Australian Studies

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Australian Studies

• Culture Food Drink

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Australian food

• Historically, Australian cuisine was based on
  traditional British cooking brought to the
  country by the first settlers.
• This generally consisted of pies, roasted cuts of
  meat, grilled steak and chops, and other forms of
  meat generally accompanied by vegetables (the
  combination known colloquially as "meat and three
  veg.).

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Australian food

• These origins have been mostly overtaken by the
  growing multicultural emphasis of Australian
  culture over the last forty to fifty years, with
  Australian cuisine now influenced by a variety of
  Mediterranean and Asian foods originally
  introduced by immigrants.

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Australian food

• Indeed, restaurants whose cuisine tends to
  demonstrate contemporary adaptations,
  interpretations or fusions of these multicultural
  culinary influences are frequently labeled with
  the umbrella term "Modern Australian".
• British traditions still persist to varying
  degrees including in the takeaway food sector,
  with pies and fish and chips remaining popular.

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Australian food

• A native Australian cuisine movement has also
  emerged, evolving out of the Australian themed
  restaurants of the mid-1980s.
• The discovery of the spice-like qualities of many
  native Australian plant ingredients formed the
  basis of a gourmet cuisine.

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Australian food

• This contrasted with the Bush tucker or foraged
  food unfamiliar to gourmets.
• Modern Australian cuisine has been heavily
  influenced by its Asian and South-East Asian
  neighbours, particularly Chinese, Japanese, Thai
  and Vietnamese, and by the many waves of
  immigrants from there, and all parts of the
  world.

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Australian food

• Similarly, Mediterranean influences from Greek,
  Lebanese, Moroccan and Italian cuisines are very
  common with many of these influences arriving in
  Australia during the 1950s and 1960s.
• 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.

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Australian food

• Australia's wide variety of seafood is also
  popular and barbecues are common at weekend
  family gatherings.
• Barbecues are also common in fund raising for
  schools and local communities, where sausages and
  onion are served on white bread with tomato sauce
  or Barbecue sauce.
• These are most often referred to as "Sausage
  Sizzles

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Australian food

• Some English trends are still evident in the
  domestic cooking of many Australians of
  Anglo-Celtic descent.
• Among these is the widespread tradition of having
  roast turkey, chicken, and ham with trimmings
  followed by a plum pudding for Christmas lunch or
  dinner, despite the fact that Christmas is at the
  height of the Southern Hemisphere summer.
• Because of this, another tradition is also having
  fresh seafood, including prawns and a variety of
  other meats.

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Australian food

• The typical breakfast of Australians strongly
  resembles breakfast in many Western countries.
• Owing to the warm weather in some parts of
  Australia, generally breakfast is light but in
  the colder regions porridge or meals similar to
  the full English breakfast may be consumed.
• The light breakfast commonly consists of,
  cereals, toast (with a spread) and fruit.

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Australian food

• A heavier cooked breakfast will frequently
  include, fried bacon, egg, mushroom, baked beans,
  sausages, tomatoes, toast with spread.
• Drinks taken at breakfast include, tea, coffee,
  flavoured milk or juice.

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Australian food

• The evening meal is the main meal of the day for
  most Australians, and when consumed at home, is
  often eaten with members of the immediate family
  or household.
• The dishes served will vary widely according to
  the tastes and/or background of the family.
  Common choices would be roast meat and
  vegetables pasta pizza casseroles barbecue
  meat vegetables and salads soup stir-fries.

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Australian food

• A typical 'Australian' cafe or restaurant (not
  adhering to any particular ethnic cuisine) might
  offer sandwiches and foccacias a range of pasta,
  risotto, salad or curry dishes steak, chicken or
  other meat-based dishes cakes or other desserts
  and juices, red and white wine, soft drink, beer
  and coffee.

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Australian food

• One food regularly associated with Australia is
  Vegemite (now owned by the American Kraft Foods.

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Australian food

• Other unique or iconic national foods include the
  Chiko Roll, a deep-fried savoury roll akin to a
  spring roll Violet Crumble, a honeycomb
  chocolate bar Jaffas, an orange flavoured,
  candy-coated chocolate Tim Tams, a chocolate
  biscuit and the breakfast cereal Weet-Bix.

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Australian food

• Australians also enjoy their own small, hand
  sized meat pie, generally made with meat and
  gravy.
• In South Australia this is sometimes served
  upside down on a bed of pea soup, covered in
  tomato sauce, and called a Pie floater.

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Australian food

• Damper is a simple and traditional type of bread,
  traditionally made by wrapping bread dough around
  a stick, then roasting it over an open fire
  though it is not often found commonly in
  Australia in modern times.

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Australian food

• The Boston bun is a spiced bun covered in coconut
  icing popular in Australia and New Zealand.
• Also bread based is the children's party food,
  Fairy bread, which is white bread covered in
  hundreds and thousands.

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Australian food
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Australian drink

• The Australian wine industry is the
  fourth-largest exporter in the world, exporting
  over 400 million litres a year to a large
  international export market that includes "old
  world" wine-producing countries such as France,
  Italy and Spain.

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Australian drink

• There is also a significant domestic market for
  Australian wines, with Australians consuming over
  400 million litres of wine per year.

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Australian drink

• The wine industry is a significant contributor to
  the Australian economy through production,
  employment, export and tourism.

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Australian drink

• Beer in Australia is mostly now lager.

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Australian drink

• Although Australia was settled predominantly by
  the British, it was found that, before the
  availability of modern temperature control
  systems, the brewing, distribution and storage of
  British style ale was difficult in many parts of
  Australia due to high summer temperatures and
  often sudden day-to-day weather changes in
  Southern parts of the continent.

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Australian drink

• The introduction of refrigeration lent itself to
  lager production, as well as enabling beer to be
  served cold.

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