already reached the 200-store mark a year earlier. At that point, the two chains controlled
half of the national grocery market. Their policy of building massive stores in prime
locations and offering cut-throat incentives led them to completely dominate grocery sales
by the late 1960s.56
By stocking their shelves with new foods and by advertising in local newspapers, the stores
acted as localite channels of communication. Consumers could see the foods, examine
them and begin to make decisions about purchasing them based on the awareness
knowledge they were gleaning. It helped tremendously when food manufacturers also
53 ibid., p. 178. 54 K. Humphrey, Shelf Life: Supermarkets and the Changing Cultures of Consumption. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, p. 107. 55 ibid., p. 112. 56 Symons. op. cit.. p. 183. 167 printed recipes on the packaging of their products. That provided the consumer with essential how-to knowledge.
Spaghetti I did for my children. Oh, they loved it. [I made it] with mince and...as the packet told me to! Packets are useful. Boiled the spaghetti up, made the mince with all sorts of spices that I had discovered like oregano. – Alice (1931, Adelaide)
Kathleen's tried and true recipe for spaghetti bolognaise came from a packet, too. She frequently sees things in stores and buys them so she can experiment with them; in this respect, she is very much like her father, who used to do the same thing. In fact, she thinks that's how she started eating a simpler version of spaghetti as a child.
Probably Dad would have tried it. found the packet on the grocery shelf. and he would
have brought it borne. – (19311. Tarnworth. NSW)
Through their cut-price 'specials' and loss leaders' (items priced below cost to lure customers), the stores acted as change agents. In both respects, the grocery retailers were furthering not only their own interests, but those of the food manufacturing industry. It was a symbiotic relationship.
But how did spaghetti fare in this supermarket environment? Michael Symons maintains that the supermarkets' interest in products with a long shelf-life led to processed and packaged food of the tinned, dried and frozen variety. 57 As unappetizing as that may sound, it actually boded well for spaghetti dishes, and meant that spaghetti was an ideal food not only for consumers, but for supermarkets. Tomato sauces and pastes were bottled or tinned, spaghetti was packaged, and cheese was readily available in the refrigerated display section
37 ibid., p. 184. 168 of any supermarket. In fact, the ingredients for spaghetti could easily be stored for long periods at home, too, making it a pantry staple.
I guess [spaghetti's] always been in the shops. I don't know, it's just one of those things you grow up with and you just always have it on the shelf. – Su san (1931, rural Armidale, NSW)
Today, most families have at least some form of dry pasta stashed away in the cupboards, often as the result of a sale even though it is not an expensive food to begin with. Others may also stock various sauces, or at least some tinned tomatoes. Pasta is an easy, versatile and inexpensive food, and a supermarket favourite. Through advertising, incentives and promotions, supermarkets and the food manufacturin g, industry have brought pasta to the masses.
Immigrant industry
But multinational companies and chain stores were not the only players in the post-war food manufacturing or grocery retailing industries, nor were they the first to pique consumers' interest in ethnic foods. Immigrant-owned shops and businesses can claim that honour. Through delis, shops, and factories, they not only made new foods more visible, as discussed in Chapter 5, but also offered those foods to adventurous Australians well before the rise of the mega supermarket. By reaching out to Anglo-Celtic consumers and persuading them to try new foods, immigrant-owned food businesses acted as the first change agents. The Paesanaella Cheese Company, founded by Umberto Somma, was one of them. 169
• The Paesanella story
Umberto Somma arrived in Australia from a village near Naples in 1956 with a few coins in his pocket and a 90-litre copper pan. The pan was for making fresh cheese in his new country.
After working a series of other jobs, Somma managed to save up enough money to buy milk and rent a shed next to the Hawkesbury River near Windsor in New South Wales. He started making mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, shaping them by hand and floating them in fresh water in milk cans, which he then took to Sydney's Surry Hills to sell to fellow immigrants.
Before toc, long. the Department of Agriculture found i in o and or,osed down hi operation, saying the conditions under which Somma worked were too primitive: he had to have proper premises and be registered as a cheesemaker.
In 1962, he was finally able to buy a small factory in Marrickville, New South Wales, where he officially began trading as Paesanella Cheese Manufacturers. In addition to his ricotta and mozzarella, he began producing other fresh cheeses like mascarpone, bocconcini, stracchino and malca, and began supplying numerous delicatessens and restaurants in Sydney. Though Somma died in 1988, his two sons have continued the family business. They say their father pioneered Australian culinary tastes and indirectly brokered acceptance of the Italian community in Australia.58
Immigrant-owned businesses like Paesanella often started out by offering their wares to their compatriots, but as soon as they persuaded Anglo-Australians to try a bit of their
58 Paesanella Cheese Manufacturer, `Paesanella Cheese History.' hu. v,micsanell?:.coni ttihistor‘:.hun, 2005. 170 cheese, a forkful of their calamari or a sip of their wine, they became change agents in addition to being channels of communication.
Peg, for example, shared a group house in Sydney in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a diverse bunch of people, many of whom were quite passionate about cooking, eating and finding the best sources for interesting foods. Often, those sources were immigrant-owned.
It wasn't until I went to Sydney to live and work that I was with this group, well they were all musos etcetera, and they'd take their wine flagons down to the markets, Sydney markets, every Saturday morning to get filled up at Luigi whatever's because he had the big cask and you'd just go and get white and red, put it in the car or whatever and do your other shopping. And that's what would last everyone for the week. — Peg (1944. Ipswich. OLD)
If these delis, shops and market stalls represented phase one in the suppi .) chain of new foods, supermarkets were phase two, reaching a far broader audience, especially in rural areas that had not had significant exposure before. Kathleen lived in a country town and had two options: she could wait for her husband's infrequent trips to Sydney, where he would buy new foods at specialty shops, or wait for the local supermarket to provide the
foods she was longing to taste.
We didn't have access, see. A delicatessen opened] in Armidale in the supermarket, well, put it at 1972, put it at that. You could go and get a nice slice of salami and nice cheeses, and I can see the delicatessen now, where it was, in Coles, which is Coles now but that was Richardson's. So they opened up this lively deli and you had access to all these lovely blue-veined cheeses. – Kathleen (1932, Tamworth, NSW) 171
• Changing the landscape and influencing production
But even with the arrival of Coles and Woolworths, immigrant-owned shops did not go
away. Delis, for example, have become part of the shopping landscape, still supplying
items not usually found on every supermarket's shelves. Instead of becoming assimilated
into Australia's shopping culture, they have helped to transform it, not only by supplying
new foods to a wider population and making them more visible, but by providing
awareness knowledge to other food manufacturers.
In the post-war years, as large companies recognized the cross-over potential of the
growing immigrant market, they responded to it in one of two ways. The first was that they
themselves be gan making some of the foods ori ginally produced by immi grants and adding
them to their already existin g lines. Meats that were previously just boned and packaged
were now made into salamis, pates and wursts. 59 Flour was now used for pasta and
incorporated into pizza crust mixes. By tweaking a few ingredients, tomato sauce
manufacturers could easily start making spaghetti sauces and tasty cheese manufacturers
could come up with parmesan cheese.
The second way was the easy route. The large, frequently multi-national food
manufacturers simply bought out existing immigrant-owned businesses, such as Nanda
Pasta, which was mentioned above. Established by an Italian immigrant in 1948, it
ultimately ended up being acquired by Nestle in 1992, Green's in 1999 and then acquired
and divested by the Manildra Group in 2002, 60 seemingly to vanish into the stratosphere.
