AustLit

'I grew up in a multicultural part of Melbourne in the 1970s and 80s, so many of my school friends were non-English speaking migrants – ‘New Australians’ or ‘wogs’, as they were sometimes called. The differences in culture and religious practice did not matter too much to us, and we played football and cricket together, rode our bikes around the streets, poked fun at the local grump, ‘Mr Froggy’, and made a small contribution to the benign delinquency in our neighbourhood. I shared everything with my friends, especially food: white paper bags of mixed lollies, steaming butcher-paper packages of hot chips, cans of RC Cola, and other treats we bought after school from the numerous corner shops we used to call milk bars. But we never shared a homemade lunch, and I never visited a migrant friend’s home for dinner. It was fine to play cricket and footy or go for long bike-rides with the Antons, Tonys and Spiros of my adolescent world, but that world had no place for their salami and smelly cheese. Migrant food was a cultural demarcation line that I instinctively would not cross.' (Introduction)