Australian Cuisine: Myths and Facts
Sept. 19, 2000 -- Most people think of Australian fare as one constantly drenched in the sun with the snappnig sound of a barbecue fire licking at its flesh.
But, to say Australians only consume big barbecued T-bone steaks, slabs of roasted kangaroo meat, and towering cans of cold beer would also say that you think Paul Hogan is the quintessential Australian hero — a notion more far-flung than an errant boomerang.
Australians are, in these festive times, cashing in a bit on their stereotypes, to be sure. The Fine Dining Restaurant at the Olympics site in Sydney has arranged for ample supplies of kangaroo for the curious foreign press. Other restaurants are adding ’roo to their menus for the Games. (Be aware it’s usually cooked very rare, since it’s a lean meat and can get tough if cooked medium. This is one of the reasons many Aussies leave the ’roo meat for the dog.)
But don’t let an “Outback syndrome” color your perceptions of Australian cuisine. There is much more going on in the country’s kitchens.
Casting Off the Yoke
“Today, Australia is at the cutting edge of the culinary art,” said David Evans, co-founder and board of management member of Tasting Australia, a biennial international food, wine and beverage festival held in South Australia. He is also the executive producer of Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s top food show, Consuming Passions.
“Twenty years ago, Australia was still trying to cast off the yoke of traditional Anglo-Saxon dullness. Australian cuisine now combines the very best fresh produce with adventurous matching of cuisines from Australia’s diverse [immigrant] cultures.
“In particular, we pride ourselves with the ‘clean, green’ environment in which we live,” Evans says. “Little pollution, combined with abundant space, allows for wonderful natural flavors in our meat, seafood and vegetables, needing little additional help to make a tasty meal.”
Blue-collar Australia may still hold tight to its meat and potatoes diet, but the cuisine in the cities and suburbs is a collision of native Australian foods and ingredients and spices brought over by Asian immigrants as well as Italians, Greeks and French. Look at what is happening on the New York or Los Angeles food scene and you’ll see a bit of what is happening in Sydney or Melbourne, according to local food experts.
A Fusion of Ethnicity
In the book Great Australian Chefs, Mietta O’Donnell writes that in 1974 the motto of her restaurant, Mietta’s, in Melbourne, was “No steak and no oysters,” at a time when steak and oysters were the epitome of cuisine in Australia.
“Those dishes were the height of Saturday sophistication,” wrote O’Donnell. “Not to serve them demonstrated a serious case of attitude. Well, that was OK by us. We were out to change the world, like every other talented young Australian restaurateur before and since.”
O’Donnell’s grandparents came to Melbourne from Milan and opened Mario’s, which became one of Australia’s finest Italian restaurants. After years abroad, O’Donnell, along with Tony Knox and Jules Lavarack, opened up Mietta’s in a converted butcher shop and served everything from Middle Eastern (inspired by Claudia Roden) to classic French (inspired by Escoffier), provincial French (Elizabeth David) Indian, Chinese, Italian, Old English and Southern Asian.
The menu changed weekly and offered Australians something they hadn’t seen before: a menu of fusion and ethnic variety.
From Asia With Love
Look at a menu from one of Sydney’s premier restaurants, Tetsuya’s, and the eclectic Asian-French influence will give a feel for what to expect. The signature dish of the restaurant is “confit of ocean trout served with unpasteurized ocean trout roe.” Other standouts include poached breast of quail with a truffle of infused jus.
“The first major influence on Australian cuisine, going back to the country’s Gold Rush days, was Chinese,” O’Donnell said. “Then Italian, Greek, Lebanese. At the top level — and only at the top — French became fashionable, then price took over and it faded. Mixed Asian menus were incredibly popular in the 1990s. There’s now some attention being given to Middle Eastern. Italian remains fashionable right through. It’s the preferred choice, according to researchers. What they mean by Italian is another story.”
Far Flung Fresh Foodies
Australians living abroad tend to wax on about their homeland’s fresh food. “Everything is so much fresher and simple, but in the best kind of way,” said Sarah Maher, a Sydney native living in New York. “Everything tastes and feels starchy here. But there a vegetable is a vegetable and it is cooked to retain its flavor, not to taste like something else.”
According to Australian Culinary Consultant Scott Webster, the country has the finest beef and lamb the world has to offer partly because of the country’s nearly pristine environment. So, beer, porterhouse and — let’s not forget — oysters, are big in the big country. But so are vegetarian dishes and local seafood.
“The seafood actually tastes as though it comes from the sea, and fruit and vegetables actually have real flavors,” said Evans.
“If you get a piece of lamb, it tastes like a piece of lamb,” said Kate Juliff, who operates a Web site called Letterfromnewyork.com, a diary of the native Australian’s life in New York.
Like It Fast
But what most Australians living abroad truly miss is Australian fast food — stuff like savory meat pies, pavlova and sausage. At the Australian consulate in New York, a monthly get-together features Australian meat pies and sausage pies.
Fast food, O’Donnell admits, is an important element in Australia. “It accounts for more food out of home than people want to talk about,” she said.
Fish and chips in a small shack on Bondi beach may be just what you need to delve deep into Australian cuisine.
“There’s lots of places in Sydney right on the water where they sell fresh fish, and you get this basket of fish and chips, and it is the best thing you will ever eat,” said Maher.