Takeaway food in Australia

Despite the best intentions of government health schemes and cultural marketing initiatives, the traditional Australian palate is amply serviced by an extensive takeaway food industry. Two of the most traditional takeaway dishes are the meat pie and sausage roll. These come in varying grades, ranging from the mass-produced factory outputs of Four-and-Twenty and Big Ben, sold on every street corner in milk bars, through to gourmet pies sold by specialist pie shops. There is an annual competition to find the ‘Great Australian Meat Pie’, and the winners are greatly removed from their fat-laden antecedents. In Sydney, you can get a meat pie from Harry’s Cafe de Wheels.

American-style chain stores are common including Subway, Pizza Hut, KFC, Burger King (known as Hungry Jacks due to a trademark issue), and of course McDonalds (commonly called Maccas by locals). An alternative to the US imports is offered by the Australian chicken fastfood chain Red Rooster, and by the corner Pizza shops, charcoal chicken stores, stores selling gyros and fish and chip shops. Many of these sell high-quality food for reasonable prices.

Chinese and various Asian restaurants provide eat-in and takeaway services and with the high levels of immigration from South and South East Asian to Australia many authentic and high-quality restaurants run by Asians themselves exist.

Uniquely Australian dishes

Probably the most well known Australian food is Vegemite. Similar to the British product Marmite it is a strong tasting, yeast extract spread, common in sandwiches or on toast. Some Australian sweets, such as the Violet Crumble chocolate bar, are manufactured in Australia and are sold within the country, as well as internationally in places such as Hawaii. Tim Tams are a chocolate biscuit produced in Australia which are now exported throughout the world.

There are a small number of desserts and sweet dishes that are regarded as peculiarly Australian:
Pavlova
Anzac biscuits
Lamingtons
Vanilla slice

Note there are persistent claims that Pavlova, Lamingtons and Anzac biscuits all originated in New Zealand, not Australia.

Meats and fish that are uniquely Australian include:
Kangaroo
Emu
Barramundi
Trevalla
Moreton Bay bug
Yabby

These meats have long been traditional in Aboriginal diets, and in rural white Australia. They can be seen on the menus of many of Australia’s top restaurants.