Susan Butler AO was the founding editor of the Macquarie dictionary and is the author of several books, including the Dinkum dictionary and The aitch factor. In 2018, she was made an officer of the Order of Australia. On 15 July 2026, we had the pleasure of hearing Susan talk about food culture reflected in Australian English. This followed the Editors Victoria annual branch meeting (ABM) and was free to all Editors Victoria members who attended the ABM.
Susan’s talk took us through a comprehensive history of non-Indigenous Australian food language, from the “Botany Bay greens” of early colonial days to dishes termed “colonial” or “bush” in the late-19th and early-20th centuries (including a “colonial wine”, which one publication called “sour ditch wine”). She even provided a recipe for “colonial goose” from the 1906 edition of Home cookery. It didn’t sound too bad! And it didn’t contain goose – rather, a leg of mutton.
Susan talked about climate-inappropriate British foods such as the plum pudding – recalled and decried in Australian literature by the likes of Henry Lawson and Clive James. (To my mind, what would Christmas day be without the plum “pud” bubbling away on the stove in the summer heat?) She spoke about the influence of Chinese cuisine and terms in colonial and more current times and how our modern food culture is, happily, very much shaped by a broad spectrum of diverse influences. She noted that Australian English only has 400-odd words derived from Indigenous languages, a small proportion of which relate to food, although this is slowly changing.
Importantly, Susan discussed the origins of the pavlova, as we know it, by setting out a chronology that confirmed it was indeed invented in … You’ll have to view the recording for the answer.
Susan’s presentation was fascinating, not to mention hunger-inducing! If you missed it, the recording will be available to purchase via the IPEd website shortly. For now, I’m off to enjoy a glass of plonk/booze/snake juice/gutrot with a bowl of spag bol.