Teaching Staff

Professor Barbara Santich

Barbara Santich designed the curriculum for the Graduate Program in Gastronomy and developed the core courses which were first offered to online students in 2002. Born and educated in NSW, she gained her first degree at the University of NSW (B.Sc. Hons I). Her interest in food and eating was initially stimulated by her study of biochemistry and eventually, under the influence of Waverley Root (The Food of France) and Elizabeth David (French Provincial Cooking) and travels in Europe (France in particular), she began a food writing career which has continued for thirty years. Her fascination with languages and France developed into a sympathy with the ancient languages of Mediterranean France, which in turn led to a BA (University of Minnesota) and PhD (Flinders University of SA).

Barbara Santich has written for numerous Australian newspapers and magazines as well as overseas publications including The Journal of Gastronomy, Petits Propos Culinaires, the New York Times and Slow (quarterly magazine of the International Slow Food Movement). She contributed extensively to the Oxford Companion to Food, edited by Alan Davidson, has presented papers at many Australian and overseas conferences, and is a regular participant at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

Books by Barbara Santich

The Original Mediterranean Cuisine: Medieval recipes for today (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1995; and Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1996)

What the Doctors Ordered: 150 years of dietary advice in Australia (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1995)

Looking for Flavour (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1996)

Apples to Zampone (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1996; second revised edition 1999)

McLaren Vale: Sea & Vines (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1998)

In the Land of the Magic Pudding: A gastronomic miscellany (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2000)

Recent publications by Barbara Santich

Margaret at the Woman's Day. In Margaret Fulton: A Celebration. Canberra: Friends of the National Library Inc, 2007: 33-40.

Banks' Turtle: Food in History, History in Food. In Dining on Turtles: Food, Feasts and Drinking in History, eds. Diane Kirkby and Tanja Luckins. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, due 2007.

The Encyclopaedic Egg. In Eggs: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2006, ed. Richard Hosking. Totnes: Prospect Books, 2007.

Hospitality and Gastronomy: Natural Allies. In Advances in Tourism Research, Hospitality: A Social Lens, eds. Conrad Lashley and Alison Morrison. Amsterdam; Boston : Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann, due September 2006.

The Communities of Food Scholars. Moving Wor(l)ds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, 6, no. 2 (2006): 6-13.

The High and the Low: Australian Cuisine in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. In Culinary Distinction, eds. Emma Costantino and Sian Supski. Journal of Australian Studies, no. 87 (2006): 37-49.

With Fork and Pen in Nineteenth-century Paris. Bibliofile 11, no. 4 (2006).

Paradigm shifts in the history of dietary advice in Australia. Nutrition & Dietetics 62, no. 4 (2005): 152-157.

French Food and Fashion at the End of the Nineteenth Century: The View from Colonial Australia. In Gastronomic Encounters, eds. A Lynn Martin and Barbara Santich. Adelaide: East Street Publications, 2004: 62-69.

The study of gastronomy and its relevance to hospitality education and training. International Journal of Hospitality Management 23, no. 1 (2004): 15-24.

Revenge, cannibalism and self-denial. Food & History 1, no. 1 (2003): 85-94.

Why study gastronomy? Meanjin 61, no. 4 (2002): 171-174.

Meals and Morality, in The Meal: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2001, ed. Harlan Walker. Totnes: Prospect Books, 2002: 206-215.

Regionalism and Regionalisation in Food in Australia, Rural Society 12, no. 1 (2002): 5-16.

Royal power and gastronomic innovation. In Food and Power. Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium of Australian Gastronomy. Sydney, 2002: 64-69.

Snake Tavern, in Slow Food, ed. Carlo Petrini. White River Junction VT: Chelsea Green, 2001: 122-124.

