Description
This research paper aims to report on the findings of an innovative study to extract
contemporaneous interpretations of Australian colonial domestic hospitality in Mrs. Lance Rawson’s
Cookery Book and Household Hints
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Reading Australian colonial hospitality: a simple recipe
Richard N.S. Robinson Charles Arcodia
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Richard N.S. Robinson Charles Arcodia, (2008),"Reading Australian colonial hospitality: a simple recipe",
International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 2 Iss 4 pp. 374 - 388
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Reading Australian colonial
hospitality: a simple recipe
Richard N.S. Robinson and Charles Arcodia
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, School of Tourism,
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – This research paper aims to report on the ?ndings of an innovative study to extract
contemporaneous interpretations of Australian colonial domestic hospitality in Mrs. Lance Rawson’s
Cookery Book and Household Hints.
Design/methodology/approach – To dialogue with the text’s original author, as free of time and
space permutations as possible a hermeneutical approach is adopted. Hermeneutics has been
successfully applied as an interpretative tool, to a range of tradition laden signi?cant texts as it assists
in the (constructive) deconstruction of texts so that the reader may use them as a portal into the past
(its values and assumptions).
Findings – The ?ndings of these textual analyses present a number of themes: the embedded notion of
host/guest relations, especially as it transpires in “the bush”; the earliest impacts of indigenous and ethnic
minorities on food production, its consumption and hence private hospitality; and evidence of a range of
issues concerned with the management of a household. An Australian hospitality is also explored.
Research limitations/implications – Just as researchers have sought to identify an antipodean
cuisine, this paper is a launch for understanding the origins of colonial hospitality, albeit from a
private perspective.
Practical implications – The ?ndings might assist the Australian hospitality industry in
developing a regional service culture.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to emerging studies in hospitality, by deconstructing a
colonial cookbook, via the medium of textual analysis, and underpinned by a hermeneutic
interpretative paradigm.
Keywords Hospitality services, Cooking, Australia
Paper type Research paper
A feast of imagination – having no dinner, but reading a cookery book (Addison and McKay,
1985).
Introduction
Recent research seeks alternative approaches to investigate hospitality as a discourse
(Lashley and Morrison, 2000), the bene?ts of which aid practitioners as they seek to
delight customers in the commercial environment. In the Australian context developing
a sense of hospitality issues many postcolonial challenges. Tensions exist between
indigenous Australians, and newand old settlers in reference to host/guest relationships
(Schlunke, 2001). Moreover, the antipodean characteristics of “hospitableness” and
“generosity,” touted as innate by even politicians, appear ?imsy when applied to
Australia’s of?cial policy regarding refugees (Kelly, 2006). Despite these tensions,
Australia, as a major tourist destination, is con?dently aware of a unique style of
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1750-6182.htm
IJCTHR
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374
Received June 2007
Revised November 2007
Accepted February 2008
International Journal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research
Vol. 2 No. 4, 2008
pp. 374-388
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6182
DOI 10.1108/17506180810908998
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hospitality – one that manifests as an export also, for example in the European Aussie
theme pub-phenomena (West, 2006). This paper utilizes an Australian colonial text to
reveal some underlying characteristics of antipodean hospitality.
Typically, motives for using the cookbook genre as a window into history may
include the exploration of sociological, environmental, economic and political
phenomena. The legitimacy of the cookbook as a document worthy of interpretation
has been given integrity by Supski (2005), who labels foodmaking, and by association
the recording of recipes, as thoughtful practice. This paper aims to use this literary
genre to understand domestic colonial notions of hospitality, their in?uence on the
development of commercial hospitality in Australia and implications on modern
professional practice. Mrs. Lance Rawson’s Cookery Book and Household Hints
(Rawson, 1890, 3rd ed.), an original viewed at the State Library of Queensland
Archives, is written by Wilhelmina (Mina) Rawson, the wife of a pioneering colonial
venturist. Following is a report on the ?ndings of two textual analysis readings of Mrs.
Rawson’s, particularly to extract contemporaneous interpretations of colonial domestic
hospitality and its management. An interpretative method of enquiry, hermeneutics, is
applied to the two readings. This paper begins by introducing the extant literature on
colonial cookery, for this is the focal point of the text, and an overview of the study of
the emergence of hospitality in Australia. To situate the reader, this paper
backgrounds the text and its author before introducing the methodology adopted for
this study. The textual analyses are presented in integrated fashion followed by a
discussion incorporating this research’s various components.
Colonial cookery books and hospitality
Manyof the cookerybooks available incolonial Australia are writtenbyEnglishscribes in
England as evidenced by tomes from Mrs Beeton and Eliza Acton (Howitt and Acton,
1990). Those produced in Australia manifest several genres – the ?rst some sort of
culinary guide in the colonies, perhaps to diminish the distance between real civilisation
and the colonies, second country women’s association cookery books or compiled cookery
books (Ireland, 1981), and the other practical approaches to adapting to life in the colony.
Examples of the former include Abbott’s (1970) “The English and Australian cookery
book: cooking for the many as well as the ‘Upper Ten Thousand’ by an Australian
Aristologist” reproducedbyBurt. These were clearlyaimedat upper classes as epitomised
by one of Abbott’s (1970) chapters: “A gentlewoman’s guide to all occasions.” The third
genre, that of practical colonial cookery approaches, is characterized by the work of
Hannah MacLurcan, Elizabeth (E.M.) Sheldon, Amy Schauer and Lance (Mina) Rawson.
Several commonalities are evident in these publications that hint at the nature of
domestic hospitality. Even though the “most highly valued feminine attributes [were]
associated with cookery” (Constantine, 1991, p. 5), the housewife was obliged to
provide a healthy repast for her husband’s guests (Bannerman, 1998). Whether for
family or guests, the Sunday roast was an institution, which allowed for “creative
cooking at weekends” (Constantine, 1991, p. 4). More than this the provision of food
was the culmination of the pride of the breadwinner and the skill of the housewife and
its service, and the hospitality embedded in the process of a team effort.
Fromthese early cookery books later evolved a streamof recipe collection publications
(Hayes, 1970; Allen and McKenzie, 1977; Gollan, 1978; Addison and McKay, 1985;
Constantine, 1991) that made accessible a collage of colonial and early Australian recipes.
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Much in the same way as Hieatt (2004) has identi?ed families of recipes, Australian
colonial cookery books, and their reproductions, reveal a familiarity of cookery methods
and ingredients, most discernibly from a British (Hayes, 1970; Allen and McKenzie, 1977)
or, perhaps more accurately, English culinary paradigm (Bannerman, 1998):
[A]ll meals in Queensland are English meals, and are eaten in that sober, comfortable manner
which characterises the feeding Briton all over the globe (Queensland at Home, 1905 cited in
Addison and McKay, 1985, p. 1).
Several recent works have begun to document various aspects of the temporal
development of the hospitality industry, in the context of tourism, in Australia. While,
Towner (1996) has traced the evolution of tourism as a leisure pursuit in the West up to
the cusp of the World War II, research has overviewed colonial Australian tourism
(Davidson and Spearritt, 2000) including travel and accommodation providers
(Richardson, 1999), in some cases with sect oral detail (Freeland, 1966). These scoping
works have been followed by more localized studies seeking to “describe and document
the nascent state of hospitality in colonial Victoria” (Clark, 2006, p. 1) and to
understand the role of the hospitality industry in facilitating cultural assimilation,
speci?cally in the context of the Irish in colonial Australia (O’Mahony, 2006).
While the English at the turn of the twentieth century were enjoying domestic over
public hospitality (Walton, 2000), the gender imbalance in colonial Australia obstructed
this (Bosworth, 1988). Moreover, there was a well documented shortage of domestic
servants. Gollan (1978, p. 85) suggests this contributed to the “informality which has
become the mark of Australian hospitality.” Undoubtedly, it was the Australian hotel, or
pub, where the colonials were enjoying their hospitality, though the eating there was
through necessity rather than what was to become a leisure pursuit (Towner, 1996).
The pub was the antipodean fusionof three styles of English establishment: the alehouse
(serving beer), the tavern (providing spirits) and the inn (for accommodation). The
realities of these public houses, populated as they were with various social miscreants
and on occasion an overwhelming atmosphere of despair (Freeland, 1966), from an
industrial viewpoint, was that they were attractive places to work. Richardson (1999)
supposes that women found both better pay and a freer life as barmaids in the pubs, than
as domestic servants. Underlying this is the assumption that there were a set of skills
that could readily be transferred from domestic to the commercial hospitality
environments, which O’Mahony (2006) has described as the commodi?cation of
domestic skills. Indeed, Symons (1998) suggests as much with the occupation of cooking.
What this discussion also infers is that it was the private homestead, or home, where the
most inviting hospitality, certainly in terms of the provision of food, was to be had, and
here we can source cookery books to gain further insights.
As Bannerman (1998) acknowledges, cookery books only tell part of the story. Indeed,
the focus is onwhat was eatenandnot so much onthe spirit inwhich foodwas served. The
sub-text needs probing for these details. So we arrive at Mrs Rawson’s. As Addison and
McKay (1985, p. 4) observe, “her recipes were spiced withchatty personal anecdotes,” thus
providing a suitable context to begin understanding colonial domestic hospitality.
