Cuisine in Australia

Traditional Australian cuisine was based on English cooking brought to the country by the first European settlers. This cuisine generally consisted of Sunday roasts, grilled chops, and other forms of meat, and was generally accompanied by vegetables (often known colloquially as “three veg”) such as mashed potatoes, beans, peas, and carrots (often served soggy or overcooked). This trend has declined considerably with the multicultural emphasis of Australian culture over the last thirty to fifty years.

Background

Fifty years ago, Australian cuisine was unsophisticated; Chicken Maryland would be regarded as a sophisticated dish. By stark contrast, today’s Australian cuisine is some of the most diverse available anywhere, due to the many cultural influences. Modern Australian cuisine has been heavily influenced by the country’s South East Asian neighbours, and by the many waves of immigrants from there, and all parts of the world. Similarly, Greek, Lebanese and Italian influences are common. Fresh produce is readily available and thus used extensively, and the trend (urged by long-term government health initiatives) is towards low-salt, low-fat healthy cookery incorporating lean meat and lightly cooked, colourful, steamed or stir-fried vegetables.

Australia’s wide variety of seafood are also popular, especially for festivities, while barbecues are common at weekend family gatherings. Barbecues are also common in fundraising, where sausages and onion are served on white bread with tomato sauce, although due to food safety issues this trend has decreased.

Some English trends are still evident in domestic cuisine, among them a widespread tradition of having a hot roast turkey, chicken and/or ham with all the trimmings for Christmas dinner, followed by a heavy Christmas pudding.

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 a number of cities, 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), Dominoes, 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, The Portuguese chicken franchise Oporto (restaurant), 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 claimed by Australians as peculiarly Australian:
Pavlova
Anzac biscuits
Lamingtons
Vanilla slice

New Zealanders object that Pavlova, Lamingtons and Anzac biscuits all originated in New Zealand, not Australia.

Meats and fish that are genuinely 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.