In January 2020, Kangaroo Island burned. This island at the base of South Australia was ravaged by bushfires. From this tragic event, how can regional development be enabled through a realignment of foodscape and landscape? Food and food tourism activate an intricate bundling of texts and resultant literacies. This article layers an analysis, and builds a textured theoretical surface on a specific landscape. To assemble a project nestled in Kangaroo Island, post-disciplinary knowledge is accessed from food tourism, gastronomic tourism, popular cultural studies, claustropolitan sociology, cultural geography, regional development and creative industries. This article is not a case study. Instead, post-disciplinary theory is frontloaded, to shape and construct a frame for food tourism beyond cliches of regional development.