Although San Remo pasta, a familiar grocery-store brand established in 1936 by Luigi
59 S. Sargent, The Foodmakers, Penguin Books, Ringwood, Victoria, 1985, p. 110. 60 Green s Foods Limited. Annual Report 2002, http://www.2reens.com.auldir016/2reens ublishins.nsf/Attachments, Title.2002AnnualReport L TCire p ensAnunalRepori.2002.pcif (2005). 172
Crotti, met with great success and is now exporting all over the world, 61 another pasta company, Vetta pasta, met a fate similar to that of Nanda. It was passed around by Allied
Mills, which merged with Goodman Fielder, which sold the brand to Greens, which then sold it to the Manildra Group in 2002. 62 San Remo is now the only remaining major
Australian pasta manufacturer still in family hands – Italian or otherwise.
Humphrey McQueen said that the migration of capital has been more influential than the migration of consumers or shopkeepers. That may be true, because those companies were able to act as change agents via the use of very effective mass media channels of communication and because they could supply a wide range of products. But what
McQueen fails to acknowled ge is the influence of immigrant businesses on the larger food manufacturers and retailers in Austraii — causim: creation of products like Heinz s pizza spread, for example — and the success of immigrant-owned companies like San Remo that have become market forces in their own right. Attributing changing tastes in Australia
solely to immigration or to industry fails to take into account the fact that consumers gain knowledge about new products from many sources, and that both immigration and industry
helped to provide that knowledge and those products in the post-war era.
61 San Remo Pasta Company, History of San Remo, httz! ww.san-remo.com.aurnistory( 1 no.asp. 2005. 62 Green s Foods Limited, op. cit. 173
Chapter 7
The Power of the Media: The Australian Women s Weekly
Immigration and industry were not the only ways in which Australian consumers gained awareness and how-to knowledge about new foods. Indeed, many women in the post-war years received their information from mass media channels such as the radio, newspapers, women's magazines and later, television. But one mass media channel in particular stood out as having tremendous influence on domestic cooking in the 1950s and 1960s: the
Women's Weekly. While Chapter 6 examined how the food manufacturing industry acted as a change agent via the use of the Women's Weekly as a mass media channel of communication. this chapter will examine how the V:nnel:‘‘ ff:eekiv did so in its own right via its cookery columns and cook books.
Readership base
In 1959. the Women's Weekly commissioned a survey, conducted by the McNair Survey
Pty. Ltd., on women's magazine readership. 1 The survey concluded that the Women's
Weekly reached 71 percent of women 16 and over in the metropolitan Sydney area. While
McNair could not extrapolate the data to all of Australia, it did note that other surveys conducted at the same time, such as the Anderson Readership Survey, had pinpointed the combined national male and female readership of the Women's Weekly at 41 percent. 2 It was by far the most widely read women's magazine in Australia 3 and men enjoyed it, too, for its news stories and comic strips.
I The Australian Women s Weekly McNair Surveys Pty. Ltd. Circa 1960, A Study of Women s Maga:ine Audiences: The Australian Women s Weekly and Woman s Day, Volume Two. AWW. Sydney. 2 ibid., p. 13. 3 S. Sheridan, Eating the Other: food and cultural difference in the Australian Women s Weekly in the 1960s, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Dec. 2000 vol. 21 no. 3, p. 319. 174
The McNair survey classified Women's Weekly readers by type of home: Class A represented the 'relatively small percentage of definitely upper class or prosperous families,' Class B represented the upper middle class, 'that is, the homes of professional men, senior public servants and many businessmen in positions of authority,' Class C represented 'that large section of homes which are comfortable but not luxurious and includes the homes of most clerks, tradesmen, skilled workers, foremen, etc.' Class D covered 'what are sometimes called working class homes,' and Class E consisted of 'poor- quality, sub-standard or 'slum' houses.' 4
The size of the cumulative Sydney-based audience reached by the Women 's Weeki • ranged from 76 percent ir, the. B and C homes • .(3 6 per ,en. 72: n.ornes• arici percen: in E homes. 5 The survey defined cumulative as 'different persons reached by one or more subsequent issues.' So although not every woman 16 and older had read every issue of the
Women's Weekly, three-fourths of middle- to upper-class Sydney women and two-thirds of those at the bottom of the city's socio-economic scale were familiar with the magazine, as were four of every ten Australians nationwide, males included. That amounts to a hefty readership base consisting of all segments of Australian society. Though the survey did not examine reader's cultural or ethnic backgrounds, Susan Sheridan – the author of a book on the Women's Weekly – believes the appearance of European-style foods in the magazine in the mid- to late-1950s was an acknowledgement that the magazine had European-
Australian readers, some of whom had already started writing letters to the magazine.6
4 The Australian Women s Weekly McNair Surveys Pty. Ltd., op. cit. p. 79. 5 ibid., p. 28. 6 S. Sheridan. p. 323. 175
Certainly, most of the Anglo-Celtic women interviewed for this thesis grew up with the
Women's Weekly:
I think everybody read the Women's Weekly, truly, I do. It was an icon. Got it every week. In fact, I can remember when they reduced it to the smaller size, I hated that. When they started putting it out monthly, I also thought well, that's something, you know, that's gone. Old and young read the Women's Weekly. – Audrey (1935, Sydney)
It cut across all classes and quite a few people who would think of themselves as sort of fairly thoughtful and sophisticated women would read it. – Vivian (1930, Melbourne)
[Mum] always had the Women's Weekly. Everyone had the Women's Weekly in those days. – Nancy (1941, rural Goondiwindi. QLD)
The Women's Weekly in the 1950s ar d 1960s
Before examining the effect of the magazine's cookery columns on changing food habits in the post-war years, it would be useful to examine the nature of magazine itself. What was it that made it so popular? As we shall see, the Women 's Weekly strived to be all things to all people, and frequently contradicted itself in the process. This was true of its recipes. too.
At a glance, the magazine offered a wide selection of fiction, news, society columns, celebrity features, royalty updates, fashion tips and trends, movie reviews, homemaking and child rearing advice, decorating and gardening ideas, and, of course, cookery columns.
With all these features, it was guaranteed to appeal to a wide range of readers of all ages and income levels, though its main target readership in the 1950s and 1960s was a white, middle-class audience made up of stay-at-home mothers. 176
Because the magazine's features and its advertising content largely reflected mainstream socio-cultural norms, the Women's Weekly serves as a treasure trove of information on a vast range of subjects, though it offers especially useful insight into the expectations placed upon women, who became the nation's core consumer group in the post-war years. ? In the
1950s, for example, women who read the Women's Weekly were bombarded with information about new refrigerators, gas cookery, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, soaps, lotions, permanent waves and the latest fashions, not to mention new foods. The pressure was on to adopt new technologies and consumer goods, maintain a spotless house, raise wonderful children, create special dishes, and to look good while doing it all. A woman's life was in the home.
This wa: the message presentee to readers advertisers. and the magazine itser. case readers somehow missed it. the magazine was not above hammering it home. most pointedly in a 1955 contest in which the magazine selected thirty-two 'ideal' qualities in a wife and mother over a number of weeks, after which readers were supposed to choose the top twelve. 8 Some of the magazine's nominations: skill in cooking, competence in housework, cleanliness in the home, personal attractiveness, ability as a hostess, and femininity. Tolerance, patience and a sense of humour were also mentioned, qualities many homemakers in the 1950s and 1960s would undoubtedly have needed just to be able to keep up with all the expectations, let alone meet them.
