Babette Hayes, writer and designer, is a pioneer in the art of the Australian cookbook. Born in Syria to French parents, she attended design school in England before working for Queen magazine and as the Sunday Telegraph's cooking editor. She moved to Australia in 1964. At Belle magazine she worked with friend Lewis Morley, whose 1971 move to Australia she had encouraged. Besides her strong contributions to Australian interior design, Hayes was to exert a bracing influence on our food culture. During the 1970s she wrote many recipe books, starting with The Captain Cook Book: 200 years of Australian Cooking (1970), which traced the history of such local offerings as the carpetbag steak. Family Fare (1971), Australian Country-Style Cooking (1978) and Babette Hayes Talks About Food (1979) followed.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
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