John Newton – August 15 2021

National Science Week – August 14-22 2021

2021 schools theme: Food: Different by design.

John is an author, journalist, food marketing consultant and lecturer. He holds a Doctor of Creative Arts from the University of Technology Sydney where he has also lectured on Writing About Food. John has been co-editor of The Good Food Shopping Guide and Cheap Eats and his awards for food journalism include the 2005 World Food Media Awards’ Golden Ladle for Best Food Journalism. In 2016 he won The Gourmand Awards’ Best Culinary History Book category for The Oldest Foods on Earth: A History of Australian Native Foods with Recipes. John’s other food writing includes the short companion book to this, Cooking with the Oldest Foods on Earth, as well as books such as Wogfood: An Oral History with Recipes; A Little Taste of Spain; Cooking Spanish; Grazing: The Ramblings and Recipes of a Man Who Gets Paid to Eat; The Getting of Garlic, Australian Food from Bland to Brilliant, and he contributed a culinary history of Italy to Stefano Manfredi’s Italian Food. John has also published A Savage History: Whaling in the Pacific and Southern Oceans and two novels, Whoring and The Man Who Painted Women.

The Roots of Civilisation: Plants That Changed the World
Murdoch Books, 2009; ISBN 9781741962420
They feed us, shelter us, clothe us, cure us and clean the air that we breathe. The Roots of Civilisation takes a closer look at these plants that most of us just take for granted, but which have changed the world, for better and for worse. The story of these plants is also the story of human survival and ingenuity, the invention of agriculture, the greed of men and their rulers, and the founding of trade routes and empires. In this title, advances in science and medicine are charted and there are the new frontiers such as genetic modification and the plants grown by NASA in outer space. The Roots of Civilisation looks not only at the better known world-changers like opium, tobacco, cotton and the orchid, but also at the humbler flora that have quietly but profoundly shaped human civilisation.

The Oldest Foods on Earth: A History of Australian Native Foods with Recipes
New South Publishing, 2016; ISBN 9781742234373
‘We celebrate cultural and culinary diversity, yet shun foods that grew here before white settlers arrived. We love ‘superfoods’ from exotic locations, yet reject those that grow here. We say we revere sustainable local produce, yet ignore Australian native plants and animals that are better for the land than those European ones.’ In this, the most important of his books, John Newton boils down these paradoxes by arguing that if you are what you eat, we need to eat different foods: foods that will help to reconcile us with the land and its first inhabitants. But the tide is turning. European Australians are beginning to accept and relish the flavours of Australia, everything from kangaroo to quandongs, from fresh muntries to the latest addition, magpie goose. With recipes from chefs such as Peter Gilmore, Maggie Beer and René Redzepi’s sous chef Beau Clugston, The Oldest Foods on Earth will convince you that this is one food revolution that really matters.