Mrs Rawson
Born Wilhelmina Frances Cahill, in Sydney 1851, Mina Rawson is among the best known
of Queensland’s colonial cookery writers. Perhaps, where she differed from her
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contemporaries was that it is most probable she experimented with the recipes she
endorsed through domestic necessity or as a commercial operator, rather than as a
culinary whim. Likewise, her related experiences of managing a household were born of
some of her marital hardships. Leaving her family’s sheep station near Tamworth as a
young bride in 1872, Mina accompanied her ?rst husband through a series of business
pioneering ventures. After several years on the Rawson family cattle station west of
Mackay, Mina and Lance undertook the running of a sugar plantation near Maryborough,
where they became particularly reliant on Melanesian (Kanaka) labor, both in the ?elds
and inthe homestead. An unsuccessful ?shery venture inWide Bay inthe early1880s was
where Mina’s resourcefulness was really challenged making “furniture from barrels,
cases, kerosene tins” and on the food front Mina “smoked and cured ?sh, kept cows and
poultry, grew vegetables [. . .] [and] experimented with ways of using native foods”
(Addison and McKay, 1985, pp. 2-3). Returning to Maryborough Mina tried her hand,
albeit ?eetingly, as an hotelier. Here too, Mina had turned her adeptness with indigenous
products tosaleable items like pelicandown“pillows andquilts, driedseaweedmattresses,
snake andlizard skinpurses, opossumrugs” and the like (Addisonand McKay, 1985, p. 3).
After several years of hardship the Rawson’s ?nallymovedto Rockhampton, where Lance
accepted the position of Lands Commissioner. It was during these years, in the relative
comfort of a bustling colonial town, that Mina wrote her ?rst books, while also
establishing herself as ?rst a newspaper contributor and then regular columnist.
Mrs. Lance Rawson’s Cookery Book and Household Hints (Rawson, 1890) was one of
the ?rst and best known of Mina’s publications, following and incorporating her earlier
light-hearted Queensland Cookery and Poultry Book (1878). Later, Mina was to publish
The Australian Enquiry Book of Household and General Information (1894) and
The Antipodean Cookery Book and Kitchen Companion (1895). It is salient to note that
Mina’s lived experiences, which she related in her cookery books, were largely during
the colonial recession of the 1890s. Nonetheless, she contributed to various Queensland
newspapers and spent the year of Australia’s federation as social editor of
Rockhampton’s People’s Newspaper. Remarried and living in Sydney, Mina continued
to contribute stories for The Queenslander, in memoir form, into the 1920s.
Unlike many cookery books, Mina’s texts were targeted at the struggling bush
woman:
Mrs. Lance Rawson’s Cookery Book [. . .] is written entirely for the Colonies, and for the middle
classes, and for those people who cannot afford to buy a Mrs. Beeton or a Warne, but who can
afford the three shillings for this publication (Rawson, 1890, p. viii).
Even in the twilight of her writing career Rawson espoused these values. Indeed, her
columns in The Queenslander re?ected on her earlier hardships and admonished
husbands for misunderstanding the domestic challenges confronted by their pioneering
wives in the bush. Several themes emerge from this curt biography, which are poignant
for the study at hand. Clearly, Mina’s version of hospitality was born of domestic
experience and tempered by the imperatives of initiative, improvisation and innovation.
Moreover, the numerous ventures undertaken by the Rawson’s indicate entrepreneurial
traits, characterized by risk taking. However, the purpose of this paper is to extract
meaning from the primary text initially, rather than from secondary sources. A fuller
explanation then, of the method of enquiry adopted – hermeneutics – is required.
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Method
The etymological origin of hermeneutics (from the Greek hermeneutika) has been
translated as message analysis or things for interpreting (Szabo, 1996). The
contemporary application of hermeneutics is usually more focused than this though. It
is generally applied as an interpretative tool to understand the signi?cance of things or
even, as Malbon (1983, p. 207) quips “the signi?cance of signi?cance.” Originally
applied to exegetic interpretation, during modernity it assumed a disciplinary context
associated with the social sciences, which applied hermeneutics as a general method of
interpretation beyond the hitherto textual analysis. As such the methodological
application of hermeneutics came into the orbit of in?uence of the humanities, which
signi?cantly challenged the objectivist underpinnings of positivism (Heidegger, 1962).
Though open to debate, the most recent manifestation of this interpretative method is
philosophical hermeneutics, whose most active proponent is Gadamer (1975, 1977). In
this modi?cation the researcher acknowledges that their understanding, and hence
interpretation of a text is modeled by their own prejudices, interests and evaluations
(Arcodia, 2005). Furthermore, philosophical hermeneutics asserts that interpretation is
more than an art or a science but at the very centre of human being.
In application a hermeneutical approach assists in the (constructive) deconstruction of
texts alienated in time and space from the present (Crusius, 1991), so that the reader may
use the text as a portal into the past (and its values and assumptions). This is achieved by
oscillating between the text in part, and then as a whole, yet acknowledging the cultural
and temporal baggage brought to it by the reader. The hermeneutical cycle is then
complete when the text’s quintessence can be applied, or at least understood, in the
present. Traditional applications of hermeneutics may lead to a reinterpretation of
exegetic doctrine (Szabo, 1996), but this paper aims to use it as a vehicle for understanding
colonial hospitality at the threshold between its domestic and commercial manifestations.
Hermeneutics is most commonly applied as the interpretative tool of biblical texts
(Arcodia, 2005; Malbon, 1983) but is being applied to a range of tradition laden texts from
legal precedents (Szabo, 1996) to musical scores (Scherzinger, 1995). It is evident that Mrs
Rawson’s is a tradition laden text. Besides, the obvious vestiges of Australian colonial
culture, clearly the attitudes, not to mention the culinary heritage, are anglophile.
Notwithstanding epistemological and methodological disputes vis-a` -vis the application of
hermeneutics (Mendelson, 1979), and the risk that this present application would no doubt
drawjusti?able criticism fromvarious advocates of the method, clearly the application of
hermeneutics in the present context has various advantages not least of which is that the
aim of this paper is to extract latent meaning from the text on the colonial application of
hospitality. This, of course, is not the purpose of Mrs Rawson’s, which alternatively is an
instructional manual on colonial cookery and household management.
This study followed a multi-staged methodological process. First, the text was read as
narrative. Then, after tutorage into the application of the hermeneutical approach was
provided to the readers, further exchange withthe text occurred to facilitate what Lanigan
(1988) refers to as the “reduction” stage. This enabled the “write up” of the respective
textual analyses. True to the interpretative paradigmof hermeneutics, the two subsequent
readings are organized by theme yet are presented in raw and mostly (stylistically)
unedited fashion. They are characterized by the use of ?rst person dialogue, and at times,
repetition. They represent the application phase of the hermeneutical interpretation – that
is the readers’ end-use of the text.
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It is important to say something of the readers at this point, for as this account of
hermeneutics has been at pains to point out, the cultural baggage brought to the text’s
interpretation is an integral part of the hermeneutical circle. The ?rst reader of
Mediterranean heritage is a practicing chef and owner of a cosmopolitan Brisbane
restaurant specializing in organic produce. She is enjoying an emerging media pro?le.
The second reader, a former male chef of anglophile heritage, is now engaged in the
academic sector. Consequently, both readers bring a practitioner predilection to their
interpretations, one which Botterill (2000) endorses in qualitative research endeavors.
Readings
A multitude of re?ective themes are recorded, by the two readers, during the
hermeneutically facilitated textual analysis of Mrs Rawson’s. A number of key themes
are identi?ed and presented, as often as possible, in the original reader’s own words,
since there are indications that the readers (R1 and R2) became intimate with the text
and hence its author:
The writings of Mrs. Rawson is almost as if she is sitting in front of you or standing beside
you in the kitchen watching what you are doing [. . .] adding in her two penny’s worth (R1).
Notions of hospitality centre on the family unit as Mrs Rawson:
tands out as the founder of receipts (recipes) and domestic etiquette for inexperienced
colonial housewives struggling to make a comfortable home and kitchen in outback country
Queensland (R1).
But also embraces those responsible for hospitality:
The householdwas the domainof hospitalityinthe bush. Hospitality, while perhaps ostentatiously
offered by the host, be it Mrs. Rawson or her husband, is delivered by the servants (R2).
Hints are observable of the nuances of the host/guest relationship, especially in the
distinction between guest and visitor. All quotations cited within the readers’ dialogue
in the two case studies are from Mrs. Lance Rawson’s Cookery Book and Household
Hints (Rawson, 1890, 3rd ed.):
Presumably not providing hospitality for “unpleasing neighbours”, the Rawson’s clearly had
opportunity to entertain. [. . .] [T]he dessert named Guest Pudding gives some hint, [and] Mrs.
Rawson’s remark that “living in the bush, where one is apt to perhaps a dozen unexpected
visitors to feed” (R2).