And if it all became too much for the average woman, the solution was also available in the pages of the Women's Weekly. Helpful tonics such as Horlicks (see image), Fematone,
Sanatogen, Bidomak and Aspro were regularly advertised as the antidote for `today's
' S. Sheridan, Who Was That Woman?: The Australian Women s Weekly in the Postwar Years, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2002, p. 5. 8 Australian Women s Weekly, 16 March 1955, p. 15. 177 strain' and crankiness. One Aspro advertisement depicted a frazzled homemaker with children clinging to her legs, a laundry basket in one hand and a sloshing pail of water in the other. The advertisement said "Take Aspro and take it easy.... Aspro —• so kind to the nerves."9 Bidomak claimed it was "how nervy, run-down women can quickly regain health,
strength and vitality."10
Clearly, even advertisers
realized that women in the
1950s and 1960s shouldered a I was beginning to believe she enjoyed them! heavy burden and that the
contradictory pressures placed
11r) then-. oriamourcu.. ye ,"
domestic and savvy yet
deferential came at a price.
Many women were willing to
pay that price, but by the end of
the 1960s some had begun to
chafe.
I don't like that sort of female type of crap. I never did, nor did my family.... [The Women's Weekly] was always very much keeping women in their place, you know, the sort of knitting pattern sort of stuff. No, and gossip. That never attracted me. — Jean (1944, Adelaide)
9 Australian Women's Weekly, 12 January 1955, p. 39. 10 Australian Women's Weekly, 19 August 1950, p. 23. 178
However, this focus on homemaking and trivia – though dominant – did not reflect the magazine's sole representation of women or of society. There were cracks in the Women's
Weekly's façade that showed that the magazine was trying to keep up with changing times even though it was simultaneously hanging on to the old ones.
Take the case of one of the magazine's leading columnists, Dorothy Drain. Ms. Drain traveled the world and was not afraid to speak her mind. She went to Japan in 1946 to report on Australian nurses stationed there, but soon began writing about Japanese culture, politics and reconstruction efforts. Regarding the Japanese assuming apparently submissive roles toward the Australians, she wrote: "I can't help wondering if the Japanese ... with characteristic Oriental patience are willing to wait till everyone gets tired and goes home,
end is is business a:r: LISUEi.._ Maybe the Japanest- are smartsmarte than V.'f: thini:. -11
1950 was a busy year for Ms. Drain. She wrote a column opposing efforts to make it illegal for immigrants to speak anything other than English in Australia. 12 In Malaya, she wrote of her experience with a Chinese teller who viewed Australia's immigration policy as racist.'3
In September she went to cover the Korean War, where she commented on the U.S Air
Force's use of 'Negro' manpower, which she observed was working out very well and with no discrimination.14
Here was a working woman who frequently traveled to war zones, and who commented on societal, cultural and economic issues that may have made other people uncomfortable.
While the magazine was ostensibly espousing one rose-coloured philosophy of womanhood
11 Quoted in S. Sheridan, Who Was That Woman, p. 12. 12 Australian Women s Weekly, 12 August 1950, p. 23. 13 Australian Women s Weekly, 9 September 1950, p. 13. 14 Australian Women s Weekly, 30 September 1950, p. 25. 179 on its pages, it was clearly supporting another, too, as can be seen via Ms. Drain's long- running columns and via the many pages the Women's Weekly devoted over the years to exemplary female pioneers and modern-day women of achievement. It was a valiant attempt to walk both sides of the line, but it frequently fell short.
Occasionally, the Women's Weekly's editorial section followed Ms. Drain's lead and took a definitive stand on socio-cultural issues. In 1950, in an editorial entitled 'Glamor or
Lunch?: the magazine protested that though women's wages had risen to 75 percent of men's, "the supposition that a woman can live on less than a man rankles.... Does everyone still cling to the Victorian supposition that every woman is maintained, or partly maintained, by papa or husband, and if she isn't she should be?" 15 The editorial said that because oFthis discrepancy in wages. women were beinE, forced to give ur buying lunch so that the) could afford to buy the panty hose necessary for the working world. in 1955. the ma2azine"s editorial section urged readers to reach out to immigrants after Dutch authorities expressed concern about lonely Dutch immigrants in the country:
For migrants, unfamiliar with the language and customs of the country, the emptiness is even worse.... It's the responsibility of all Australians to remove this feeling of neglect by holding out a welcoming hand to migrants. This doesn't mean marrying off your daughter to the first sad-eyed Dutchman you see on a motor-bike, but it does
mean some personal effort. 16
In the first editorial, the Women's Weekly is tacitly acknowledging that women are entering the workforce and that they deserve equal pay. In 1950, this is quite an acknowledgement.
The second editorial is noteworthy for its message of tolerance at a time when mainstream
Australia and the many immigrants arriving on its shores were still trying to work out an
15 Australian Women's Weekly, 28 October 1950, p. 18. 16 Australian Women's Weekly, 9 March 1955, p. 2. 180 acceptable modus vivendi. Granted, the editorial refers to the Dutch, who were not as likely as some other immigrant groups to test Australian limits of tolerance, but the message was
still clear. What is fascinating about these editorials and Ms. Drain's columns is that for the most part, the remaining seventy-odd pages of the magazine were still trying to uphold the
status quo. Often, any insightful social commentary was accompanied by a business-as-
usual article about women's role in the home.
In the same issue in which Dorothy Drain's forthright observations on Australia's
discriminatory immigration policy appeared, for example, there was an article entitled
`Beauty in the early morning:' "The average family probably takes a dim view of heavy
make-up during the early hours, but to cheer a jaundiced eye there is nothing to beat a touch
of color at breakfast. a neat head, and a tidy fi g_ure " 17 The key. the article said. is for
women to "preside graciously over the breakfast cups.
It is apparent the Women's Weekly was a magazine in some conflict. In order to maintain a
high level of readership, it had to appeal to all segments of the population. and therefore
had to have its fingers in more than one pot. The largest pot represented a white middle-
class homemaking way of life, which the magazine felt compelled to cater to and reinforce,
even as that way of life was beginning to shift. But the Women's Weekly felt obliged to
address other realities, too, such as the impact of immigration on Australian society, and
women entering the workforce, though it did not truly do so until those realities had
become glaringly obvious. It mentioned women in the workforce in 1950, but did not
devote any significant space to the topic, or seriously address the needs of working women,
until the 1960s. It talked about immigrants and discriminatory immigration policy in the
1 7 Australian Women's Weekly, 9 September 1950, p. 59. 181
1950s, but did not publish features focusing on specific immigrants and their achievements until the 1970s.
The Women's Weekly's method of reacting to societal change rather than anticipating it meant that by the late 1960s and early 1970s, many women thought the magazine was falling behind the times. But even as some women were beginning to reject the Women's
Weekly's definition of womanhood and its focus on celebrity and royalty, they and many others continued to use its recipes. And when the Women's Weekly cook books arrived on the market circa 1970, women bought them in droves. In the area of food at least, the
Women's Weekly remained highly influential, as it already had been for a number of
decades and as it would continue to be for decades more. Today, almost every newsagent
has a wioe ran:2,e of prominenth displayed Women's VT:eek. y cooli booL some vvrtio
have achieved classic status.
