Melbourne Food and Wine Festival

As we are now ‘social distancing’, you probably won’t be attending any of the Food and Wine Festival events. This is an opportunity to create your own event at home. Are you aware that the NGV Women’s Association, with help from the NGV curators, published a book – ‘A Cook’s Tour of the National Gallery of Victoria’ – in 1978? In the forward, Gallery Director Eric Rowlinson notes that the book provides: “recipes in their cultural context, illustrated by works of art which heighten this relationship (and), act as a reminder of the unity of life”. In a dozen chapters, the book gives recipes from around the world with each chapter featuring artworks from the NGV collection.

Currently available on Ebay – why is it not being reprinted and sold in the Design Store?

Who could resist making ‘Marrow au Gratin’ (from the Australian menu section) when the recipe is accompanied by an image of Grace Cossington-Smith’s ‘Quaker Girl’ 1915? Will she or the cat be happy with the marrows she has foraged from Coles?

However, you may want something a little more contemporary to use to plan your dinner. There are a few recent cookery books that you could consider:

And finally, if you are fascinated by Dutch still life paintings, and want to get into the spirit of the Golden Age of Dutch culinary endeavours, I would encourage you to have a look at the youtube art channel ‘The Art Assignment’ and particularly the episode: ‘Art Cooking: Dutch and Flemish Still Life Painting’. The entire series by Sarah Urist Green is a wonderful resource for guides and provides an entertaining insight into artists and food . It can be found on: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdGqz6dgvIzYLfXstmvIBpxU2hiD1iiIb