FOOD was once about hunger, taste and nutrition. These days everything from celebrity chefs and obesity, to organics and happy chickens dominates food discussions.
Rebecca Huntley puts these cultural changes under the microscope in Eating Between the Lines.
- Eating Between the Lines: Food & Equality in Australia, by Rebecca Huntley. Black Inc, rrp $24.95
Huntley conducts a gastronomic tour of Australia, speaking to a variety of consumers, including mums, market gardeners and migrants.
Her basic premise is asking how fair Australia's food culture is in light of such issues as obesity, the rise of single households, women's continued dominance in family cooking, and Aboriginal tucker.
Yet the problem with examining food culture is it is rapidly evolving with a use-by date.
The issues Huntley examines are pertinent, but most readers may still feel the debate has moved on, particularly considering today's headline-makers: supermarket pricing, genetic modification, drought and climate change, food miles, water and the economic downturn.
The concluding chapter, arguably the hardest hitting, touches on some of these issues.