In the '70s people started to really denigrate the Women's Weekly, and if you read the Women's Weekly, it was `Oh, you read the Women's Weekly? Oh, how dreadful', you know. It was always full of the Queen and full of Princess Anne and all that. Up until the 70s I would have read it, and then of course they started to put out all those Women's Weekly cook books which were the first of the cook books, the first really major cook books, I think, that were accessible cook books.... I got all of them. — Eileen (1937, Cessnock, NSW)
The Women s Weekly s winning culinary formula
Susan Sheridan (2000) said that while advertising by the food industry played a significant role in altering Australian food habits, so, too, did the cookery sections of women's
magazines and their food editors. According to Sheridan, the cookery editor's role was to
"introduce new food ideas while at the same time keeping up the supply of recipes for 182 familiar/family food." 18 In order to find sources of inspiration, the editor frequently traveled the world to find new recipes because "adventurous food was now all the rage."19
However, 'adventurous foods' did not begin to make a significant appearance in the pages of the Women's Weekly until the late 1950s.
That coincided not only with the arrival of tremendous numbers of European immigrants
and their foods, increased travel abroad, the expansion of the food manufacturing and
retailing industries, and the development of kitchen technologies, but also with the arrival
of the Women's Weekly's new cookery editor, Leila C. Howard, who held court at the
magazine from 1955 until roughly 1970. The first mention of Ms. Howard appeared in the
March 30, 1955 issue, and she started her tenure with an elegant yet simple family dish
'with a slighti\ Continental flavor' 2": Braised Lamb Breasts. wilier! eali:ec, for breas7 of
lamb, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper. tomato puree. thyme, red wine, onions, and carrots. The
idea of a stewed lamb dish with onions and carrots was certainly not new, but the addition
of garlic, olive oil and wine certainly was.
The theme of new yet familiar foods was to become a hallmark of magazines like the
Women's Weekly:
The women's magazines had found their own winning formula for reaching the masses. Offer them possibilities for food that is exciting-but-safe, different-but-easy; do it with recipes that are easy to follow; put in lots of illustrations to prove it; and finally, show them how good the finished product will be – in large, gloriously sensuous colour pictures.2I
18 S. Sheridan, Eating the Other, p. 321. 19 Margaret Fulton, quoted in ibid., p. 321. 20 Note the Americanised spelling. 21 C. Bannerman, Acquired Tastes: Celebrating Australia s Culinary History, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1998, p. 79. 183
If that was the formula for persuading the masses to adopt new foods, then Italian food was
ideally suited to fit the equation because of its chameleon-like qualities. And Debbie, the
Women's Weekly's teenage chef, was happy to show readers of all ages just how to prepare it. In a July 31, 1957 column, she made Spaghetti Bolognaise in a casserole form.
Accompanied by four step-by-step photos, it is billed as Debbie's `favorite winter casserole,' perfect for 'record evenings or after an early movie.' It features one whole clove of garlic, which Debbie sautees with chopped onion before adding minced steak, chopped tomatoes, water or stock, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, herbs, and cooked spaghetti.
After the mixture is well-combined and put into a casserole dish, Debbie sprinkles it with
grated cheese, dots it with butter and bakes it in a moderate oven.22
Eileen. an interviewee from Cessnock NSW. cut out that reci pe for Spa2heti ; Bolognaise
when she was 20 years old, pasted it into her scrap book, and has been making 'ethnic'
foods ever since. She attributes that to her own desire to make foods that are different and
to the Women's Weekly for suggesting things to cook when she was younger, such as the
cannelloni she still makes today:
It would be from a recipe in the Women's Weekly. I'd see these sort of recipes and I'd want to cook them. But always something exotic, nothing ordinary.... I'd use the recipes out of what Debbie in the Women's Weekly would have to say. Oh yes, very strong influence, the Women Weekly. – Eileen (1937, Cessnock, NSW)
Eileen was not alone. Many of the other women interviewed for this thesis were also avid
recipe collectors, and the Women's Weekly was frequently their source of choice because
the recipes were often 'different' yet relatively uncomplicated.
22 Australian Women's Weekly, 31 July 197.
184
1.4er:owe makes Spaghetti Bolognaise
• This week Debbie, our teenage chef, shows how to make her favorite winter casserole, Spaghetti Bolog-Liaise. EBB1L serves this She heated (It oil in a Lag, trying-pan 4a saucepan (,T1 D easily prepared savory ADD finely chopped onion and crueired garlic to the trying be used instead and ,naked dish to her friends at pan, in which the oil has Gees heated. Fey, stirring eon the crushed garlic and chopped scantly, until the contents ore Light golden-broeon in tot., record evenings or when onion until lightly browned. she brings home the crowd Surplus oil was then drained after ail early movie. She off the pan, the steak added, makes is-well beforehand and browned wet: with fre- quent stirring. Debbie then so it requires only reheat- added the washed, chopped ing in a moderate oven for tomatoes, water;strait can be '25 to 30 minutes before used instead;, and various serving. Sufficient for flavorings and seasonings. eight to ten persons. She covered the pan and k: it simmer until the meat was Debbie, using inve; spoon tender, then tolded in measurements, first assembled spaghetti (cooed in boiling the toliowing ingredients: salted waits and drained_ One tablespoon vegetable or into an O.:1,- Ile.14DUi oil, I clove garlic. w,, dish. sir onion:, 211i. minced strait, 116. tomatior.s• : run Water or wttn
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Woo?", . - .....- . .. POUR the cooked, drained spaghetti into nosat-and-tonsato SPRINKLE ;;rated chew., topping ever ipagtiriii and mgr, mixture.. Ito not are:rook spaghetti. lieearise it will fn.)/ and places in modrro, or,. biota (-hero, heroin, brave or perhaps breaf, rap during final creirking or ,hewing. and buirld,, I fie, G 5 .J..11. ta t , rli eeie. I., II, f • r 1 ,,,, 0,
The Women s Weekly always used to have recipes and things and you d go, Oh, gee, that sounds really nice, and you might cut that out. — Nora (1944 Melbourne)
Women s Weekly [recipes] were always `cookable, that s something I ve found over the years. Quite a number of times I ve tried a recipe with loads of ingredients and they end up tasting like nothing in particular. I much prefer just five or six ingredients, and I get better results from that. — Carol (1931 Taree, NSW) 185
American, European and Asian influences on the Women s Weekly: a historical perspective
Leila C. Howard presided over three trends in the magazine's cookery columns. Sheridan describes them as Americanisation Ca combination of post-war nostalgia and the desire for models of modernity') that was soon displaced by Europeanisation (`the vogue for all things `Continental'), and finally, Asianisation, which built on the Europeanising trends before it but never displaced them.23
This fits into the premise of this thesis. The American influence caused more of a technological change in eating habits rather than a cultural one because it helped to
'modernise' the food manufacturing and retailing industries. It was more a matter of adopting the technology rather than adopting the foods. especially since man yof the
`American' foods that Australians began to eat in the post-war years were not uniquely
American in nature. Chicken and corn are two examples. Today, chicken is widely available and is used in innumerable ways, but in the early 1950s, a roast chicken was still considered by many to be a food reserved only for very special occasions. And though
sweet corn was not one of Australia's ubiquitous 'three veg,' it was not an unknown food, either. Nonetheless, some Australians believe that American soldiers' taste for chicken and
corn during World War Two helped make both foods more available.