Cleanliness, despite its challenges in the bush, appears a key aspect of delivering
quality hospitality:
Further readings of Mrs. Rawson’s into chapters of the kitchen, the laundry and the dairy lead
me to believe that rules of cleanliness and keeping house in order were of high priority (R1).
Mrs. Rawson spares no detail in, what appears now, the mundanity of household details
and economy. Given the remoteness of her homestead and the basic resources at her disposal,
notwithstanding the services of her servants, these details were obviously all consuming
daily concerns (R2).
This was closely linked with the Rawson’s ability to offer hospitality to the in?rmed:
Care for the unwell or distressed was clearly a priority at the Rawson’s. Besides [. . .] Indian
remedies, the physical welfare of “patients” are sometimes addressed with lemon water for
the “feverish”, or with an oatmeal drink which quenches the thirst. Soap, though involving a
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drawn out process, was made at the homestead, but chemicals needed to be purchased despite
their expense and the dif?culty of acquiring them in the bush (R2).
In culinary terms Mrs. Rawson’s receipts are reknown for:
[C]ooking with wallaby, bandicoots, kangaroo rats and paddy melons all of which were exotic
meats available beyond the commonly eaten beef and mutton (R1).
But:
[. . .] yet more exotic produce is to come: parrot soup, mud turtle, snipe, and iguana are
mentioned alongside fauna including indigenous mushrooms, spellikens, calabash, pigweed
and sow-thistle. Her detail in relating the recipes and familiarity with the preparation, for
instance the disagreeable process for the bandicoot, suggests Mrs. Rawson is not including
these dishes for novelty value, but is in fact intimate with the experience through ?rst-hand
knowledge. Indeed, she is convinced of the “merits of native meats” and equally of native
fruits (R2).
Equally, there is evidence of frugality and improvisation with more familiar anglophile
produce:
Mrs. Rawson gives great appreciation and advice for those cooking on a budget and/or less
and offers a “view to economy in all the recipes” (R1).
Offal recurs throughout Mrs. Rawson’s, sheep’s head “mak[ing] a capital dish”, and tongue
appearing, perhaps for its suitability to pickling. Mrs. Rawson is not adverse to rescuing
provisions on the verge of rank. “If the beef is slightly tainted, a lump of charcoal boiled in the
water with it will remove the disagreeable smell and taste” (R2).
There are suggestions that hospitality, on occasions, became lavish:
There are numerous references to Sherries, wines, brandies and ports, although presumably
the nettle beer was not imported from France. She acknowledges the oyster soup “is an
expensive soup, and only ?t for the town”, where Mrs. Rawson admits the ingredients are
available. Lobster and game make ?eeting appearances in the receipts. These recipes may
have been reserved for special occasions. Recipes too are given for Christmas for which eggs
were kept over, for wedding [cakes], and birthday’s, which suggests that [. . .] the Rawson’s
celebrated these occasions in style (R2).
However, regardless of the perceived quality of produce, those destined to eat her
cookery, be they guests, visitors or family, seemed to receive respectful hospitality:
Presentation remains a priority despite the economy and improvised nature of some of the
fare. The modest mutton cutlets are “arranged then in a dish, overlapping each other”; if
carefully made the Goose Pie looks very pretty; and croquettes of fowl are “serve[d] on a
napkin with fried parsley”. Even a reference to soda in the vegetable water, implies that
keeping the veges green was important (R2).
A good deal of Mrs Rawson’s is dedicated to household management, and how this
intersects with modern professional hospitality practices. The readers are struck by the
timelessness of her advice:
In matters of household domestic and professional management I admit that much to my
shock, not much has changed. Mrs. Rawson deems it ridiculous, and I cannot help think that
we haven’t moved very far in terms of management fearing staff, staff misconduct and
management’s ill treatment when it comes to dealing professionally with staff (R1).
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Times have not really changed at all and Mrs. Rawson emphasizes the same frustrations
with domestic life that can be directly compared to that of professional hospitality in
particularly, communication and dealing with staff (R1).
The readers indicate an instructive value in Mrs Rawson’s:
Mrs. Rawson writes that to yield the most bene?t from the servant the mistress should know
exactly how the work is to be done herself. The same principles can, and often are, directly
applied to a professional modern kitchen. The restaurant owner and chef have a special
relationship just as that of the mistress and servant. The dif?culties and or successes of
running a professional establishment have been highlighted by Mrs. Rawson herself.
She emphasizes that the head of the house or kitchen need to set boundaries at the initial
stages of employment or both parties will ?nd dif?culties with authority. I myself have also
had this experience ?rst hand in the running of my kitchen and found that not setting strong
boundaries at initial stages of employment can turn any successful kitchen into a melting pot
of “too many bosses spoil the broth” (R1).
Mrs Rawson deals with issues that have resonance today including being:
[A]fraid to approach, ?nd fault or reprimand an employee for fear of them leaving (R1).
And:
In speaking to one’s servants [. . .] “never correct a girl at all during the heat of temper” (R2).
Yet she acknowledges:
[T]hat much blame rests in the lap of the mistress for the errant behavior of her
domestics (R2).
And there is optimism in the surprise that in Mrs Rawson’s:
There is a fairness, respect, non-judgmental and equal opportunity approach to household
management that I didn’t expect to see, particularly as I found it morally supporting the codes
of practice of today’s professional hospitality industry. What is surprising, is that there is the
awareness in the colonial domestic context that brutality, bullying and misconduct in the
work place between mistress and servant is ineffective kitchen management and is
completely shunned upon as improper management (R1).
These apparent ethical mores are somewhat in contrast to some clear social, cultural,
ethnic and racial markers apparent in the text, which affect both the management of
the hospitality process and the genuineness of its delivery. Some are implied:
I feel from the text that servants/apprentices [. . .] are looked upon with the notion that they
are all doomed to hard work and in the end will fail you (R1).
Mrs Rawson advises:
[T]hat temperance should not be confused with familiarity: “don’t make a con?dant of your
servants” (R2).
And in respect to industrial relations:
Mrs. Rawson expresses abhorrence at the standard of domestics seeking work in the colonies
suggesting many “are no more ?t for their business than if they came as a ploughman”. She
also is appalled by their claims for “exorbitant wages”, radically suggesting that some sort of
wage ?xing might be adopted by mistresses. The consequences of submitting to these wage
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demands would be unthinkable, says Mrs. Rawson, “or every lady with small means will be
reduced to doing her own work” (R2).
In race relations Mrs Rawson relates:
[O]nce having to depend “upon the blacks and my Kanaka servants to provide animal for a
large party”. While clearly relying on local Aborigines and Kanakas, Mrs. Rawson betrays a
less than egalitarian mindset on occasion. When berating her servants for untidiness she
suggests they left their bedding in a state “un?t for blacks to sleep in” (R2).
Mrs Rawson seems more tolerant of other minorities, though, as she:
nwittingly perhaps, gives some insight into the ethnic diversity in colonial Australia. Mrs.
Rawson was shown how to make mayonnaise by a Frenchman while he “made a great fuss
about it”. [T]he Spanish style dish, which “sounds an odd dish, but [. . .] is very good”. There
is mention of the local German settler’s wives, who gathered a reputation as superior poultry
breeders. Perhaps they parted with the elaborate recipe for smoked German sausages. Mrs.
Rawson is familiar with the “Chinese way of making pastry”, and possibly bought turnips
from their market gardens (R2).
Though other themes emerged during textual analysis, those listed: hospitality and the
host/guest relationship, particularly as applied in social, cultural, racial and ethnic
contexts, sanitation and orderliness, the culinary aspects of hospitality and the
management of a household and those that performed the labor are primary. Following
is a further discussion relating these themes to the earlier literature, and how the
themes intersect.
Discussion
If we accept that “the main ingredient of hospitality . . . [is] the universal use of food”
(Selwyn, 2000, p. 35), then throughout Mrs. Rawson’s it is clear that food is the
centrepiece of colonial hospitality, whether in her own home or elsewhere. Moreover,
there are signi?ers that the level of hospitality is re?ected in the food served. As
Bannerman (1998, p. vii) observes “what we eat or drink . . . helps to de?ne the
importance of an occasion.” Hospitality for the Rawson’s was something for both
necessity and domestic consumption but not commercial pro?t. Yet linguistic hints
perhaps alert us to some subtleties in host/guest relationships. It could be suggested that
Guest Pudding was not served to the “unpleasing neighbours” or “visitors,” who arrived
unexpectedly. The latter were perhaps served out of what Derrida (2000) ascribes as an
ethical obligation. But the party for whom Mrs Rawson sent her “blacks” foraging may
have received the sort of hospitality that Telfer (2000) suggests involves some emotional
investment, an intrinsic willingness to ensure the happiness and safety of a guest. The
challenges of colonial bush life may actually have increased the transactional value of
the hospitality. As Braithwaite (2004) has argued, perhaps the most memorable, and
best, hospitality is offered in extreme circumstances. Certainly, food presentation,
despite the modesty of dishes on occasions, was paramount at the Rawson’s.
