This website traces the history of Australian food since white settlement in 1788, with a glance at what came before. Search for a specific topic or use the menu at the foot of the page to jump to a decade. The Australian food history timeline project started as a spin-off from my food memoir, Me and My Big Mouth. But it kept expanding. Now this site contains more than 1000 stories about how we eat, cook, grow, manufacture and shop for our food. Thanks for reading.  Jan O’Connell

What’s new?

I keep adding new stories to this website, like these:

1935: Jimmy Watson’s wine bar opens
1862: Colonial wine licence created in NSW
1910: Chicago-based Swift & Company enters Australia
1984: Atlantic salmon farming begins in Tasmania
1936: Tom Piper brand launched
1865: Melbourne’s first wine bar
1959: White Christmas recipe with Copha
1971: Zooper Doopers launched
2026: Ban on fish-shaped soy sauce bottles
1946: Baiada moves into poultry processing
2006? Melbourne’s “Magic” coffee
1914? Skipping Girl Vinegar introduced

 

But wait, there’s more

You’ll find other, mostly food-related musings in My (Other) Blog. The link takes you to my author website Me and My Big Mouth. For updates and other fun stuff, follow the Timeline on Facebook.

Unfortunately, my book based on this website – A Timeline of Australian Food: from mutton to MasterChef – is now officially out of print. There may be the odd copy hanging about in your bookshop, or your local library may have a copy on the shelves. But you can still buy my first book, the baby boomer food memoir Me and My Big Mouth, as an ebook from Amazon or as a print copy from Blurb. More about the books here.