Australian Food

Have you tried kangaroo meat?

Australian cuisine, like Canada's, has evolved over time, with the influences of the early British settlers in the late 1700's and more recently immigration from Europe and Asia, especially in the major cities. With distinctive regions that run the gamut from tropical to sub-tropical to vast desert ranges, with a temperate climate in the majority of the country, many of Australia's indigenous foods are unique in the world but were largely ignored by the British.

The popularity of many indigenous Australian foods is seeing a resurgence within Australia and in exports around the world. Look no further than the obvious -- kangaroo. For a long period following colonialization by the British, kangaroo meat in Australia was mainly sold as pet food, although it had been a staple for Aboriginals and early settlers. Over the past ten to fifteen years, the kangaroo industry has been promoting kangaroo meat as a very healthy food for human consumption, very low in fat and high in protein, iron and zinc. Following outbreaks of foot and mouth and madcow disease in the UK and Europe, kangaroo meat exports increased up to 30 percent.

While I was traveling in Australia, I rarely saw a menu that carried kangaroo, and didn't meet many Australians who cooked it at home. Nevertheless, I did have to try kangaroo meat for the novelty alone, as well as crocodile, emu, Moreton Bay Bugs (crustaseans) and yabbies (freshwater crayfish), all of which I found delicious but not necessarily worth seeking out or paying tourist prices for.

Funnily enough, the Australian food that left an impression on me were things I considered much more mundane here in Canada. Every sandwich and hamburger included a mini-salad between the bread: sliced pickled beets and alfalfa sprouts along with other finely shredded veggies. Fish and Chips, roast dinners with three or four roasted vegetables, usually including yams (sweet potatoes) and pumpkin (our squash), and of course, the meat pies, (especially in Bendigo) -- these were all favourites during my eight months of travel in Australia.

The meat, all the meat, -- lamb, beef, pork, chicken -- was somehow more tender, juicier, more substantial and flavorful than any I had had anywhere. Bacon slices were twice as thick and somehow tastier, (and Canadian Bacon is supposedly famous). Seeing a large frozen kangaroo tail in the meat department of supermarkets never failed to impress either, although I wasn't sure what one would do with such a monstrous, weapon-like thing at the time. Make soup, of course!

Many accounts of today's Australian cuisine recognize how it has been evolving recently into a fusion cuisine with whole-hearted adoption of many ingredients from the immigrant populations' cuisines and a rejuvenated focus on indigenous meats, herbs, seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables. If you travel Australia, you'll find a huge variety of restaurants in most places featuring culinary delights from around the world, with fresh, locally grown produce, meat and seafood.

In fact, many of the dishes I cooked while traveling in Australia fit equally well under any one or another of the Recipe for Travel's other recipes indices:

roast lamb was the first meal I made in Australia and Ontario Lamb roasted with garlic and fennel can be found in the Canadian Recipes;
avocados were beautiful and plentiful in Australia and you'll find my Guacamole recipe in the Mexican Food index;
at the backpackers' hostel I cooked for in Queensland, Ratatouille was a popular vegetarian offering, and you'll find a recipe for it in the Seasonal and Comfort Foods,
...Chilli and Spaghetti Bolognese in the Crockpot Recipes
...and so on.

While I'm not likely to find kangaroo meat or other distinctly Australian ingredients in my local market here in Canada, I have come across some emu and kangaroo recipes that look like they could be nicely adapted for some beef or ostrich dishes that will appear in the Recipes Index over time.

Visit the Australian Recipes Index