Helen Leach

Helen May Leach ONZM (née Keedwell; 3 July 1945 – 23 January 2026) was a New Zealand academic who specialised in food anthropology. She conducted research for more than 50 years into the history of New Zealand, the archaeology and anthropology of Oceanic culture, and the social history and anthropology of culinary and horticultural practices, and wrote at least 22 books on these subjects. She was a professor emerita at the University of Otago.^[1][2][3]

Born Helen May Keedwell in Wellington on 3 July 1945, Leach was the daughter of Peggy and Harvey Keedwell.^[4][5][6][7] Her sisters were cookbook author Mary (later Browne) and Nancy (later Tichborne), a watercolour artist.^[7]

After moving with her family to Dunedin in the early 1950s, Leach and her sisters were educated at Otago Girls' High School.^[8][9] She went on to study at the University of Otago, from where she graduated Master of Arts.^[10]

Leach was appointed to the staff of the University of Otago in 1972, and was appointed to a chair in anthropology in 2002.^[10] Originally trained in archaeology, she completed a PhD in 1976 at Otago, with a thesis titled Horticulture in prehistoric New Zealand: an investigation of the function of the stone walls of Palliser Bay.^[11]

She studied food, eating, cooking, associated equipment and paraphernalia in New Zealand. Her interests ranged from prehistoric horticulture and the evolution of human diet^[12] to the history of cooking, the origins of recipes as well as the development of kitchens and batteries de cuisine in the twentieth century. Her extensive collection of over 2,000 cookery books, especially community cookbooks, provided a significant resource for colleagues' investigations, which compensated for the incompleteness of that of the National Library of New Zealand.^[13][3] Reviewing Leach's 2014 book Kitchens, Barbara Santich observed that "New Zealanders are indeed fortunate to have Helen Leach as guide, guardian and safe-keeper of their gastronomic past", noting too that the work was illustrated with images of artefacts from Leach's own personal collection.^[14]

Sisters Helen, Mary and Nancy worked together on a number of co-authored books about cooking and gardening, and breadmaking, the best known of which was probably The Cook's Garden - for Cooks Who Garden And Gardeners Who Cook (1980). Helen's book 1,000 Years of Gardening in New Zealand (1984), an anthropological history of gardening practices in New Zealand, was also illustrated by Nancy.

Her work on the origins of the pavlova dessert, resulted in a book The Pavlova Story — A slice of New Zealand’s culinary history (2008).^[15]

Leach was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2004.^[16] In the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to culinary anthropology.^[3]

When Leach retired from the University of Otago in 2008, she was granted the title of emeritus professor.^[10]

Leach died in Christchurch on 23 January 2026, at the age of 80.^[17]

• Kitchens: The New Zealand Kitchen in the 20th Century (2014)
• The Cook's Garden – for Cooks Who Garden And Gardeners Who Cook (1980)
• From Kai to Kiwi Kitchen (2011)^[18]
• The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand's Culinary History, Photographs Mary Browne, Otago University Press, 2008, ISBN 9781877372575
• Cultivating Myths (2000)^[19]
• 1000 Years of Gardening in New Zealand (1984)^[20]
• Prehistoric Men in Palliser Bay (1979)
• Subsistence Patterns in Prehistoric New Zealand (1969) ^[21]