French Explorations and Le Gastronomie

Abstract

This Chapter, the third chapter of part two ‘Food across the Colonial Frontier’ suggests that the French had a distinct approach to their exploration of Australia and food is an important aspect of their encounters with Indigenous people. Drawing on available materials, this chapter tells a story that reaches into contemporary debates about food and food sustainability in global cuisine. The French were intrigued by local flora, fauna, and the food knowledge of ‘les naturels’ whom they encountered. Ostensibly on a scientific expedition rather than attempting to colonize Australia, their journals recorded their views of endogenous foods, and their own experimentations with what might be edible to their palates, portraying lively interest in what they considered exotic, ‘native’ foods. Amongst the explorers, the French provide an interesting counterpoint to the British in their exploration of coastal Australia. As discussed in Chap.  4, the French arrived in Sydney only days after the British. Auspiced primarily as scientific expeditions, and tasked with recording and locating specimens of flora and fauna in order to compete with Britain for exploitable resources and for advancing scientific knowledge across the globe, they also left detailed print and visual records of their explorations. Early French attitudes to foods of ‘les autochtones’ preceded their late eighteenth and early nineteenth century explorations. While French attitudes to inhabitants they met was as similarly disparaging to those of the British, their approach to endogenous food distinguished them. Accounts by French explorers such as Péron were mostly both curious and excited by the range of new possible endogenous sources of edible flora and fauna stand in contrast to the British record about endogenous foods eaten by inhabitants that bordered on repulsion. For the British, such foods were often eaten of necessity rather than for curiosity or pleasure. This repulsion points to a legacy in Australia shaped by the British palate being pushed beyond its frontier of taste. In distinction, food became an important aspect of French encounters with Indigenous people globally. Records demonstrated that they were interested in endogenous foods and the cultural habits of ‘les naturels’ they met.