[I feel most inspired] in some of my favourite delicious places: Paesanella, an Italian cheesemaker in Marrickville; in Middle Eastern spice shops – one breath and you want to start cooking; the fruit and herbs in Cabramatta. I thank God they all came and taught us so much about cooking and eating.
- Maeve O’Meara, food author and television presenter.
In the 1980s, graffito scrawled on an inner-city Sydney wall screamed: ‘God hates homos’. Underneath, a rather different hand had interposed: ‘But does he like tabouli?’ This graffito goes to the heart of how strategically useful food can be in the fight against homophobia and other forms of bigotry.
Inversely, what is hard to stomach is the way in which food continues to be mobilised as a metaphor for the success of multiculturalism in Australia. Celebrating ‘harmony’ and encouraging ‘tolerance’ and ‘integration’ have become the dominant frames for talking about racial and cultural interaction, effacing the possibility that the discourse might engage with the fundaments of power relations, privilege and racism in a multiracial / multicultural society. How did we get here?
More to come…
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