Hannah Maclurcan: colonial queen of cookery books

Abstract

When Hannah Maclurcan wrote and published Mrs Maclurcan’s Cookbook in 1893 she was running the up-market Queens Hotel in Townsville. The book largely provides instruction for reproducing the English style cookery typical of colonial Australia, but something else is bubbling up in this book: distinct local flavour. Instead of specifying indigenous British foods such as turbot and damsons she gives recipes for the preparation of Australian species of fish and seafood, and a range of – then – unusual fruit and vegetables that had been introduced and flourished in the tropical climate of North Queensland. There is also a hint of Asian flavour in some of the dishes and rumour suggested the Maclurcan took many of the recipes in the book from the Chinese cooks she employed in her hotel. This paper will explore Maclurcan as a culinary entrepreneur and the impact of locality on her cookery, and challenge the popularly accepted idea of the culinary ‘ineptitude’ of colonial Australia’s Anglo-Celtic cooks and the mono-cultural cuisine they are purported to have served up.