2025 CSIRO stocktake of Australia’s food system
Given Australians' cost-of-living struggles, the growing number of people relying on food charities and the increasing awareness of the problem… Read More
Events
2023 Beef Wellington gets a poisonous reputation
Just as anyone who saw the 1970s film Stork could never look at a smoked oyster the same way again,… Read More
2023 Coronation Quiche sparks debate
In April 2023, as the UK began to work itself into a fever about the imminent coronation of King Charles… Read More
2018 First Darwin Laksa Festival
If you listen to Territorians, Darwin, with its ethnically diverse population, is the Australian heartland of laksa, the spicy noodle… Read More
2017 National Food Waste Strategy adopted
The Federal Government's adoption of the National Food Waste Strategy in 2017 recognised a major problem for both the economy… Read More
2016 Eel festival in Parramatta revived
Parramatta's modern Eel Festival pays tribute to a custom the local Duareg people observed for thousands of years. It celebrates… Read More
2012 National Indigenous Culinary Institute founded
It wasn't until the 1990s that Indigenous-owned restaurants began to appear around Australia, generally with a mission to highlight native… Read More
2007 Australia’s first truffle festival
Although Australia’s first farmed black truffle was harvested in 1999 in Tasmania, Australia's first truffle festival took place in an… Read More
2007 Prime Minister plugs Iced VoVo
The Iced VoVo is a sweet biscuit first made by Arnott’s around 1904. It has two strips of pink icing… Read More
2005 Adelaide Food Summit
The Adelaide Food Summit on The Future of Food was held between 25-26 October as a Tasting Australia event and… Read More
2003 Aussie is world’s best barista
In 2003, 25-year-old Paul Bassett from Australia was officially named the world's best barista. He won the World Barista Championship title… Read More
2001 Australian Barista Championship begins
Although coffee culture began seeping into Australian life in the mid-20th century with the introduction of the espresso machine, it… Read More
2000 GST introduced
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced by John Howard's Liberal government in 2000, providing another incentive to eat… Read More
1999 into 2000 The Millennium Bug
As clocks prepared to tick over from 1999 to 2000, the so-called millennium bug became big news. In the fear… Read More
1998 Great Vanilla Slice Triumph
The Great Vanilla Slice Triumph began in Ouyen, Victoria, in 1998 after then-Victorian premier Geoff Kennett claimed the vanilla slice… Read More
1998 SMH Good Food Month launched
The Sydney Morning Herald sponsored Sydney's Good Food Month in October as an adjunct to their Good Food Guide. The… Read More
1997 Tasting Australia begins in Adelaide
Aimed primarily at bringing international food and travel media to Australia, Tasting Australia was initially held in conjunction with the… Read More
1995 Slow Food Australia founded
Slow Food Australia operates through a series of convivia, each mandated directly from the Italian headquarters in Bra, Italy. The first… Read More
1993 First Melbourne Food and Wine Festival
The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival was devised and, initially, financed by leading Melbourne ad-man Peter Clemenger as a way… Read More
1993 Gay Bilson’s tripe tablecloth
The kitchen staff from Berowra Waters Inn restaurant, under the leadership of Gay Bilson, made a tablecloth of raw tripe… Read More
1991 First Orange F.O.O.D. Week
The Orange F.O.O.D. Week was initially held in April 1991 with a small number of visionary Orange producers and chefs,… Read More
1990 Paul Keating’s “recession we had to have”
In 1990, Treasurer Paul Keating admitted that Australia was in recession. "The first thing to say is, the accounts do… Read More
1989 Slow Food International is founded
Slow Food International was founded in Paris in 1989. The name is an ironic way of saying no to fast… Read More
1989 Sausage sizzle electoral row
We love our "democracy sausage". But in 1989, the Labor Premier of Western Australia, Peter Dowding, was in trouble for… Read More
1989 The Taste of Tasmania Festival first held in Hobart
The Taste of Tasmania Festival was originally part of the Hobart Summer Festival, which ran from December 27 until the… Read More
1989 Setback for restaurant reviewers
A scathing review of Sydney's Blue Angel restaurant by Leo Schofield set in train a court case that sent shivers… Read More