The Americans were very heavily into chicken, and during the War the Americans came and they had quite an influence. We grew our own maize and that was an important vegetable for us, but we were introduced to sweet corn, which is the more refined form, when the Americans came. – Elizabeth (1932, Gosnells, WA)
23 S. Sheridan, 'Eating the Other,' p. 321. 186
The Women's Weekly picked up on this trend, publishing a cookery column in 1955 entitled
`Corn 'N Chicken,'24 though it did not identify either of these foods as American. One of the recipes it offered was for corn-stuffed pork chops. But corn had also made an appearance in the magazine five years earlier, in a recipe for corn-stuffed baby marrows that was part of a feature on luncheon dishes. Though billed as special and slightly glamourous, the recipe was not in any way identified as American then, either.25
And though many people cook with chicken today, few would think they were preparing an
American dish when using it. The American influence largely served to promote new technologies to make chicken, fish, veggies, cakes, and other foods more widely available. often in frozen or packaged forms.
The subsequent Europeanising trend visible in the pages of the Women's Weekly and also on the tables of mainstream Australians had a much more significant impact on a cultural
level, although of the Europeans foods, French food mainly appealed to elite taste buds and
sensibilities. Its gourmet status discouraged it from being widely adopted by all segments of Australian society; adventurous and dedicated cooks may have incorporated a few
French dishes into their party repertoires, but would have been very unlikely to prepare the
same dishes for informal family meals. The problem was that in the post-war years, French
food was all glamour without any hominess. It is not surprising to observe that today,
people are far more likely to prepare French 'peasant' or bistro fare rather than any recipes
by Escoffier. They still get points for its Frenchness, but it is French food that is more
approachable and more easily incorporated into a family's repertoire, too.
24 Australian Women s Weekly, 23 March 1955, p. 65. 25 Australian Women s Weekly, 7 January 1950, p. 41. 187
Italian food did not encounter similar problems in post-war Australia. The vogue for Italian dishes that began in the 1950s but had its roots in Australia far earlier has never died down, and that is because of the nature of the food itself. It was arid is both homey and gourmet, different yet familiar, elegant yet easy. It was always able to evolve so it could be the right
food at the right time, and its adoption by the Australian public in the 1960s meant that it
had become part of the nation's cooking repertoire. Thus, even when the time was finally
right for the wide-scale adoption of Asian-style dishes in the 1970s and 1980s – a process
helped along by the Italianisation that had just taken place – Australia's fondness for Italian
food did not waver.
The Women s Weekly: an early adopter of cooking trends
So how did the Women's Weekly go about convincing its: readers to make Italian-style
dishes? In the early post-war years, it didn't. and that is because the ma gazine picked up on
trends rather than started them. Everett Rogers (1995) categorises the adopters of
innovations into five groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and
laggards.
The [innovators'] interest [in new ideas] leads them out of a local circle of peer networks and into more cosmopolite social relationships.... The innovator [launches] the new idea in the social system by importing the innovation from outside of the system's boundaries. Thus, the innovator plays a gatekeeping role in the flow of new ideas into a social system.... Early adopters are a more integrated part of the local social system than are innovators. Whereas innovators are cosmopolites, early adopters are localites. This adopter category, more than any other, has the greatest degree of opinion leadership in most social systems.... The early majority adopt new ideas just before the average member of a social system. The early majority interact frequently with their peers, but seldom hold leadership positions.... The late majority do not adopt until most others in their social system have already done so. The weight of system 188
norms must definitely favor the innovation before the late majority are convinced.... [Laggards] are the most localite in their outlook of all adopter categories; many are near isolates in social networks. The point of reference for the laggard is the past.... Laggards tend to be frankly suspicious of innovations.26
If the Women's Weekly were a person, it would be an early adopter of new food ideas but not an innovator. Innovators in 1950 would have included Australians who interacted with immigrants or sought out new foods in immigrant-owned shops, and travelers – people who had developed cosmopolite relationships and had had experiences outside their social systems. Chapter 5 illustrated how many Australians, including a number of the women interviewed for this thesis, either became friendly with immigrants and sampled their foods, or were not shy about entering delis and asking about the new things they were seeing. Chapter 2 \All focus on tn.:- roit of those Australians travelin.c2 overseas and developing tastes for foods they sought out upon their return.
In 1950, the Women's Weekly's cookery editors were not prowling the streets of Leichhardt and Melbourne, looking for recipes from Italian deli owners, nor were they grilling trattoria owners in Rome. A publication catering to a very specifically defined mainstream audience was not in the position to be an innovator. That is why the Women's Weekly published almost no recipes that were outwardly Italian in nature in 1950, though it did offer numerous pasta-based recipes such as sausage and macaroni shape, and salmon-and- spaghetti savory, both of which were fundamentally English in nature. In a feature on pressure-cooking, the magazine explained to readers how spaghetti could be cooked via that method, but did not treat spaghetti as if it were a foreign food. 27 A September feature entitled 'Spaghetti and Macaroni' took a tiny step in that direction by including a recipe for
26 E. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 4th edn, The Free Press, New York, 1995, pp. 248-250. 27 Australian Women s Weekly, 8 July 1950, p. 53. 189 spaghetti and meatballs, but that was about as adventurous as the magazine was willing to get. A reader from Thornleigh, NSW was far more daring, at least in terms of the name she gave the recipe she submitted: Corned Beef Italienne. It consisted of fri ed corned beef topped with apple slices, surrounded by a ring of spaghetti or macaroni.28
But then the magazine began to realize 'adventurous food was now all the rage,' and it swung into gear to provide awareness and how-to knowledge to its readers. Like all early adopters, the Women s Weekly was a very influential opinion leader. Unlike them, it was also a mass media channel of communication, which exponentially increased its ability to influence tastes on a national level.
955. tile PrO171011 ,V iTeekly h ac staned to take more ris :L. Debbie. the tt..,ena2t che: and future spaghetti bolognaise pro, had come on hoard, as had Tony, the maker of luxury dishes such as Spaghetti a la Peers and Oxtails Parisienne. New foods were beginning to appear on the magazine's pages, such as veal, which reached a new culinary milestone in
February when it was combined with pineapple in a prize-winning readers' contest.29
Another recipe, sauteed veal, specifically called for olive °H.30 In 1950, the only olive oil ever mentioned in the magazine had been for Herco Olive Oil Skin Lotion.
The spice of life
In March 1955, the Women's Weekly ran a feature called 'Continental Flavor' with recipes like quiche lorraine, beef stroganoff and wiener schnitzel. The accompanying text said,
"Use these traditional recipes from the Continent to add variety and interest to everyday
28 Australian Women s Weekly, 2 September 1950, p. 82. 29 Australian Women s Weekly, 9 February 1955, p. 50. 30 Australian Women s Weekly, 2 February 1955, p. 57. 190 family menus. Dishes which are familiar on the dining tables of Europe are becoming increasingly popular here."31 A week later, the magazine offered a recipe that was overtly
Italian in nature: Neapolitan Spaghetti, with lemons, sausage, sage, garlic, olive oil and parmesan cheese. It was included in a section entitled 'Special Touch,' which talked about simple and inexpensive foods that added a touch of glamour to the menu and were useful if one was bored with the 'tried and true.'32
Between 1950 and 1955, then, Continental and Italian foods had begun to enter the nation's consciousness, and the Women's Weekly quickly picked up on this new trend. Food historian Colin Bannerman has determined the exact year this fascination with all things
`foreign' and 'fun' began to occur.