Both readers alluded to the, almost pedantic, cleanliness of Mrs Rawson towards her
household. Indeed, comfort and clean environs remain central tenets for modern
hospitality and there are inferences in Mrs Rawson’s that her ability to maintain a
clean household augmented her status as a host. However, it was her struggle with
domestic staff to maintain these standards that invite further discussion. Mrs Rawson’s
makes several references to the management of labor. One striking theme was the
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apparent shortage of labor. As Gollan (1978, p. 140) notes, “servants were never
plentiful in Australia.” Of particular concern was Mrs Rawson’s observation that the
domestics were prepared to ask for more in wages than what she thought they were
worth, and radically suggesting some form of wage ?xing among mistresses. It
appears complaints about domestics and their demands for exorbitant wages were
common from earliest colonial times (Symons, 1982).
This tension apparent in Mrs Rawson’s, between domestic and employer, perhaps
accounts for the willingness of domestics to transfer their skills from households to
commercial environments, most notably the pub. The inequality of master/servant
interactions was etched in the social practices of colonial domestic reality (Higman, 2002).
Egalitarianism, a much lauded Australian trait, perhaps emerged in the environs of the
pub, abetted by female domestics liberated from the strictures of class-based domestic
service (Freeman, 1966), although it has equally been argued that egalitarianism and
mateship became the privilege of working class males (Kirkby and Luckins, 2006).
Interestingly, it could be suggested that the price outlaid for servants may have
impacted on the nature of Mrs Rawson’s recipes. From the earliest of cookery writers, it
was common for the labor cost of the dish to be unaccounted. Indeed, the famed Roma
epicure, Apicius, was completely impervious to the labor component of the dish: “The
labor item never worried the ancient employer. It was either very cheap or entirely
free of charge” (Vehling, 1977, p. 24). While Apicius’ contemporaries bene?ted from the
collective toils of a bondage system, Mrs. Rawson, it appears, paid signi?cantly for
labor, notwithstanding the use of, presumably discounted, Kanaka and possibly
Aboriginal hands. Thus, the frugality of many of her receipts may have re?ected these
expenses as well as the availability of produce.
Moreover, it could be suggested that social aspirations in?uenced the delivery of
hospitality at the Rawson’s. Certainly, it is reasonable to presume that the Rawson
household was acutely conscious of social status, even when in remote and inaccessible
regions. As Symons (1982, p. 40) argues, the colonial mistresses “prepared lavish teas
and fancy social spreads” as part of a struggle “to adapt bourgeoisie elegance to rough
bush life.”
The literature widely critiques gender as well as social class (Yeates, 1989; Darke
and Gurney, 2000; Lynch and McWhannell, 2000; White et al., 2005) in the hospitality
encounter. Indeed, the ?rst reader’s account is rich in gendered insights. However,
there is evidence of ethnic and racial attitudes and in?uences in Mrs Rawson’s.
The British (or English) table dominated antipodean cuisine. Nonetheless, there are
intimations in Mrs Rawson’s “of foreign in?uences on Australian cooking” (Gollan,
1978, p. vii), but there are suggestions too that there was already a ?uidity of ethnic
in?uences on English cookery. Bannerman (1998) suggests their European neighbors,
and colonial chattels, had already in?uenced British cuisine, especially in the dietary
consumption of the well-to-do classes. Clearly, this accounts for Mrs Rawson’s
adoption of French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Indian dishes but does cast some
doubt on how and where she acquired the recipes – whether from other sources, other
colonists, or on her travels. There is, though, evidence of migrant minorities in primary
production in Mrs Rawson’s Queensland, for instance the German poultry breeders and
Chinese market gardeners, who have previously been observed as a common
late-colonial phenomena (Symons, 1982). O’Mahony suggests that this colonial
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development progressed to ethnic minorities transferring their primary production
skills to distribution. This is manifest in the contemporary hospitality and retail sector.
What outwardly appears a convivial level of engagement with the Melanesian and
indigenous laborers and domestics could be fraught with overstatement. While no
doubt being exposed to native foods and products for handicraft, clearly Mrs Rawson’s
recipes indicate an application of Old World methods to their preparation and
presentation. Clearly, the production methods were at odds with the subsistence
philosophy of the Aborigines (Gollan, 1978). Moreover, Mrs Rawson’s statement
regarding the untidy state of servants’ bedding being un?t for blacks betrays some
deep-seated prejudicial values. This raises questions about who had the status of
host/guest in colonial Australia. Schlunke (2001, p. 1), in discussing the “awkward
arrangement of relationship” exposed between indigenous Australian’s and the new
and old settler inquires about matters of sovereignty. In Mrs Rawson’s, there is little
evidence suggesting that the Aborigines where afforded the privilege of either host or
guest, a reality that perhaps continues even in the era after the debunking of the terra
nullius myth. Kelly (2006) goes further to suggest that the celebrated Australian
qualities of generosity and hospitality are selectively applied, citing foreign policy
towards refugees as less than welcoming.
As an aside, it is interesting that the Rawson’s brief business venture was
characterized by risk-taking in the mold of the modern entrepreneur. This has been
identi?ed as a trait of investors in the hospitality industry, particularly in small to
medium enterprises. It is, then, perhaps no coincidence that Mrs Rawson herself later
applied her domestic skills in a commercial capacity during her brief sojourn as a
Maryborough hotelier. Clearly this, as with the sale of her homemade handicrafts, is
evidence of the commodi?cation of domestic skills (O’Mahony, 2006). It is interesting
that a hotel, or pub, was the Rawson’s ?rst commercial hospitality foray – perhaps
ironic since the pub was possibly the refuge of their former domestics.
Conclusions
While a range of issues have been discussed that skirt the periphery of hospitality, the
key to this research has been to begin to understand domestic hospitality and how it
may relate conceptually and in practice to today’s industrial environment. The primary
vehicle to understanding colonial domestic hospitality attitudes has been through
dialogue with Mrs Rawson’s receipts and accompanying quips, but also her household
management hints. Between the colonial managerial attitudes to domestic labor, its
apparent shortages, the transferable nature of hospitality skills, the inference that the
supply side of labor was characterized by lower social standing (and the demand
side by higher social status) and tensions regarding remuneration, it is apparent that
there are similarities between colonial domestic hospitality and then the industrial
environments of ?rst the pioneering hospitality operators and then today’s hospitality
industry. The suggested notion of the perceived divide between guest and visitor
perhaps captures the essence of the problematic transition from domestic to
commercial hospitality, where the latter becomes transactional (Telfer, 2000). There are
also suggestions that those hallmarks of Australian hospitality: egalitarianism,
generosity and welcome were perhaps selectively applied – and that the colonial
legacy persists. Also captured is the apparent nexus between hospitality in domestic,
commercial, national and policy discourse.
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Also apparent, is that the cookbook goes beyond a recipe collection as a text.
Foodmaking, as Supski (2005) notes, is a thoughtful practice, one that betrays
a complexity of discourse, played out in the context of a recipe. Adopting indigenous
produce yet preparing it within familiar English culinary tradition serves as one obvious
example.
Hermeneutics has been selected as the most appropriate methodological framework
within which to conduct this study because it accommodates the characteristics of this
study and offers an essential method for validating its interpretative and
philosophical nature. By offering a process to re?ect on the circumstances that
allow understanding and on the validity of the interpretative activity, hermeneutics
provides the researcher with the opportunity to investigate sources that are removed
in time and culture. Texts preserve discourse over time and inevitably result in some
alienation as the audience changes and become more and more removed in time and
space until they speak about a situation to an audience that no longer exists. Since
texts cannot explain themselves, hermeneutics is of great signi?cance to inquiry
because it seeks to overcome the alienation of writing and to restore as full a meaning
as possible to “linguistic structures estranged from context and voice” (Crusius, 1991,
p. 21).
The chosen methodology has highlighted that even though impediments to textual
interpretation can be identi?ed, the resultant understanding is still localized. The value
position brought to the interpretation by the two readers is further convoluted by that of
the original author. A further level of engagement with the text could be achieved by
cooking out of it (in the period conditions and with equipment and produce available to
Mrs Rawson’s) – and hence adding a further dimension of accessibility to a time and
place removed. Clearly also, this study has not compared Mrs Rawson’s to that of her
contemporaries: the Hannah MacLurcans, (E.M.) Sheldons, and Amy Schauers. Future
research could embrace a more comparative approach to textual analysis, and make
more use of other contemporaneous primary documents. In the context of domestic
service, Mrs Rawson’s continues the dominance of accounts from the employer’s
perspective (Higman, 2002) – alternative accounts may contribute to a more balanced
view of hospitality, and who provided it, particularly from the viewpoint of gender,
which has been largely neglected in this study. Moreover, the identi?cation of some of
the earliest commercial hospitality operators, as Clark (2006) and O’Mahony (2006) have
done, yet probing from the cultural aspects of hospitality service, would be fruitful in
further understanding how domestic colonial notions of hospitality shaped
contemporary commercial hospitality practice.