For details contact: Professor Barbara Santich
Telephone: +61 8 8303 5615
Email: barbara.santich@adelaide.edu.au

• "Barbara Santich cares about her students and our interests!" on-campus student 2005
• "Dr Santich is an expert in Gastronomy and her writing of this entire MA Course is outstanding." on-campus student 2002
• "Dr Santich is a brilliant communicator and incredible fountain of knowledge." on-campus student 2003
• "Barbara Santich is an exceptional individual who educates and inspires students. A credit to the University of Adelaide." on-campus student 2006
• "Her overall knowledge is wide-ranging and brilliant. She easily can address any tangent enquiry. Her enthusiasm is contagious." on-campus student 2007

Associate Professor Rachel A. Ankeny

Rachel A. Ankeny has a BA in Liberal Arts (Philosophy/Maths, St John's College, Santa Fe, NM), and MA degrees in Philosophy and in Bioethics and a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science (all from the University of Pittsburgh, PA). In 2006 she graduated with the degree of Master of Arts in Gastronomy (University of Adelaide) after completing a dissertation on celebratory food habits among Italo-Australian and Italian-American immigrants. Prior to joining the University of Adelaide in 2006, she was director and lecturer/senior lecturer in the Unit for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney from 2000.

Her research interests include food habits in the Italian diaspora, food ethics, and the relationship of science to cuisine. In the history and philosophy of science, her research focuses on the roles of models and case-based reasoning in science, model organisms, the philosophy of medicine, and the history of contemporary life sciences. Her research in bioethics examines ethical and policy issues in genetics, reproduction, women's health, and embryo and stem cell research, among other topics. She currently is co-investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant entitled "Big-Picture Bioethics: Policy Making and Liberal Democracy" and on a National Health and Medical Research Council grant entitled "Deconstructing DTCA: Toward a Differentiated Policy Response to Direct-to-Consumer Advertising in Australia."

She also has a small faculty grant to examine issues in food ethics.

Rachel serves as a member of the Gene Technology Ethics Committee for the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator of the Commonwealth of Australia; Treasurer of the History of Science Society; and Membership Secretary of the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB). She also is a member of several editorial boards for scholarly journals in HPS and bioethics, and associate editor of the Journal of the History of Biology.

Recent publications

The Rise of Molecular Gastronomy and Its Problematic Use of Science as an Authenticating Authority. In Authenticity in the Kitchen: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2005, ed. Richard Hosking. Totnes: Prospect Books, 2006: 44-52.

(with Susan Dodds). Hearing community voices: public engagement in Australian human embryo research policy 2005-7. New Genetics and Society 27 (3): 217-232, 2008.

(with Jane Maienschein, Mary Sunderland, and Jason Scott Robert). The ethos and ethics of translational research. American Journal of Bioethics 8 (3): 43-51, 2008 (with commentaries and response).

Model organisms as fictions. In Fictions in Science: Philosophical Essays on Modeling and Idealisation, ed. Mauricio Suarez. New York: Routledge, 2008: 193-204.

The moral economy of red meat in Australia. In Food and Morality: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2007, ed. Susan Friedland. Blackawton, Totnes: Prospect Books, 2008: 20-28.

Wormy logic: model organisms as case-based reasoning. In Science without Laws: Model Systems, Cases, Exemplary Narratives, ed. Angela N.H. Creager, Elizabeth Lunbeck, and M. Norton Wise. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press, 2007: 46-58.

(with John E.J. Rasko and Gabrielle M. O'Sullivan, eds.) The Ethics of Inheritable Genetic Modification: A Dividing Line? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Robert Skipper Jr., Colin Allen, Rachel A. Ankeny, Carl F. Craver, Lindley Darden, Greg Mikkelson, and Robert Richardson. eds. Philosophy and the Life Sciences: A Reader. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007 (forthcoming).

Invited lecture, How to Cook an Egg and Other Lessons from the Kitchen-Lab: A History of Molecular Gastronomy, Food for Thought series, Oregon State University, November 8, 2007 http://agsci.oregonstate.edu/orb/FFT+0708

For details contact: Associate Professor Rachel A. Ankeny
Program Manager and Associate Professor
Telephone: +61 8 8303 5570
Email: rachel.ankeny@adelaide.edu.au

What the students have to say:

• "Rachel has good communication skills and genuine concern for students' ability to grasp issues." on-campus student 2006
• "Dr Ankeny's intimate knowledge of all foodstuff and cuisine make her a walking encyclopedia - a truly valuable resource." on-campus student 2006
• "Rachel is one of the best teachers I have ever had." on-campus student 2006
• "Dr Ankeny thinks outside the box and allows class discussion to move further than just the core set of questions in the tutorial, which increases my understanding of the topics." on-campus student 2006

Dr Roger Haden

Roger Haden has a BA in English literature (Victoria University, NZ), a postgraduate diploma in Journalism and a PhD in Cultural Studies both from the University of Technology. He directs the Research Centre for the History of Food and Drink, and is a regular contributor on the subject of food and cooking to The Adelaide Review. A long-time interest in the history of food and drink, and a career as a restaurant chef in Australasia and England (in 1995 he was personal chef to the then Australian High Commissioner, Dr Neal Blewett) now inform Roger's academic work.