The point at which the serious business of kitchen work be gan – slowly but surely – to give way to the joy of food is also not hard to find. Give or take a year or two, it was 1952.... It was around this time that a cheeky little book titled Oh, For a French Wile! made its appearance, and quickly blew away any mystique surrounding 'Continental' cookery. Its creators –Ted Moloney, Deke Coleman and George Molnar – tried to make cookery fun.33
The message promoted by cook books like Oh, For a French Wife! and magazines like the
Women's Weekly in the mid-1950s was clear: tried and true dishes were dull; new foods were 'fun.' This was one of the principal ways in which Italian food was promoted by the
Women's' Weekly – as a great way to provide interest, glamour and variety to everyday family menus, as well as to dinner party fare. Certainly, many people felt it was time for a change. New needs were evolving and the time was ripe for innovation.
31 Australian Women s Weekly, 9 March 1955, p. 57. 32 Australian Women s Weekly, 16 March 1955, p. 57. 33 C. Bannerman, Acquired Tastes, p. 78. 191
Back in the '50s, Australian food was incredibly boring. It really wasn't until the immigrants started coming in, and Australians started changing the way they ate. Before that, you know, it was just really that terribly boring English background type of food. – Grace (1940, Blayney, NSW)
The meals were very plain, very routine. – Winifred (1938, Melbourne)
Even though [Mum's] cooking was tasty, she was a plain cook. – Nora (1944, Melbourne)
Colin Bannerman places part of the blame for this state of culinary affairs on domestic science cook books like the Commonsense Cookery Book, which was widely read by generations of Australian women. Its title was apt. although 'No Nonsense' would also have been an appropriate description of the cook book and others like it.
Their approach to the subject was the same: first, the need for rigid adherence to a body of rules about cleanliness, accuracy, orderliness and economy; second, the importance of nutrition; and third, systematic teaching of the basic methods of Anglo- French cookery, with a selection of typical dishes.34
In other words, cooking was viewed as a science, rather than an art. The concept of cooking as fun and food as tantalising was not apparent in the pages of cook books like
Commonsense Cookery. Traditional cookery provided many Australian women with a solid culinary foundation but was not particularly exciting. It was up to new foods, then, to bring joy into the kitchen and spice into life, at least according to the Women's Weekly's cookery editors.
34 ibid., p. 22. 192
For reasons mentioned in previous chapters, Italian food was the first cuisine given this responsibility. That's because Italian food was the workhorse of the Continental cuisines. It could bring glamour and spice to one's life, as could French food, but it could also be an inexpensive and handy family favourite as well, an advantage most other cuisines did not have. An added bonus was that Italian food was almost immediately recognised as a perfect food for one of the Women's Weekly's key readership groups: teenagers. It was considered hip and trendy, and easy for budding chefs to prepare.
Italian food in the Women's Weekly: family and party fare
In 1960, The Australian Women's Weekly Cookery in Colour appeared on the market.35
This cook book was actually an adapted version of an immensely popular British cook book. but it showed that Italian foods had made inroads in both countries. Aside from minestrone, the cook book offered a number of Italian-style recipes guaranteed to please all members of the family, who were now apparently huddled in front of their brand-new television set at meal time. Its section on 'TV foods' included familiar pasta dishes like bacon and macaroni pie, sausages with savoury spaghetti or macaroni, and bacon and tomato casserole as well as re-invented pasta dishes like spaghetti souffle and creole macaroni (a basic pasta casserole that included ham and green or red peppers). The message here was simple: pastas dishes were easy and convenient family pleasers that were ideal for informal meals.
But because adventurous foods were all the rage, the Cookery in Colour's TV section also included two Italian dishes that were more 'authentic' in nature than the others: Spaghetti
Bolognese and Bacon Pizza Pie. The Spaghetti Bolognese in particular was a departure in
35 L. Howard & M. Patten (eds.), The Australian Women s Weekly Cookery in Colour, Paul Hamlyn, London, 1960. 193 that it was no longer a casserole (like Debbie the teenage chef's 1957 version), and it featured a broader range of ingredients. The recipe called for canned tomatoes, tomato puree or fresh tomatoes, as well as minced raw beef (not leftover steak), shredded carrot, butter, olive oil, brown stock, red wine, mushrooms, onion and garlic, though it indicated that the garlic could be omitted. The recipe clearly tried to be as authentic as possible, because it said "Though not correct, you can include a sliced red or green pepper in this sauce."36 After preparing the sauce and boiling the spaghetti (only seven minutes for the
`quick cooking variety'), readers were instructed to serve the dish with some parmesan cheese. The use of red wine and parmesan cheese (as opposed to 'grated cheese') was new.
But what was even newer is the pizza recipe at a time when most Australians would not even have seen a pizza yet. While the bacon pizza pie recipe is relativ c,aliinL for a bit of tomato sauce and some sliced cheese, the pizza recipe featured in the cook book's 'Party Fare' section is particularly avant garde in that it calls for a sauce made with anchovies and garlic, a crust made with olive oil, and black olives and parmesan cheese as the toppings. Perhaps to convince some of its less innovative readers that this is not a completely alien dish, the recipe has a comforting subtitle: 'Italian Tomato Pie.' It is an exotic recipe that at the same time can be regarded as vaguely familiar. And pizza is being marketed as a family food as well as a party item.
By the mid- to late-1960s, pasta shapes other than spaghetti and macaroni had become readily available on grocery store shelves. In keeping with the times, the Women's Weekly began offering a series of pasta primers; a 1966 version included recipes for baked rigatoni
36 ibid., p. 925. 194 and lasagna.37 It ran another pasta primer three years later in it:s 'Complete Cookery Course,
Book No. 2,' one of the supplemental cook books that were frequently included with the magazine:
COMPLETE COOKERY COHSE FROM OUR LEILA HOWARD TEST KITCHEN
Different shapes have evolved for different dishes. Generally. very small shapes – such as alphabet or animal noodles... or tunettini – are cooked in clear broths. Cut macaroni or shells are used in heartier soups or in salads. Wide ribbon shapes are for casserole use layered with sauces..... Wide tube-shaped macaroni, such as rigatoni or cannelloni, are filled with a savory stuffing, layered in casserole with a sauce, and baked... Some of the macaronis – spaghetti, shells, elbows, noodles, crests, gnocchi, spirali, alphabets, animals, etc – are sold in packages and are readily available. For the more unusual types you might need to shop at an Italian or Continental food store.38
This makes clear that aside from certain exotic pastas, a wide range of pastas – many of which are still commonly used today – could easily be found on grocery store shelves by the late 1960s. Furthermore, pasta consumption seemed to be expanding beyond simple spaghetti dishes and macaroni and cheese into pasta salads, stuffed main courses, and brand new dishes like gnocchi.