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Corresponding author
Richard N.S. Robinson can be contacted at: [email protected]
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doc_943104928.pdf
This research paper aims to report on the findings of an innovative study to extract
contemporaneous interpretations of Australian colonial domestic hospitality in Mrs. Lance Rawson’s
Cookery Book and Household Hints
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Reading Australian colonial hospitality: a simple recipe
Richard N.S. Robinson Charles Arcodia
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J ill Poulston, (2008),"Hospitality workplace problems and poor training: a close relationship",
International J ournal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 20 Iss 4 pp. 412-427 http://
dx.doi.org/10.1108/09596110810873525
Michael C.G. Davidson, Ruth McPhail, Shane Barry, (2011),"Hospitality HRM: past, present and the
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dx.doi.org/10.1108/09596111111130001
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Reading Australian colonial
hospitality: a simple recipe
Richard N.S. Robinson and Charles Arcodia
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, School of Tourism,
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – This research paper aims to report on the ?ndings of an innovative study to extract
contemporaneous interpretations of Australian colonial domestic hospitality in Mrs. Lance Rawson’s
Cookery Book and Household Hints.
Design/methodology/approach – To dialogue with the text’s original author, as free of time and
space permutations as possible a hermeneutical approach is adopted. Hermeneutics has been
successfully applied as an interpretative tool, to a range of tradition laden signi?cant texts as it assists
in the (constructive) deconstruction of texts so that the reader may use them as a portal into the past
(its values and assumptions).
Findings – The ?ndings of these textual analyses present a number of themes: the embedded notion of
host/guest relations, especially as it transpires in “the bush”; the earliest impacts of indigenous and ethnic
minorities on food production, its consumption and hence private hospitality; and evidence of a range of
issues concerned with the management of a household. An Australian hospitality is also explored.
Research limitations/implications – Just as researchers have sought to identify an antipodean
cuisine, this paper is a launch for understanding the origins of colonial hospitality, albeit from a
private perspective.
Practical implications – The ?ndings might assist the Australian hospitality industry in
developing a regional service culture.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to emerging studies in hospitality, by deconstructing a
colonial cookbook, via the medium of textual analysis, and underpinned by a hermeneutic
interpretative paradigm.
Keywords Hospitality services, Cooking, Australia
Paper type Research paper
A feast of imagination – having no dinner, but reading a cookery book (Addison and McKay,
1985).
Introduction
Recent research seeks alternative approaches to investigate hospitality as a discourse
(Lashley and Morrison, 2000), the bene?ts of which aid practitioners as they seek to
delight customers in the commercial environment. In the Australian context developing
a sense of hospitality issues many postcolonial challenges. Tensions exist between
indigenous Australians, and newand old settlers in reference to host/guest relationships
(Schlunke, 2001). Moreover, the antipodean characteristics of “hospitableness” and
“generosity,” touted as innate by even politicians, appear ?imsy when applied to
Australia’s of?cial policy regarding refugees (Kelly, 2006). Despite these tensions,
Australia, as a major tourist destination, is con?dently aware of a unique style of
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1750-6182.htm
IJCTHR
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374
Received June 2007
Revised November 2007
Accepted February 2008
International Journal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research
Vol. 2 No. 4, 2008
pp. 374-388
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6182
DOI 10.1108/17506180810908998
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hospitality – one that manifests as an export also, for example in the European Aussie
theme pub-phenomena (West, 2006). This paper utilizes an Australian colonial text to
reveal some underlying characteristics of antipodean hospitality.
Typically, motives for using the cookbook genre as a window into history may
include the exploration of sociological, environmental, economic and political
phenomena. The legitimacy of the cookbook as a document worthy of interpretation
has been given integrity by Supski (2005), who labels foodmaking, and by association
the recording of recipes, as thoughtful practice. This paper aims to use this literary
genre to understand domestic colonial notions of hospitality, their in?uence on the
development of commercial hospitality in Australia and implications on modern
professional practice. Mrs. Lance Rawson’s Cookery Book and Household Hints
(Rawson, 1890, 3rd ed.), an original viewed at the State Library of Queensland
Archives, is written by Wilhelmina (Mina) Rawson, the wife of a pioneering colonial
venturist. Following is a report on the ?ndings of two textual analysis readings of Mrs.
Rawson’s, particularly to extract contemporaneous interpretations of colonial domestic
hospitality and its management. An interpretative method of enquiry, hermeneutics, is
applied to the two readings. This paper begins by introducing the extant literature on
colonial cookery, for this is the focal point of the text, and an overview of the study of
the emergence of hospitality in Australia. To situate the reader, this paper
backgrounds the text and its author before introducing the methodology adopted for
this study. The textual analyses are presented in integrated fashion followed by a
discussion incorporating this research’s various components.
Colonial cookery books and hospitality
Manyof the cookerybooks available incolonial Australia are writtenbyEnglishscribes in
England as evidenced by tomes from Mrs Beeton and Eliza Acton (Howitt and Acton,
1990). Those produced in Australia manifest several genres – the ?rst some sort of
culinary guide in the colonies, perhaps to diminish the distance between real civilisation
and the colonies, second country women’s association cookery books or compiled cookery
books (Ireland, 1981), and the other practical approaches to adapting to life in the colony.
Examples of the former include Abbott’s (1970) “The English and Australian cookery
book: cooking for the many as well as the ‘Upper Ten Thousand’ by an Australian
Aristologist” reproducedbyBurt. These were clearlyaimedat upper classes as epitomised
by one of Abbott’s (1970) chapters: “A gentlewoman’s guide to all occasions.” The third
genre, that of practical colonial cookery approaches, is characterized by the work of
Hannah MacLurcan, Elizabeth (E.M.) Sheldon, Amy Schauer and Lance (Mina) Rawson.
Several commonalities are evident in these publications that hint at the nature of
domestic hospitality. Even though the “most highly valued feminine attributes [were]
associated with cookery” (Constantine, 1991, p. 5), the housewife was obliged to
provide a healthy repast for her husband’s guests (Bannerman, 1998). Whether for
family or guests, the Sunday roast was an institution, which allowed for “creative
cooking at weekends” (Constantine, 1991, p. 4). More than this the provision of food
was the culmination of the pride of the breadwinner and the skill of the housewife and
its service, and the hospitality embedded in the process of a team effort.
Fromthese early cookery books later evolved a streamof recipe collection publications
(Hayes, 1970; Allen and McKenzie, 1977; Gollan, 1978; Addison and McKay, 1985;
Constantine, 1991) that made accessible a collage of colonial and early Australian recipes.
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Much in the same way as Hieatt (2004) has identi?ed families of recipes, Australian
colonial cookery books, and their reproductions, reveal a familiarity of cookery methods
and ingredients, most discernibly from a British (Hayes, 1970; Allen and McKenzie, 1977)
or, perhaps more accurately, English culinary paradigm (Bannerman, 1998):
[A]ll meals in Queensland are English meals, and are eaten in that sober, comfortable manner
which characterises the feeding Briton all over the globe (Queensland at Home, 1905 cited in
Addison and McKay, 1985, p. 1).
Several recent works have begun to document various aspects of the temporal
development of the hospitality industry, in the context of tourism, in Australia. While,
Towner (1996) has traced the evolution of tourism as a leisure pursuit in the West up to
the cusp of the World War II, research has overviewed colonial Australian tourism
(Davidson and Spearritt, 2000) including travel and accommodation providers
(Richardson, 1999), in some cases with sect oral detail (Freeland, 1966). These scoping
works have been followed by more localized studies seeking to “describe and document
the nascent state of hospitality in colonial Victoria” (Clark, 2006, p. 1) and to
understand the role of the hospitality industry in facilitating cultural assimilation,
speci?cally in the context of the Irish in colonial Australia (O’Mahony, 2006).
While the English at the turn of the twentieth century were enjoying domestic over
public hospitality (Walton, 2000), the gender imbalance in colonial Australia obstructed
this (Bosworth, 1988). Moreover, there was a well documented shortage of domestic
servants. Gollan (1978, p. 85) suggests this contributed to the “informality which has
become the mark of Australian hospitality.” Undoubtedly, it was the Australian hotel, or
pub, where the colonials were enjoying their hospitality, though the eating there was
through necessity rather than what was to become a leisure pursuit (Towner, 1996).
The pub was the antipodean fusionof three styles of English establishment: the alehouse
(serving beer), the tavern (providing spirits) and the inn (for accommodation). The
realities of these public houses, populated as they were with various social miscreants
and on occasion an overwhelming atmosphere of despair (Freeland, 1966), from an
industrial viewpoint, was that they were attractive places to work. Richardson (1999)
supposes that women found both better pay and a freer life as barmaids in the pubs, than
as domestic servants. Underlying this is the assumption that there were a set of skills
that could readily be transferred from domestic to the commercial hospitality
environments, which O’Mahony (2006) has described as the commodi?cation of
domestic skills. Indeed, Symons (1998) suggests as much with the occupation of cooking.
What this discussion also infers is that it was the private homestead, or home, where the
most inviting hospitality, certainly in terms of the provision of food, was to be had, and
here we can source cookery books to gain further insights.