Research interests focus on the relationship between technology, food production, cooking and taste. Other activities include teaching food and wine matching and higher education curriculum development on subjects including the aesthetics of food and wine, professional gastronomic practice, and the philosophy of hospitality. In 2006, as Director of the Research Centre, Roger hosted the international conference, Cookery Books as History. Roger is currenlty working on a book, The Food Culture of the Pacific Islands, to be published by Greenwood Press in 2008. 

Recent publications and conference presentations

'Taste in the Age of Convenience'. In The Taste/Culture Reader, ed. Carolyn Korsmeyer. New York: Berg, 2005.

'Australian History in the Baking'. In Culinary Distinction, eds. Emma Costantino and Sian Supski. Journal of Australian Studies, no. 87 (2006): 61-73.

'Pandora's Lunchbox: On Aesthetic Education, Children and Food'. Special issue (on children and food) of Food Culture and Society, Vol. 9, No. 3, Fall 2006, ed. Warren Belasco, Berg.

'A Psychosociology of Contemporary Cookbook Consumption'. Proceedings of the Second Wellington Symposium of Gastronomy, Wellington, New Zealand, November, 2005. Wellington, New Zealand.

'Contemporary Sensory Relations: the Experience of Taste in a Global Culture'. Paper presented at Cross-Cultural Regimes of the Senses, UTS, Sydney, June 2006.

(in progress) 'Culinary Assuagement and National Aspiration: Reading the Cultural Imaginary' in A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950) and The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook (1950).

Invited Paper Presenter: Today's Domestic Foodscapes: towards mindful eating. Concordia University Montreal, March 21 & 22, 2008. Paper entitled: "Educating tastes: toward a contemporary form of connoisseurship".

"Lionizing taste: towards an ecology of contemporary connoisseurship," in Jeremy Strong (ed.) Educated Tastes: Food, Drink and Connoisseur Culture. University of Nebraska Press (2009).

For details contact: Dr Roger Haden
Lecturer in Gastronomy
Telephone: +61 8 8303 5605
Email: roger.haden@adelaide.edu.au

• "Roger is extremely knowledgeable ... he gives clear and simple explanations which are easy to understand." on-campus student 2004
• "Dr Haden is patient, fair, and compassionate." on-campus student 2005
• "Roger really has time for students." on-campus student 2005
• "Roger encourages participation and is knowledgeable and enthusiastic." on-campus student 2004

Dr Andrea Cast

Dr. Andrea Cast is a food historian specialising in the social organisation of drinking in Early Modern England. She completed her PhD in 2001 titled Women Drinking in Early Modern England. She then worked for the South Australian State government on a project that helped network regional food producers to share both business and cultural strategies for protecting their foodways and heritage through the development of marketable products, both for local and national consumption.

She subsequently moved from food policy to agricultural issues and worked both for the State government and for the CSIRO's Policy and Economic Research Unit in the Land and Water Division. In this multi-disciplinary research role she worked with teams of research scientists to develop and manage projects involving water scarcity issue in Australia and the trade-offs Australians face between environmental and agricultural development goals.

Concurrently and after, she taught Consuming Passions: an Anthropology of Food and Drink in the Anthropology Department at the University of Adelaide as well as Gastronomic Tourism and Food and Wine Technology for the Le Cordon Bleu Graduate Program in Gastronomy.

Her current research interests revolve around decision-making in individual food choice and food policy, particularly in reference to the trade-offs people and communities make between food production and environmental services.

For details contact: Dr Andrea Cast
Lecturer in Gastronomy
Email: andrea.cast@adelaide.edu.au