Book launch of Merantau: Stories of Indonesian food and migration

Merantau: Stories of Indonesian Food and Migration, is a new book project that explores the deep relationship between food, culture and migration within the Indonesian diaspora.

Part-cookbook and part-anthropological document, Merantau brings together recipes and personal stories from Indonesian households living across Victoria. 'Merantau'—meaning to wander, journey or explore, an impermanent migration—reflects traditions of movement and exchange that have long shaped the Southeast Asian archipelago. 

The first Merantau story of peoples into Australia is that of Makassan seafarers who built deep connections with Yolŋu people of North East Arnhem land, sharing language, technologies, cooking practices and ideas during the pre-colonial era of the 1600s. This book project visits nine households across Victoria to document the Merantau stories of today and the recipes that have moved with them. The book situates contemporary migration stories within a much longer history of connection between Indonesia and Australia.

To honour these early connections, the launch will feature a serving of pallu mara, a Makassan fish soup that represents this shared culinary history and may be among the earliest dishes prepared by non-Indigenous visitors and shared with Indigenous communities on these lands.

The event will also include a conversation with the book’s author and contributors, who will reflect on migration, memory and the role of food in carrying culture across borders and generations.

Come celebrate the stories, histories and flavours that connect Indonesia and Australia through food.

This event takes place at Balam Balam Place in Brunswick on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The venue is entirely wheelchair accessible.

This event is part of the 2026 Melbourne Art Book Fair program. Melbourne Art Book Fair is presented as part of Melbourne Design Week, an initiative of the Victorian Government