As Bannerman (1998) acknowledges, cookery books only tell part of the story. Indeed,
the focus is onwhat was eatenandnot so much onthe spirit inwhich foodwas served. The
sub-text needs probing for these details. So we arrive at Mrs Rawson’s. As Addison and
McKay (1985, p. 4) observe, “her recipes were spiced withchatty personal anecdotes,” thus
providing a suitable context to begin understanding colonial domestic hospitality.
Mrs Rawson
Born Wilhelmina Frances Cahill, in Sydney 1851, Mina Rawson is among the best known
of Queensland’s colonial cookery writers. Perhaps, where she differed from her
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contemporaries was that it is most probable she experimented with the recipes she
endorsed through domestic necessity or as a commercial operator, rather than as a
culinary whim. Likewise, her related experiences of managing a household were born of
some of her marital hardships. Leaving her family’s sheep station near Tamworth as a
young bride in 1872, Mina accompanied her ?rst husband through a series of business
pioneering ventures. After several years on the Rawson family cattle station west of
Mackay, Mina and Lance undertook the running of a sugar plantation near Maryborough,
where they became particularly reliant on Melanesian (Kanaka) labor, both in the ?elds
and inthe homestead. An unsuccessful ?shery venture inWide Bay inthe early1880s was
where Mina’s resourcefulness was really challenged making “furniture from barrels,
cases, kerosene tins” and on the food front Mina “smoked and cured ?sh, kept cows and
poultry, grew vegetables [. . .] [and] experimented with ways of using native foods”
(Addison and McKay, 1985, pp. 2-3). Returning to Maryborough Mina tried her hand,
albeit ?eetingly, as an hotelier. Here too, Mina had turned her adeptness with indigenous
products tosaleable items like pelicandown“pillows andquilts, driedseaweedmattresses,
snake andlizard skinpurses, opossumrugs” and the like (Addisonand McKay, 1985, p. 3).
After several years of hardship the Rawson’s ?nallymovedto Rockhampton, where Lance
accepted the position of Lands Commissioner. It was during these years, in the relative
comfort of a bustling colonial town, that Mina wrote her ?rst books, while also
establishing herself as ?rst a newspaper contributor and then regular columnist.
Mrs. Lance Rawson’s Cookery Book and Household Hints (Rawson, 1890) was one of
the ?rst and best known of Mina’s publications, following and incorporating her earlier
light-hearted Queensland Cookery and Poultry Book (1878). Later, Mina was to publish
The Australian Enquiry Book of Household and General Information (1894) and
The Antipodean Cookery Book and Kitchen Companion (1895). It is salient to note that
Mina’s lived experiences, which she related in her cookery books, were largely during
the colonial recession of the 1890s. Nonetheless, she contributed to various Queensland
newspapers and spent the year of Australia’s federation as social editor of
Rockhampton’s People’s Newspaper. Remarried and living in Sydney, Mina continued
to contribute stories for The Queenslander, in memoir form, into the 1920s.
Unlike many cookery books, Mina’s texts were targeted at the struggling bush
woman:
Mrs. Lance Rawson’s Cookery Book [. . .] is written entirely for the Colonies, and for the middle
classes, and for those people who cannot afford to buy a Mrs. Beeton or a Warne, but who can
afford the three shillings for this publication (Rawson, 1890, p. viii).
Even in the twilight of her writing career Rawson espoused these values. Indeed, her
columns in The Queenslander re?ected on her earlier hardships and admonished
husbands for misunderstanding the domestic challenges confronted by their pioneering
wives in the bush. Several themes emerge from this curt biography, which are poignant
for the study at hand. Clearly, Mina’s version of hospitality was born of domestic
experience and tempered by the imperatives of initiative, improvisation and innovation.
Moreover, the numerous ventures undertaken by the Rawson’s indicate entrepreneurial
traits, characterized by risk taking. However, the purpose of this paper is to extract
meaning from the primary text initially, rather than from secondary sources. A fuller
explanation then, of the method of enquiry adopted – hermeneutics – is required.
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Method
The etymological origin of hermeneutics (from the Greek hermeneutika) has been
translated as message analysis or things for interpreting (Szabo, 1996). The
contemporary application of hermeneutics is usually more focused than this though. It
is generally applied as an interpretative tool to understand the signi?cance of things or
even, as Malbon (1983, p. 207) quips “the signi?cance of signi?cance.” Originally
applied to exegetic interpretation, during modernity it assumed a disciplinary context
associated with the social sciences, which applied hermeneutics as a general method of
interpretation beyond the hitherto textual analysis. As such the methodological
application of hermeneutics came into the orbit of in?uence of the humanities, which
signi?cantly challenged the objectivist underpinnings of positivism (Heidegger, 1962).
Though open to debate, the most recent manifestation of this interpretative method is
philosophical hermeneutics, whose most active proponent is Gadamer (1975, 1977). In
this modi?cation the researcher acknowledges that their understanding, and hence
interpretation of a text is modeled by their own prejudices, interests and evaluations
(Arcodia, 2005). Furthermore, philosophical hermeneutics asserts that interpretation is
more than an art or a science but at the very centre of human being.
In application a hermeneutical approach assists in the (constructive) deconstruction of
texts alienated in time and space from the present (Crusius, 1991), so that the reader may
use the text as a portal into the past (and its values and assumptions). This is achieved by
oscillating between the text in part, and then as a whole, yet acknowledging the cultural
and temporal baggage brought to it by the reader. The hermeneutical cycle is then
complete when the text’s quintessence can be applied, or at least understood, in the
present. Traditional applications of hermeneutics may lead to a reinterpretation of
exegetic doctrine (Szabo, 1996), but this paper aims to use it as a vehicle for understanding
colonial hospitality at the threshold between its domestic and commercial manifestations.
Hermeneutics is most commonly applied as the interpretative tool of biblical texts
(Arcodia, 2005; Malbon, 1983) but is being applied to a range of tradition laden texts from
legal precedents (Szabo, 1996) to musical scores (Scherzinger, 1995). It is evident that Mrs
Rawson’s is a tradition laden text. Besides, the obvious vestiges of Australian colonial
culture, clearly the attitudes, not to mention the culinary heritage, are anglophile.
Notwithstanding epistemological and methodological disputes vis-a` -vis the application of
hermeneutics (Mendelson, 1979), and the risk that this present application would no doubt
drawjusti?able criticism fromvarious advocates of the method, clearly the application of
hermeneutics in the present context has various advantages not least of which is that the
aim of this paper is to extract latent meaning from the text on the colonial application of
hospitality. This, of course, is not the purpose of Mrs Rawson’s, which alternatively is an
instructional manual on colonial cookery and household management.
This study followed a multi-staged methodological process. First, the text was read as
narrative. Then, after tutorage into the application of the hermeneutical approach was
provided to the readers, further exchange withthe text occurred to facilitate what Lanigan
(1988) refers to as the “reduction” stage. This enabled the “write up” of the respective
textual analyses. True to the interpretative paradigmof hermeneutics, the two subsequent
readings are organized by theme yet are presented in raw and mostly (stylistically)
unedited fashion. They are characterized by the use of ?rst person dialogue, and at times,
repetition. They represent the application phase of the hermeneutical interpretation – that
is the readers’ end-use of the text.
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It is important to say something of the readers at this point, for as this account of
hermeneutics has been at pains to point out, the cultural baggage brought to the text’s
interpretation is an integral part of the hermeneutical circle. The ?rst reader of
Mediterranean heritage is a practicing chef and owner of a cosmopolitan Brisbane
restaurant specializing in organic produce. She is enjoying an emerging media pro?le.
The second reader, a former male chef of anglophile heritage, is now engaged in the
academic sector. Consequently, both readers bring a practitioner predilection to their
interpretations, one which Botterill (2000) endorses in qualitative research endeavors.
Readings
A multitude of re?ective themes are recorded, by the two readers, during the
hermeneutically facilitated textual analysis of Mrs Rawson’s. A number of key themes
are identi?ed and presented, as often as possible, in the original reader’s own words,
since there are indications that the readers (R1 and R2) became intimate with the text
and hence its author:
The writings of Mrs. Rawson is almost as if she is sitting in front of you or standing beside
you in the kitchen watching what you are doing [. . .] adding in her two penny’s worth (R1).
Notions of hospitality centre on the family unit as Mrs Rawson:
colonial housewives struggling to make a comfortable home and kitchen in outback country
Queensland (R1).
But also embraces those responsible for hospitality:
The householdwas the domainof hospitalityinthe bush. Hospitality, while perhaps ostentatiously
offered by the host, be it Mrs. Rawson or her husband, is delivered by the servants (R2).
Hints are observable of the nuances of the host/guest relationship, especially in the
distinction between guest and visitor. All quotations cited within the readers’ dialogue
in the two case studies are from Mrs. Lance Rawson’s Cookery Book and Household
Hints (Rawson, 1890, 3rd ed.):
Presumably not providing hospitality for “unpleasing neighbours”, the Rawson’s clearly had
opportunity to entertain. [. . .] [T]he dessert named Guest Pudding gives some hint, [and] Mrs.
Rawson’s remark that “living in the bush, where one is apt to perhaps a dozen unexpected
visitors to feed” (R2).
