Halligan’s Love Affair with Food

Marion Halligan’s non-fiction Eat My Words, (1990), Cockles of the Heart(1996) and The Taste of Memory (2004) all have food as their main topic. Travelling roundEurope on culinary journeys and staying in hotels and flats she provides us, as readers, witha wealth of recipes and reflections on the role food plays in people’s lives, socially andculturally. This article will discuss some few of the points Halligan raises as she commentson the pleasure of food; on bricolage, both in the finished product and in cookery books;and the language we use to describe food and its processes. Adopting a bicultural approachHalligan compares Australian foods of today with those of her childhood, thus turningthese food books into a kind of autobiography