Garritt Van Dyk is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Waikato. Current research includes forthcoming publications on botanical imperialism and the first sugar grown in Australia, a bibliography of culinary ephemera, and a book on digital history. Wider research interests extend to the history of empire, early modern economic history, and European patterns of consumption in the Enlightenment.

His background in international finance and professional experience in commercial cookery, coupled with academic research, offer a unique perspective on both the practices and discourse of cuisine and political economy in the early modern period.