Dan Lepard

Baker and food writer

Though I’m a huge fan of food writers and stylists with a pared-back simplicity in their approach, such as Donna Hay, the influence for their work – certainly in Australia – stems from the food writer Jill Dupliex who a decade earlier in the 1990s was reassuring cooks that a simple salad and roasted vegetables could be remarkable meal without any fuss. A feast, seen through Dupliex’s eyes, could be as simple as a fresh pear with a little goats cheese, or grilled fish with lemon and garden herbs. Her approach championed fresh ingredients and looked for ways to preserve that freshness from the market to the table. A single recipe would hop from country to country for inspiration: audacious then but commonplace today. Her book New Food (1996) summed up how dining was changing and reflected simple food ideas, at times almost a dadaist approach to eating, rather than fussy complex recipes.

Sue Hines

Group Publishing Director, Allen & Unwin/ Murdoch Books