37 Australian Women s Weekly, 20 April 1966, p. 52. 38A ustralian Women s Weekly, Complete Cookery Course Book No. 2. 5 February 1969, pp. 14-15. 195
At the same time, Italian food in the Women's VEAL PARMESAN Weekly was also expanding beyond pasta, though 1111. veal steak 1 cap coP grated breaderusubs paannemat Soa. better cheese PerPer pasta dishes continued to be featured as favourites. 2 beaten eggs SAUCE 1 onion 4Esz. diced Another supplemental cook book in 1969 entitled I clove crushed seasabroonat 1 cap tomato I tablespoon oil puree cup nmrsala or salt, pen= `Cheese Cook Book' offered recipes for garlic dry diary Beat veal fillets until very thin, then trim. Combine breaderumbs, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Dip fillets in cheese bread (with parmesan cheese), chicken beaten egg, roll in bmadcrumb mixture, pleating these on firmly; refrigerate 1 hour to firm crumbs- Heat butter in marsala, veal parmesan, and Italian zucchini heavy saucepan, cook fillets until golden brown on both sides and cooked through. Drain well, arrange on hot serving dish, spoon sauce over. omelet.39 The garlic bread that apparently Sauce: Sante chopped onion and crushed garlic in =step= with heated oil. Cook until tender but not brawn. endeared many Australians to garlic was now Add marsala, tomato puree, and salt and pepper to taste; simmer 5 minutes. Add diced mushrooms, cook until tender (approx. 10 minutes). Serves 4. making a regular appearance, as was veal. Wine
and zucchini were no iorwer unusual in gredients. Australians who had started off with
macaroni and cheese and spaghetti with tomato in the 1930s and 1940s were now cooking
with marsala wine and Italian squash.
But old favourites did not disappear, in keeping with the
ITALIAN ZUCCHINI OMELET Women's Weekly 's mission of presenting new dishes while 3 tablespoons oil 4 eggs liar.. hatter salt, pepper 2 zuceltini 1 =me 1 cup chopped at the same time keeping up a supply of familiar ones. Paniel parmesan cheese Heat 1 tablespoon of oil and +az. of butter in pan. Add diced zucchini, cook Instead, the magazine provided numerous variations on very slowly until lightly browned and tender (approximately 5 minutes). Remove from pan; cool. Beat eggs as for omelet, add parsley, seasonings, familiar themes. Spaghetti Bolognaise, for example, was cheese, and zucchini. Heat remaining oil and butter in omelet pan. Add egg mixture, cook until just set, drawing egg mixture into centre as it cooks, as given many different names and an ever-changing list of for omelet. Fold over in mind way, slide on to hot serving •dish. Serves 2. ingredients. Undoubtedly, this very flexibility is what has
made it an enduring favourite.
39 A ustralian Women's Weekly, 'Cheese Cook Book,' 15 October 1969. 196
Spaghetti Bolognaise was a dish that we had at this house in Balmain.... If too many people came, [my flat mate] would just slice up more vegetables or fill it up. You know there'd be this much meat [pinches fingers together to show small amount].... So I followed that at home. Instead of it being a true meat sauce, et cetera, I had carrot and every vegetable in the fridge in it.... My kids have grown up on that. – Peg (1944, Ipswich, QLD)
Whatever name spaghetti bolognaise received and regardless of the mix of ingredients, it was always lauded for its versatility. The 'Cheese Cook Book' dubbed it 'real Italian spaghetti,' made with oil, minced steak, mushrooms, shallots, celery, garlic, tinned tomatoes, bay leaf, oregano, plus parsley and grated parmesan as a topping. A brief note under the title said, "This good-flavored dish is ideal for family meals or for a party dish."4°
Clearly, spaghetti boloanaise's multi-faceted qualities were a food editor's dream. and had been since the 1950s: a 1955 family recipe called 'iamb's kidneys' was spaghetti bolognaise in disguise — the kidneys were chopped, combined with some minced steak, and made into a tomato-based sauce for spaghetti. 41 A 1956 cookery column entitled 'Dishes
You'll be Proud to Serve... Made From Mince' featured spaghetti with a mince sauce. 42
And one year later, Debbie the teenage chef debuted her spaghetti bolognaise casserole.43
Spaghetti bolognaise was truly a dish for the ages, and for all ages.
It appeared again in 1970, when the Women's Weekly published a cook book in its own right called The Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook. This marked the beginning of the Women's Weekly's remarkable success with cookery books and its expansion into a new realm of influence. Like the magazine, the Cookbook repeated the Women's Weekly's winning formula of new but familiar, with the added benefit of lots of colour photographs interspersed with encyclopaedic entries on subjects such as herbs and spices, cheeses and
40 ibid., p . 13. 41 Australian Women s Weekly, 12 January 1955, p. 42. 42 Australian Women s Weekly, 27 June 1956, p. 73. 43 Australian Women s Weekly, 31 July 1957. 197 cuts of meat. The Cookbook was an instant favourite and became the first in a long line of popular Women's Weekly cookery books.
One of – and still my favourite – recipe books are the Women's Weekly cook books. I think they're quite good in that they have.... I do have other recipe books, but some of the ingredients are alien.... I do quite like the Women 's Weekly cook books and I have quite a lot of them. – Grace (194(. Blayncy. NSW)
The Women's Weekly cook books were the first ones that I really used and I still use them a lot. And they had the step-by-step instructions and I guess that's how I learnt to cook, really, in that situation.... The fact that you saw what it was supposed to look like, and it gave you the steps, so if you'd never actually been taught to do any of this, it was a really good way of learning. – Kate (1944, Newcastle, NSW)
My mother had given me the one she always used, that Commonsense Cookery Book, but I had Women's Weekly cook books, [which] were the other favourite....Best Ever Cooking, and then there was Cooking Class Cookbook, I think it was called...there were three of them. I could see that they were simply done, and you could see what sort of things that you would cook. – Valerie (1940, Canberra) 198
The Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook's 'spaghetti bolognese' was a relatively simple affair made mainly with minced steak, tomato paste and beef stock cubes, but it did call for oregano. And it was part of a section devoted solely to pasta; an accompanying photograph showed nineteen different types of dried pasta. Aside from the spaghetti bolognese, other recipes included baked rigatoni, spaghetti alla carbonara, meatballs in tomato sauce,
spaghetti marinara, lasagne, macaroni cheese, and tuna spaghetti casserole.44
Sauces for Pastas Spagketri, with s deliciously ammary inure, is s parader dish with all ages. Some of thr amours given here need only a abort cooking nme, some can be prepared aimed and Met reheated before serving. Oos pound of spaghetti will give tat servings.
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44 E. Sinclair (ed.), The Australian Women s Weekly Cookbook, Golden Press, Sydney, 1970.. 199
These recipes followed the established formula of new but familiar; new recipes like spaghetti alla carbonara were featured side-by-side with classic ones like macaroni cheese.
And though a carbonara sauce was very Italian, its main ingredients were nonetheless very familiar to Australians: spaghetti, bacon and eggs. Two other ingredients, white wine and parmesan cheese, were not quite as exotic in 1970 as they had been in earlier years. Pasta dishes were ideal 'transition' foods, bridging the gap between old and new. As people began to adopt pasta-based Italian foods, they were perhaps more disposed to look favourably upon other Italian foods as well. It also helped that some of these non-pasta dishes struck familiar chords.