Cleanliness, despite its challenges in the bush, appears a key aspect of delivering
quality hospitality:
Further readings of Mrs. Rawson’s into chapters of the kitchen, the laundry and the dairy lead
me to believe that rules of cleanliness and keeping house in order were of high priority (R1).
Mrs. Rawson spares no detail in, what appears now, the mundanity of household details
and economy. Given the remoteness of her homestead and the basic resources at her disposal,
notwithstanding the services of her servants, these details were obviously all consuming
daily concerns (R2).
This was closely linked with the Rawson’s ability to offer hospitality to the in?rmed:
Care for the unwell or distressed was clearly a priority at the Rawson’s. Besides [. . .] Indian
remedies, the physical welfare of “patients” are sometimes addressed with lemon water for
the “feverish”, or with an oatmeal drink which quenches the thirst. Soap, though involving a
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drawn out process, was made at the homestead, but chemicals needed to be purchased despite
their expense and the dif?culty of acquiring them in the bush (R2).
In culinary terms Mrs. Rawson’s receipts are reknown for:
[C]ooking with wallaby, bandicoots, kangaroo rats and paddy melons all of which were exotic
meats available beyond the commonly eaten beef and mutton (R1).
But:
[. . .] yet more exotic produce is to come: parrot soup, mud turtle, snipe, and iguana are
mentioned alongside fauna including indigenous mushrooms, spellikens, calabash, pigweed
and sow-thistle. Her detail in relating the recipes and familiarity with the preparation, for
instance the disagreeable process for the bandicoot, suggests Mrs. Rawson is not including
these dishes for novelty value, but is in fact intimate with the experience through ?rst-hand
knowledge. Indeed, she is convinced of the “merits of native meats” and equally of native
fruits (R2).
Equally, there is evidence of frugality and improvisation with more familiar anglophile
produce:
Mrs. Rawson gives great appreciation and advice for those cooking on a budget and/or less
and offers a “view to economy in all the recipes” (R1).
Offal recurs throughout Mrs. Rawson’s, sheep’s head “mak[ing] a capital dish”, and tongue
appearing, perhaps for its suitability to pickling. Mrs. Rawson is not adverse to rescuing
provisions on the verge of rank. “If the beef is slightly tainted, a lump of charcoal boiled in the
water with it will remove the disagreeable smell and taste” (R2).
There are suggestions that hospitality, on occasions, became lavish:
There are numerous references to Sherries, wines, brandies and ports, although presumably
the nettle beer was not imported from France. She acknowledges the oyster soup “is an
expensive soup, and only ?t for the town”, where Mrs. Rawson admits the ingredients are
available. Lobster and game make ?eeting appearances in the receipts. These recipes may
have been reserved for special occasions. Recipes too are given for Christmas for which eggs
were kept over, for wedding [cakes], and birthday’s, which suggests that [. . .] the Rawson’s
celebrated these occasions in style (R2).
However, regardless of the perceived quality of produce, those destined to eat her
cookery, be they guests, visitors or family, seemed to receive respectful hospitality:
Presentation remains a priority despite the economy and improvised nature of some of the
fare. The modest mutton cutlets are “arranged then in a dish, overlapping each other”; if
carefully made the Goose Pie looks very pretty; and croquettes of fowl are “serve[d] on a
napkin with fried parsley”. Even a reference to soda in the vegetable water, implies that
keeping the veges green was important (R2).
A good deal of Mrs Rawson’s is dedicated to household management, and how this
intersects with modern professional hospitality practices. The readers are struck by the
timelessness of her advice:
In matters of household domestic and professional management I admit that much to my
shock, not much has changed. Mrs. Rawson deems it ridiculous, and I cannot help think that
we haven’t moved very far in terms of management fearing staff, staff misconduct and
management’s ill treatment when it comes to dealing professionally with staff (R1).
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Times have not really changed at all and Mrs. Rawson emphasizes the same frustrations
with domestic life that can be directly compared to that of professional hospitality in
particularly, communication and dealing with staff (R1).
The readers indicate an instructive value in Mrs Rawson’s:
Mrs. Rawson writes that to yield the most bene?t from the servant the mistress should know
exactly how the work is to be done herself. The same principles can, and often are, directly
applied to a professional modern kitchen. The restaurant owner and chef have a special
relationship just as that of the mistress and servant. The dif?culties and or successes of
running a professional establishment have been highlighted by Mrs. Rawson herself.
She emphasizes that the head of the house or kitchen need to set boundaries at the initial
stages of employment or both parties will ?nd dif?culties with authority. I myself have also
had this experience ?rst hand in the running of my kitchen and found that not setting strong
boundaries at initial stages of employment can turn any successful kitchen into a melting pot
of “too many bosses spoil the broth” (R1).
Mrs Rawson deals with issues that have resonance today including being:
[A]fraid to approach, ?nd fault or reprimand an employee for fear of them leaving (R1).
And:
In speaking to one’s servants [. . .] “never correct a girl at all during the heat of temper” (R2).
Yet she acknowledges:
[T]hat much blame rests in the lap of the mistress for the errant behavior of her
domestics (R2).
And there is optimism in the surprise that in Mrs Rawson’s:
There is a fairness, respect, non-judgmental and equal opportunity approach to household
management that I didn’t expect to see, particularly as I found it morally supporting the codes
of practice of today’s professional hospitality industry. What is surprising, is that there is the
awareness in the colonial domestic context that brutality, bullying and misconduct in the
work place between mistress and servant is ineffective kitchen management and is
completely shunned upon as improper management (R1).
These apparent ethical mores are somewhat in contrast to some clear social, cultural,
ethnic and racial markers apparent in the text, which affect both the management of
the hospitality process and the genuineness of its delivery. Some are implied:
I feel from the text that servants/apprentices [. . .] are looked upon with the notion that they
are all doomed to hard work and in the end will fail you (R1).
Mrs Rawson advises:
[T]hat temperance should not be confused with familiarity: “don’t make a con?dant of your
servants” (R2).
And in respect to industrial relations:
Mrs. Rawson expresses abhorrence at the standard of domestics seeking work in the colonies
suggesting many “are no more ?t for their business than if they came as a ploughman”. She
also is appalled by their claims for “exorbitant wages”, radically suggesting that some sort of
wage ?xing might be adopted by mistresses. The consequences of submitting to these wage
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demands would be unthinkable, says Mrs. Rawson, “or every lady with small means will be
reduced to doing her own work” (R2).
In race relations Mrs Rawson relates:
[O]nce having to depend “upon the blacks and my Kanaka servants to provide animal for a
large party”. While clearly relying on local Aborigines and Kanakas, Mrs. Rawson betrays a
less than egalitarian mindset on occasion. When berating her servants for untidiness she
suggests they left their bedding in a state “un?t for blacks to sleep in” (R2).
Mrs Rawson seems more tolerant of other minorities, though, as she:
nwittingly perhaps, gives some insight into the ethnic diversity in colonial Australia. Mrs.
Rawson was shown how to make mayonnaise by a Frenchman while he “made a great fuss
about it”. [T]he Spanish style dish, which “sounds an odd dish, but [. . .] is very good”. There
is mention of the local German settler’s wives, who gathered a reputation as superior poultry
breeders. Perhaps they parted with the elaborate recipe for smoked German sausages. Mrs.
Rawson is familiar with the “Chinese way of making pastry”, and possibly bought turnips
from their market gardens (R2).
Though other themes emerged during textual analysis, those listed: hospitality and the
host/guest relationship, particularly as applied in social, cultural, racial and ethnic
contexts, sanitation and orderliness, the culinary aspects of hospitality and the
management of a household and those that performed the labor are primary. Following
is a further discussion relating these themes to the earlier literature, and how the
themes intersect.
Discussion
If we accept that “the main ingredient of hospitality . . . [is] the universal use of food”
(Selwyn, 2000, p. 35), then throughout Mrs. Rawson’s it is clear that food is the
centrepiece of colonial hospitality, whether in her own home or elsewhere. Moreover,
there are signi?ers that the level of hospitality is re?ected in the food served. As
Bannerman (1998, p. vii) observes “what we eat or drink . . . helps to de?ne the
importance of an occasion.” Hospitality for the Rawson’s was something for both
necessity and domestic consumption but not commercial pro?t. Yet linguistic hints
perhaps alert us to some subtleties in host/guest relationships. It could be suggested that
Guest Pudding was not served to the “unpleasing neighbours” or “visitors,” who arrived
unexpectedly. The latter were perhaps served out of what Derrida (2000) ascribes as an
ethical obligation. But the party for whom Mrs Rawson sent her “blacks” foraging may
have received the sort of hospitality that Telfer (2000) suggests involves some emotional
investment, an intrinsic willingness to ensure the happiness and safety of a guest. The
challenges of colonial bush life may actually have increased the transactional value of
the hospitality. As Braithwaite (2004) has argued, perhaps the most memorable, and
best, hospitality is offered in extreme circumstances. Certainly, food presentation,
despite the modesty of dishes on occasions, was paramount at the Rawson’s.