1988 Beef Week first held in Rockhampton
Rockhampton is known as Australia's "Beef Capital" thanks to its location in the heart of Queensland's cattle country in the… Read More
1987 Black Monday kills the big business lunch
The ‘80s ‘greed is good’ philosophy came to an abrupt end when the stock markets crashed on Black Monday, 19… Read More
1986 Fringe Benefits Tax introduced
The federal Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) was introduced on 1 July 1986. FBT was payable on restaurant meals, which were… Read More
1984 First Symposium of Australian Gastronomy
The first Symposium of Australian Gastronomy was held in Adelaide, convened by Michael Symons, Gay Bilson and Graham Pont. It… Read More
1980 Christmas in July in the Blue Mountains
Christmas in July is not a wholly Australian tradition. But in Australia it seems to have its origins in the… Read More
1973 Cornish food at Kernewek Lowender
Kernewek Lowender in the Cornish language means "Cornish Happiness". It's the name of a festival held every two years on… Read More
1972 It’s time – Labor in, White Australia out
Gough Whitlam’s Labor government was elected after 23 years of Liberal Party rule. In 1973, the government legislated to eliminate… Read More
1971 First Aboriginal publicans in Australia
Catherine Hill Bay was a coal mining town near Newcastle, New South Wales, and was named after a ship that… Read More
1964 The Big Banana
Claiming to be the first and most famous of Australia's "Big Things" (although it was actually pipped by the Big… Read More
1962 First Tunarama Festival in Port Lincoln
The Tunarama Festival was devised by the burghers of the town that describes itself as "The Seafood Capital of Australia",… Read More
1961 First Tupperware party in Australia
Earl Silas Tupper introduced the range of plastic containers in the USA in 1946. Their trademark was the distinctive “burping"… Read More
1952 Riots in Bonegilla migrant camp
Post WWII migrants were temporarily housed in camps, such as a former army camp at Bonegilla. They protested about the… Read More
1949-74 Snowy Mountains Scheme changes food culture
The Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme was an ambitious engineering project to turn back the waters of rivers that flowed east… Read More
1947 Royal wedding cake frenzy
Australians love a good royal wedding. So when Princess Elizabeth married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, Australian organisations were falling over each… Read More
1947 First Barossa Vintage Festival
The original Barossa Vintage Festival was a single event - a Thanksgiving Ball to celebrate the end of harvest and… Read More
1947 Jan Trezise born on 12 March
I am the author of this timeline, once Jan Trezise and now Jan O'Connell. I am a baby-boomer, born in… Read More
1940 Beer riot in Brisbane
In October 1940, a group of soldiers rioted in Brisbane as authorities began strict enforcement of the 8 o'clock closing… Read More
1940s Origins of the meat tray raffle
Most accounts suggest that meat tray raffles began in Britain during World War II. The mechanism was a little different… Read More
1939 World War II declared
At 9.15pm on 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Menzies said in a radio address to the nation "It is my… Read More
1931 Beef Riot in Adelaide
In one of the most notorious incidents of the Great Depression, around 2000 of the unemployed staged a march from… Read More
1929-1932 Great Depression
The Wall Street crash of October 1929 heralded a worldwide depression that saw one in three Australian breadwinners unemployed. In… Read More
1927 The chop picnic explained
Although we can find references to "chop picnics" as early as 1923, the idea was still novel enough in 1927… Read More
1927 Parliament House opened in Canberra
After the ceremony, the official party, including the Duke and Duchess of York, lunched on turtle soup, poached schnapper, fillets… Read More
1925 The Empire Christmas Pudding
It started as a marketing idea. The original recipe for the Empire Christmas Pudding was published in an advertisement developed… Read More
1921 Group Settlement Scheme in WA
The Group Settlement Scheme in the south-west of Western Australia was a government venture designed to establish a dairy industry.… Read More
1919 Spanish Flu disrupts food supplies
In the wake of World War I, returning soldiers brought the so-called "Spanish" influenza to Australia. Around 40 per cent… Read More
1918 Darwin beer rebellion
