Barbara Santich
This book is a compilation of short stories, mostly on the theme of ‘Dining Alone’, by food writing students at the University of Adelaide from 2007 to 2013, all written as part of their overall assessment.
Only a handful of universities worldwide offer courses in food writing, and the University of Adelaide might well have been the first. Certainly this is the only accredited course of its kind offered in Australia.
I must have had the idea in the back of my mind for some time, but it crystallised one summer morning as I sat through the ritual start-of-year Faculty meeting in one of the University’s more modern lecture theatres. Idly listening to the Dean, only half-focused on his evaluations of the faculty’s performance, I allowed my brain to wander. As he urged everyone to achieve more and aim higher in the semester ahead, a scenario started to form. The more I thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. Rummaging in my bag I found a scrap of paper and, over the next half hour or so, sketched out plans.
It just so happened that, at the beginning of 2006, Professor Nicholas Jose was newly appointed to the University’s Chair of Creative Writing. At the end of the meeting, as staff milled in small groups around the stainless steel catering urns, I approached Nick with my proposal—because it would not have been possible to host a food writing course in History and Politics, the School in which I was based. To my everlasting gratitude, he seized on the idea with enthusiasm and the Graduate Certificate in Food Writing began to take shape.
The requirements were simple. The course had to be online in order to attract sufficient students—but at the same time it was vital to include an on campus component so that students could meet us and, more importantly, get to know one another. Both Nick and I already had full teaching loads, so we decided to invite a small team from outside the University to contribute to the week of on campus teaching. As well as a practical solution, this would give students the opportunity to learn from and interact with professional writers, editors and journalists.
Finding the right people willing to help teach and mark students’ work was surprisingly easy. For the first five years the team included: Gay Bilson, for many years an acclaimed chef and restaurateur (Berowra Waters Inn, Sydney) and winner of the 2005 Age Book of the Year with her memoir, Plenty: Digressions on food; Kerryn Goldsworthy, essayist and short story writer, long-time editor of Australian Book Review and also a teacher of creative writing; Marion Halligan, an award-winning author who subtly weaves food and eating into her novels, short stories and travel writings; and journalist David Sly, food and wine editor of SA Life magazine, formerly food and wine editor of the Advertiser.
Five years of online teaching and learning had given me some understanding of what students wanted from online delivery, and what worked best for them. It was important that the online experience was as close as possible to classroom teaching and learning, which meant personal attention: corresponding with students individually, replying promptly to all queries and giving detailed feedback on all assignments. By 2007 we could also take advantage of ‘virtual classroom’ technology that the University was introducing, on a limited scale, allowing teachers and students to meet and talk online. This became a vital component of the course. Admittedly, in the early years the technology was not foolproof; arbitrary and capricious might be more appropriate descriptors. Still, it was possible for students to discuss their ideas and projects almost as if sitting around the table in a tutorial room; those who could not log on at the agreed time at least had the consolation of a recording.
It’s easier to understand how students might learn about food writing than to resolve how it might be taught. Nick already had experience in teaching creative writing, in addition to writing novels, short stories and essays; I had been writing about food, cooking and eating for many years, but my teaching was in food history and culture. Yet I think we agreed that the best way to learn was to encourage students to read widely and, especially, to write, write and write. Fortuitously, University assessment standards required a considerable number of ‘assessable words’, making it possible for us to set a variety of assignments, of different lengths, to encourage students to develop their writing skills.
We also agreed on a very broad definition of food writing: ‘Food writing, from restaurant reviews and cookbooks to memoir and social history, is a dimension of both professional and creative writing, recognised in its own right and in conjunction with other kinds of writing, from travel articles to fiction and poetry.’ Since versatility is key to success as a food writer—perhaps any kind of writer—students experimented with different writing genres and styles, in concise and extended forms: restaurant reviews, book reviews, reportage and research-based journalism, short stories, memoir and travel, essays and opinion pieces and, from 2011, a blog assignment to be completed over the course of the semester.
In February 2007 the first students arrived. One of their first day activities was a ‘Tastes and Words’ session where I asked them to find words to match the flavours and textures they were tasting, in both cheese and chocolate and a mystery product, which that year was purple yam paste. The aim of this exercise was to encourage them to describe tastes as accurately and evocatively and meaningfully as possible so that others, readers, might also experience them, vicariously—and it’s not as easy as it sounds. In another year the mystery food was durian jam. Food writers might not like to call themselves ‘public stomachs’ but they recognise the importance of communicating to readers the taste of a particular food or dish, whether in a restaurant review, a work of fiction or a journalistic article. As Elizabeth David wrote, a food writer has a responsibility ‘to exercise his or her critical faculties to a high degree and with a backing of informed experience’, and to express opinions to readers ‘in lively terms’.1
While the essential core of the course remains faithful to the initial back-of-the-envelope sketch, various changes and refinements have been introduced. When Nick Jose accepted a new position in late 2008, Brian Castro and Jill Jones took over his role; and when the Master of Arts in Creative Writing was discontinued, Food Writing found a home within the new Graduate Program in Food Studies. In the beginning years students were taken to the Kitchen Door restaurant at Penny’s Hill Winery in McLaren Vale for lunch and a seminar (they were also required to write a review of the meal). As students asked for additional content in the intensive week, the lunch venue moved to the much closer Art Gallery Restaurant, and in 2013 became an evening meal. The visit to Adelaide’s Central Market—again, the stimulus for a writing assignment—changed in 2013 to an evening cheese-tasting class. Blogging became part of the course in 2011, and Amanda McInerney and George Ujvary, both University of Adelaide graduates with respected food blogs, have shared their experiences with students in the classroom. For the past two years, journalist and PhD student Tania Cammarano has contributed to the teaching. Throughout its entire history, Food Writing has been supported by Penny’s Hill Winery, co-sponsor, with the Adelaide Review, of an annual prize for the top student.
One other significant change was in the creative writing assignment. In 2007 students were asked to write a short story of 1000 words involving food and eating; from 2008 this became a short story on the theme of ‘Dining Alone’. Some amazingly creative scenarios have been imagined—from different viewpoints, with different resolutions, in a range of settings in Australia and overseas: in New York and Paris, India, Italy and Greece, on the Camino de Santiago. The lone diners are men and women, young and old, aggressive and reflective, wistful and resolute, some content in their cloak of solitude while others envy the love and laughter at other tables. The stories are poignant and surprising, sometimes with a hint of mystery or political intrigue; some have bittersweet endings while others celebrate brave new beginnings.
Almost all the students I was able to contact—and there were only a few who could not be found—agreed to offer their work, edited and revised, for this book. These stories are a tribute to their authors’ imagination, energy and enthusiasm.