“Strange People But They Sure Can Cook!”

Abstract

This article follows a group of Indonesian migrant women in Sydney as they planned and ran a cookery course at a local adult education college. It shows how a focus on domestic culinary knowledge revealed important understandings of their lived experience. In particular, it argues that this knowledge can act as a mediator and reference point for the journey the women have made in moving to Australia, both marking and enabling this form of “travel.” The shift from the private sphere of the household, to the rather more public arena of the classroom, also underlines the process of exchange (and the attendant risk and vulnerability) involved in cross-cultural hospitality.

Keywords:

• Australia
• multiculturalism
• ethnic food
• migration
• authenticity
• Indonesian cuisine