In 1918, beer prices became a trigger for what became known as the Darwin Rebellion. When an angry crowd marched… Read More
1917 The Berliner becomes the Kitchener Bun
During World War I, the antipathy towards all things German even extended to food. In South Australia, the popular doughnut-like… Read More
1915 Australian Comforts Fund feeds troops
Although the Australian Comforts Fund was not officially established until 1916, the concept originated in 1915. The Fund was an… Read More
1914 Tango suppers the rage in Melbourne
In 1913, the tango craze swept Europe, Britain and America. Australia was not far behind. In March 2014 the Paris… Read More
1907? Nellie Melba bathes in champagne
According to legend, Hans Irvine, then owner of Great Western wines, heard that Dame Nellie Melba had expressed the wish… Read More
1904 Chook raffle goes wrong
In June 1904, the Kalgoorlie Sun recounted the tale of a chook raffle in a local pub. The chicken, in… Read More
1903 First Australian barbecue
The term 'barbecue', referring to a cooking method was certainly known in England well before the First Fleet departed for… Read More
1902 Last Bunya nut gathering
The bunya nut, from the Bunya Pine, was an important food source for aboriginal people of Queensland’s Darling Downs area.… Read More
1901 Federation banquet
A grand Federation banquet at Sydney Town Hall celebrated the creation of a nation, as the separate British colonies joined… Read More
1899 Lord Lamington’s banquet
A satirical verse, titled Lamington's Banquet, was published in The Worker. It detailed a formal banquet menu, fairly typical for… Read More
1893 Height of 1890s depression
The 1890s depression in Australia occurred after the land boom bubble of the 1880s burst. Overseas investment dried up, banks… Read More
1886 Dishwasher patented by Josephine Cochran
The first patent for a dish-washing machine was issued in 1850 in the USA, but the machine was never put… Read More
1882 Easter Show established at Moore Park, Sydney
The Agricultural Society of New South Wales held its first exhibition in the year of its founding in 1822. Known… Read More
1876 The first Ekka in Brisbane
It wasn't called the Ekka then, of course. The Intercolonial Exhibition of 1876 was the first exhibition of the National… Read More
1867 Royal banquet chaos in Melbourne
To celebrate the first royal visit to Australia, by Queen Victoria’s second son Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, a public… Read More
1866-67 Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia
The Great Exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace in 1851 stimulated half a century of ‘exhibition fever’. Events like the Intercolonial… Read More
1861 Burke and Wills poisoned?
The Burke and Wills expedition to cross Australia to the Gulf of Carpentaria ended in tragedy when the explorers ran… Read More
1860 Camels landed in Melbourne
Twenty-five camels landed in Melbourne in 1860 to carry supplies for the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition. Many more followed,… Read More
1851 Gold rush brings immigrants
Gold was discovered in New South Wales in 1851, initiating Australia's first gold rush. Subsequent discoveries in Victoria attracted immigrants… Read More
1822 Agricultural Society of NSW formed
The Agricultural Society of NSW was formed in 1822, holding its first Show the following year. The Shows, known originally… Read More
1817 Macquarie recommends name ‘Australia’
In 1814, Matthew Flinders had suggested that the name 'Australia' be adopted for the continent which had, until then, been… Read More
1815 Road across the Blue Mountains completed
William Cox was appointed by Governor Macquarie to construct a road across the Blue Mountains to Bathurst. New farming land… Read More
1814 Holey dollar replaces rum as currency
In the early days British currency, or sterling, was in short supply in New South Wales. Much of it was… Read More
1813 Crossing the Blue Mountains
Crossing the Blue Mountains had proved a challenge to the white colonists, although aboriginal people had been moving through the… Read More
1810 The Rum Hospital
The rum trade was influential in the new colony. In 1810, when government funds were insufficient to build a new… Read More
1788 First official banquet
The first official banquet in the new colony was held to celebrate the King’s birthday on 4 June. The occasion… Read More
1699 William Dampier samples kangaroo
William Dampier was an English sea captain, adventurer, pirate and naturalist who, in 1699, commanded an expedition that explored the… Read More