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playmates; Lucinis' pasta factory in Spring Creek sold the macaroni of which they
were so fond and vineyards for home-made wine surrounded the hillsides. The Italian
speakers did, however, make some adjustments to their diet, adapting the traditional
cudeghini (pork-based sausages) to create the bullboar, an Australian sausage
combining near equal amounts of pork and beef Some second generation Italian
speakers leamed to make cakes, Olimpia Lafranchi taking these Anglo-Australian
recipes back to her mother's village in Ticino (and thus participating in an intemational
exchange of culinary habits (cf above p. 172). The Perini family served Anglo-
Australian foods to their customers at Locamo, providing one diet for themselves and
another for their middle-class non-Italian-speaking clientele (cf above p. 197). Some
of the Italian speakers' foods, and their methods of preparation, also made welcome
contributions to the culinary habhs of Anglo-Australians, many of whom enjoyed pasta
with fried onions, bullboars and 'Yandoh plonk'. The sharing of foods and culinary
ideas symbolised a broader cultural exchange ~ a means by which people from
different ethnic backgrounds leamt to appreciate and adapt to new ways and tradhions.
This was a two-way process which served both to blend and to maintain ethnic
difference.
It was not only through their foods, but in theh communal enjoyment of food,
that Italian speakers won the approval of Anglo-Australians. Drawing on their
southem European tradhions, the Italian speakers viewed the preparation and
consumption of food as an opportunity for strengthening kin and village ties through
cooperative labour. Working together on a grape harvest, wine-making or in the
preparation and storage of sausages, they traditionally celebrated the completion of
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