Culinary Discourses in Asian-Australian Writing

Won the Doireann MacDermott Cultural Studies in English AwardBesides nourishing us, food can be used metaphorically to help us understand the complex and abstract concepts through which we negotiate our position in the world: we talk about digesting ideas, ruminating on a problem, or swallowing an insult. Building on this premise, the book offers a detailed analysis of culinary imagery in twenty-first-century works from Asian Australian authors, like Hsu-Ming Teo, Alice Pung, Simone Lazaroo, and Shaun Tan. Food is used to embody the abstractions that underlie racial inequalities and conflicts, questioning the superficiality of Australia’s official multiculturalism and its reproduction of racial and cultural privileges. At the same time, the analysis highlights the power of these fictional narratives to envision alternative worlds in the hope of gaining common ground for human understanding and solidarity.Shortlisted for the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) 2026 Book Awards.