Thus, there were other Italian-style recipes in the Women's Weekly Cookbook that did not centre on pasta, such as osso bucc. chicken tetrazzini, chicken cac,ciatore risotto and veal parmesan. Veal was another ideal transition food. Veal parmesan and its cousin the wiener schnitzel captured the hearts and minds of the Australian public in the 1960s because they were different yet familiar and because they were quick and easy to prepare. Veal parmesan and wiener schnitzel closely resembled crumbed cutlets, a dish that was already part of the
Australian repertoire. But they were also 'foreign,' which made them far more exciting than
`plain' crumbed cutlets. And they were thin, which meant they could be cooked very quickly. In its section on veal, which included recipes for both dishes, the Women's Weekly
Cookbook stated that "veal cooks so quickly, to delicious tenderness, it's a boon to the busy housewife or business woman."45 As the Women's Weekly recognised, veal was a food for new social realities.
45 ibid., p. 66. 200
It was also ideal dinner party fare, as Winifred, an interviewee from Melbourne who says she has never been an adventurous cook, understood. In 1963 and 1964, she entertained
117 times, and served veal parmesan more than any other dish – including her traditional standby, roast lamb 46 This was quite a statement from someone who favoured 'plain cooking.' Like pasta dishes, veal parmesan had that remarkable ability of being simple yet elegant, and familiar but new. It was another example of why so many Italian dishes appealed to Australian sensibilities in the post-war era.
They certainly appealed to Betty, an interviewee from Brisbane who also thinks of herself as an unadventurous cook of 'basic' foods. Though she claims she cooks very much like her mother did, she has a scrapbook of some of her favourite recipes, and it includes spaghetti alia earbonara„ spaghetti bolognaise. spaghetti anc meat balls. and Italian veal supreme.
Italian food in the Women s Weekly: something for everyone
By the 1970s, readers of the Women's Weekly magazine and its cook books would have been hard-pressed to find sections in which Italian-style recipes did not appear. Italian dishes seemed ideally suited for almost every conceivable culinary situation, to the point of developing multiple and competing personalities. By 1975, Italian dishes had been regularly promoted as ideal candidates in the following categories: family foods, dinner
party foods, teen foods, elegant/prestigious foods, economical foods, convenient foods,
filling winter foods, light summer foods, Australian farmhouse foods, international foods,
dairy foods and health foods.
46 Calculated from a photocopy of Winifred s dinner party menus from 1963 to 1974. 201
Let us take one basic dish as an example: spaghetti with tomatoes and grated cheese (which becomes spaghetti bolognaise with the addition of mince). Pasta dishes had long appeared in Australian cook books under the `Cheese' section. By the 1970s, macaroni cheese and spaghetti cheese had become classics. They were viewed as healthy alternatives to meat for simple meals.
But as new trends toward healthy eating began to emerge, so too did new Women's Weekly recipes for dishes like spaghetti cheese. Again, the magazine did not initiate such trends, but rather picked up on them. The 1971 'Health Foods Cook Book' supplement proclaimed: "Whether it's reaction to computerisation, pollution, over-sophistication, or any other bogies at present on the scene, the health-food way of eating is being taken up in
big wzr: -47 Ti-a why tht, rfonier ., Weekii , also took it up, And lo and bei-oici, spaghetti fitted the all-natural, vegetarian bill. The 'Health Foods Cook Book - featured 'cheese spaghetti' made with wholemeal spaghetti, grated carrots, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes. 48 And it was not only ideal for vegetarians, but for dieters, too, though they needed a bit more protein. The 1974 'Weight Watchers Cook Book' insert offered the ever- adaptable 'spaghetti bolognese,' which in this incarnation was made with tomato juice, dehydrated onion, oregano, bay leaf and cooked mince.49
In between these health offerings, spaghetti was billed as a dairy-and-cheese-based
Australian farmhouse favourite. The 1972 'Farmhouse Cook Book' supplement, which was billed as a celebration of International Milk Day, stated, "Recipes in this book are packed with the rich goodness of farmhouse products – milk, butter, cheese and other dairy
47 Australian Women s Weekly, Health Foods Cook Book, 28 July 1971. p. 2. 48 ibid., p. 6. 49 Australian Women s Weekly, Weight Watchers Cook Book, 13 March 1974, p. 11. 202 foods."5° A 'spaghetti cheese' chock full of veggies and basil was a featured recipe. But the farmhouse was also proffering even more adventurous fare: the cook book also included a fairly detailed three-part recipe for 'spinach canneloni,' which included directions for making the pancakes, filling and sauce.51
Thus in yet another Women's Weekly
offering, a newly updated classic sits
side-by-side with a brand-new dish.
Fresh from its turn in Australia's farmhouses, spaghetti then made a groundbreaking
appearance in the Women's Weekly's fairly exotic 1974 'International Cook Book No. 1'
The supplement, which billed itself as a "round-the-world cook's tour," featured foods
from Italy, Malaysia, Uruguay, USA, and Turkey, with recipes provided by local immigrant
women. Mrs. Rina Zanarini of Vaucluse, NSW created the Italian ones: the tomato-and-
basil-based spaghetti alla Giulio Cesare, polio al birra, insalata tre colore, funghi ripieni
and torta di coco.52 Though the 'Farmhouse Cook Book's' spaghetti cheese also featured
tomato and basil, this new version was truly a departure from all other recipes in that the
tomatoes were not cooked. "The hot spaghetti is spooned over a cold sauce, which is tossed
through; it is a very light entrée, ideal to begin a summer meal."53
50 Australian Women's Weekly, Farmhouse Cook Book, 21 June 1972, p. 2. 51 ibid., p. 8. 52 Australian Women's Weekly, International Cook Book no. 1, 24 June 1974. 53 ibid.. p. 5. 203
Thus, spaghetti was simultaneously a health food, a substantial Australian farmhouse food and a light international favourite.
Tried and true
From the mid-1950s onward, the Women's Weekly stayed true to its culinary mission of offering exciting-but-safe and different-but-easy foods. In the process it oversaw and promoted the diffusion of Italian food throughout Australia. Certainly, Italian food was beautifully suited to the magazine's cooking column philosophy; it was familiar but new and elegant yet simple, and the Women's Weekly's food editors were undoubtedly aware of the fact. Far more than they did with any other cuisine at the time, they promoted Italian dishes as eminently suitable for almost every possible occasion.
Though it was itself an early adopter of innovations rather than an innovator, the Women's
Weekly was a tremendously influential opinion leader because it was also a very popular mass media channel of communication. While the most adventurous members of the
Australian population may very well have prepared Italian foods at home before those recipes appeared in the Women's Weekly, almost every other category of adopter looked to the Women's Weekly for inspiration at one time or another during the 1950s and 1960s. By continuously promoting Italian food in any number of guises, the magazine helped cement its acceptance across vast segments of Australian society. Even when the magazine's domestic-oriented philosophy began to fall out of some favour in the 1970s, Australian women still turned to the Women's Weekly's cook books, which continued to promote the versatility of Italian-style foods.
Thus, from the mid-1950s onward, the Women's Weekly made a case for Italian food.
Backed up by the visibility of such foods in immigrant-owned shops and restaurants, cross- 204 cultural interactions, the growth of the food processing and retailing industries, and the nature of the food itself, the subsequent wide-scale adoption of Italian food in post-war
Australia can come as no surprise to any observer. It met all of the conditions for the successful adoption of an innovation, and had many supporters – from immigrants and industry to mass media opinion leaders. This chapter and previous ones have examined some of them. Chapter 8 will examine how innovators (Australians traveling overseas) and early adopters (status-oriented hostesses) also helped promote the diffusion of Italian food in the post-war years.