This book is one to keep and read again, and to reflect on. It is by one of Australia’s most influential food writers, teachers and thinkers. South Australian, Barbara Santich, is a respected academic at the University of Adelaide, and a long-time authority in the field of food history. She has been called ‘without doubt one of the world’s great food thinkers’.

Fundamental to her work is a belief that what, how and why we eat is intimately connected to our culture. Food is not merely a commodity; it is also, as Roland Barthes famously insisted, a system of communication. Santich is able to communicate this lucidly and with authority.

The equally iconic chef and author, Gay Bilson, in her foreword to this book talks evocatively about a meal she enjoyed recently in South Australia’s Barossa Valley which was totally reliant for its success on local produce from that region.

Looking for Flavour is a book that you will refer to often. When it was first published, it won an Australian Food Writers’ Award in 1997, and this edition has been updated with an additional food essay on the last decade’s changes in food supply and use.

Looking for Flavour, by Barbara Santich, paperback, republished by Wakefield Press, 2009, www.wakefieldpress.com.au  rrp A$29.95.