Both readers alluded to the, almost pedantic, cleanliness of Mrs Rawson towards her
household. Indeed, comfort and clean environs remain central tenets for modern
hospitality and there are inferences in Mrs Rawson’s that her ability to maintain a
clean household augmented her status as a host. However, it was her struggle with
domestic staff to maintain these standards that invite further discussion. Mrs Rawson’s
makes several references to the management of labor. One striking theme was the
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apparent shortage of labor. As Gollan (1978, p. 140) notes, “servants were never
plentiful in Australia.” Of particular concern was Mrs Rawson’s observation that the
domestics were prepared to ask for more in wages than what she thought they were
worth, and radically suggesting some form of wage ?xing among mistresses. It
appears complaints about domestics and their demands for exorbitant wages were
common from earliest colonial times (Symons, 1982).
This tension apparent in Mrs Rawson’s, between domestic and employer, perhaps
accounts for the willingness of domestics to transfer their skills from households to
commercial environments, most notably the pub. The inequality of master/servant
interactions was etched in the social practices of colonial domestic reality (Higman, 2002).
Egalitarianism, a much lauded Australian trait, perhaps emerged in the environs of the
pub, abetted by female domestics liberated from the strictures of class-based domestic
service (Freeman, 1966), although it has equally been argued that egalitarianism and
mateship became the privilege of working class males (Kirkby and Luckins, 2006).
Interestingly, it could be suggested that the price outlaid for servants may have
impacted on the nature of Mrs Rawson’s recipes. From the earliest of cookery writers, it
was common for the labor cost of the dish to be unaccounted. Indeed, the famed Roma
epicure, Apicius, was completely impervious to the labor component of the dish: “The
labor item never worried the ancient employer. It was either very cheap or entirely
free of charge” (Vehling, 1977, p. 24). While Apicius’ contemporaries bene?ted from the
collective toils of a bondage system, Mrs. Rawson, it appears, paid signi?cantly for
labor, notwithstanding the use of, presumably discounted, Kanaka and possibly
Aboriginal hands. Thus, the frugality of many of her receipts may have re?ected these
expenses as well as the availability of produce.
Moreover, it could be suggested that social aspirations in?uenced the delivery of
hospitality at the Rawson’s. Certainly, it is reasonable to presume that the Rawson
household was acutely conscious of social status, even when in remote and inaccessible
regions. As Symons (1982, p. 40) argues, the colonial mistresses “prepared lavish teas
and fancy social spreads” as part of a struggle “to adapt bourgeoisie elegance to rough
bush life.”
The literature widely critiques gender as well as social class (Yeates, 1989; Darke
and Gurney, 2000; Lynch and McWhannell, 2000; White et al., 2005) in the hospitality
encounter. Indeed, the ?rst reader’s account is rich in gendered insights. However,
there is evidence of ethnic and racial attitudes and in?uences in Mrs Rawson’s.
The British (or English) table dominated antipodean cuisine. Nonetheless, there are
intimations in Mrs Rawson’s “of foreign in?uences on Australian cooking” (Gollan,
1978, p. vii), but there are suggestions too that there was already a ?uidity of ethnic
in?uences on English cookery. Bannerman (1998) suggests their European neighbors,
and colonial chattels, had already in?uenced British cuisine, especially in the dietary
consumption of the well-to-do classes. Clearly, this accounts for Mrs Rawson’s
adoption of French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Indian dishes but does cast some
doubt on how and where she acquired the recipes – whether from other sources, other
colonists, or on her travels. There is, though, evidence of migrant minorities in primary
production in Mrs Rawson’s Queensland, for instance the German poultry breeders and
Chinese market gardeners, who have previously been observed as a common
late-colonial phenomena (Symons, 1982). O’Mahony suggests that this colonial
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development progressed to ethnic minorities transferring their primary production
skills to distribution. This is manifest in the contemporary hospitality and retail sector.
What outwardly appears a convivial level of engagement with the Melanesian and
indigenous laborers and domestics could be fraught with overstatement. While no
doubt being exposed to native foods and products for handicraft, clearly Mrs Rawson’s
recipes indicate an application of Old World methods to their preparation and
presentation. Clearly, the production methods were at odds with the subsistence
philosophy of the Aborigines (Gollan, 1978). Moreover, Mrs Rawson’s statement
regarding the untidy state of servants’ bedding being un?t for blacks betrays some
deep-seated prejudicial values. This raises questions about who had the status of
host/guest in colonial Australia. Schlunke (2001, p. 1), in discussing the “awkward
arrangement of relationship” exposed between indigenous Australian’s and the new
and old settler inquires about matters of sovereignty. In Mrs Rawson’s, there is little
evidence suggesting that the Aborigines where afforded the privilege of either host or
guest, a reality that perhaps continues even in the era after the debunking of the terra
nullius myth. Kelly (2006) goes further to suggest that the celebrated Australian
qualities of generosity and hospitality are selectively applied, citing foreign policy
towards refugees as less than welcoming.
As an aside, it is interesting that the Rawson’s brief business venture was
characterized by risk-taking in the mold of the modern entrepreneur. This has been
identi?ed as a trait of investors in the hospitality industry, particularly in small to
medium enterprises. It is, then, perhaps no coincidence that Mrs Rawson herself later
applied her domestic skills in a commercial capacity during her brief sojourn as a
Maryborough hotelier. Clearly this, as with the sale of her homemade handicrafts, is
evidence of the commodi?cation of domestic skills (O’Mahony, 2006). It is interesting
that a hotel, or pub, was the Rawson’s ?rst commercial hospitality foray – perhaps
ironic since the pub was possibly the refuge of their former domestics.
Conclusions
While a range of issues have been discussed that skirt the periphery of hospitality, the
key to this research has been to begin to understand domestic hospitality and how it
may relate conceptually and in practice to today’s industrial environment. The primary
vehicle to understanding colonial domestic hospitality attitudes has been through
dialogue with Mrs Rawson’s receipts and accompanying quips, but also her household
management hints. Between the colonial managerial attitudes to domestic labor, its
apparent shortages, the transferable nature of hospitality skills, the inference that the
supply side of labor was characterized by lower social standing (and the demand
side by higher social status) and tensions regarding remuneration, it is apparent that
there are similarities between colonial domestic hospitality and then the industrial
environments of ?rst the pioneering hospitality operators and then today’s hospitality
industry. The suggested notion of the perceived divide between guest and visitor
perhaps captures the essence of the problematic transition from domestic to
commercial hospitality, where the latter becomes transactional (Telfer, 2000). There are
also suggestions that those hallmarks of Australian hospitality: egalitarianism,
generosity and welcome were perhaps selectively applied – and that the colonial
legacy persists. Also captured is the apparent nexus between hospitality in domestic,
commercial, national and policy discourse.
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Also apparent, is that the cookbook goes beyond a recipe collection as a text.
Foodmaking, as Supski (2005) notes, is a thoughtful practice, one that betrays
a complexity of discourse, played out in the context of a recipe. Adopting indigenous
produce yet preparing it within familiar English culinary tradition serves as one obvious
example.
Hermeneutics has been selected as the most appropriate methodological framework
within which to conduct this study because it accommodates the characteristics of this
study and offers an essential method for validating its interpretative and
philosophical nature. By offering a process to re?ect on the circumstances that
allow understanding and on the validity of the interpretative activity, hermeneutics
provides the researcher with the opportunity to investigate sources that are removed
in time and culture. Texts preserve discourse over time and inevitably result in some
alienation as the audience changes and become more and more removed in time and
space until they speak about a situation to an audience that no longer exists. Since
texts cannot explain themselves, hermeneutics is of great signi?cance to inquiry
because it seeks to overcome the alienation of writing and to restore as full a meaning
as possible to “linguistic structures estranged from context and voice” (Crusius, 1991,
p. 21).
The chosen methodology has highlighted that even though impediments to textual
interpretation can be identi?ed, the resultant understanding is still localized. The value
position brought to the interpretation by the two readers is further convoluted by that of
the original author. A further level of engagement with the text could be achieved by
cooking out of it (in the period conditions and with equipment and produce available to
Mrs Rawson’s) – and hence adding a further dimension of accessibility to a time and
place removed. Clearly also, this study has not compared Mrs Rawson’s to that of her
contemporaries: the Hannah MacLurcans, (E.M.) Sheldons, and Amy Schauers. Future
research could embrace a more comparative approach to textual analysis, and make
more use of other contemporaneous primary documents. In the context of domestic
service, Mrs Rawson’s continues the dominance of accounts from the employer’s
perspective (Higman, 2002) – alternative accounts may contribute to a more balanced
view of hospitality, and who provided it, particularly from the viewpoint of gender,
which has been largely neglected in this study. Moreover, the identi?cation of some of
the earliest commercial hospitality operators, as Clark (2006) and O’Mahony (2006) have
done, yet probing from the cultural aspects of hospitality service, would be fruitful in
further understanding how domestic colonial notions of hospitality shaped
contemporary commercial hospitality practice.
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Corresponding author
Richard N.S. Robinson can be contacted at: [email protected]
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