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The Travels of Kitty’s Love Cake: A Tale of Spices, “Asian” Flavors, and Cuisine Sans Frontières?

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The Globalization of Asian Cuisines

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Abstract

Visiting her Aunt Connie in London in 1979, Charmaine Solomon carried a sentimental gift. This was a traditional Sri Lankan love cake, made according to her mother’s exacting recipe (semolina, zest of lime, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, rosewater, brandy, honey …) (Solomon 1998, 241). However, while cakes and other sweet treats might be imagined as significant motifs for a life story of baking, Char-maine’s reputation as a food journalist and cookbook writer hardly rests on these. Acknowledged as a much-celebrated home cook who, in the second half of the twentieth century, substantially changed Australia’s culinary landscapes, Solomon occupies a distinctive position within this history (Karnikowski 2010). With the publication of The Complete Asian Cookbook (1976), Charmaine Solomon achieved iconic status. Popularly hailed as “Australia’s Spice Queen” and “the Queen of Asian cooking in Australia” (Harris 2001, 212; O’Meara 2008), Solomon was to receive, in 2007, the award of the prestigious Medal of the Order of Australia “for service to the food media, particularly as the author of Asian cookery books” (Australian Government Honours 2007, my emphasis).

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Authors
  1. Jean Duruz
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James Farrer

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© 2015 James Farrer

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Duruz, J. (2015). The Travels of Kitty’s Love Cake: A Tale of Spices, “Asian” Flavors, and Cuisine Sans Frontières?. In: Farrer, J. (eds) The Globalization of Asian Cuisines. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514080_3

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