Australian Food

The country providing the theme for this week's cooking group is Australia. What a hard thing it is to find Australain recipes that meets my group's criteria (cost, taste, timing). And what is harder to determine exactly what is "Australian" food.

There is the category of 'old-style' food being damper, roasts, mutton stew, pavlova, lamingtons, scones and the like - and most of these originated elsewhere.

There is the category of brands like Vegemite, Tim Tams and SAOs which could be included in meals (Vegemite specifically makes a great flavor base for stews and casseroles).

There is the meat pie and sausage roll ... and the Chicko for that matter.

There is bush tucker - but how many of us eat this regularly ... I mean really regularly and it isn't that easy to find a great range of products - or even a bit of 'roo.

When you think about it, our food is such an eclectic mix of food and food styles from around the planet. As protein, we mainly eat beef, lamb., pork, chicken and fish. But it is now served with rice or cous cous or pasta instead of the 'three veg' that many of us grew up with. We might have Australian salmon, but we serve it with Asian-style greens. Mince is more likely to be turned into tacos than rissoles. And Portuguese-style chicken is giving companies like Red Rooster a run for their money.

"Our" food reflects "our" people - we come from everywhere and we bring our food traditions with us. Then we mix it all together (it is called "fusion" in fancy restaurants) and it is Australian.