Australian cuisine
Australian cuisine is the food and cooking practices of Australia and its inhabitants. Australia has absorbed culinary contributions and adaptations from various cultures around the world, including British, European, Asian and Middle Eastern.
Indigenous Australians have occupied Australia for some 65,000 years, during which they developed a unique hunter-gatherer diet, known as bush tucker, drawn from regional Australian plants and animals. Australia became a collection of British colonies from 1788 to 1900, during which time culinary tastes were strongly influenced by British and Irish migrants, with agricultural products such as beef cattle, sheep and wheat becoming staples in the local diet. The Australian gold rushes introduced more varied immigrants and cuisines, mainly Chinese, whilst post-war immigration programs led to a large-scale diversification of local food, mainly due to the influence of migrants from the Mediterranean, East Asia and South Asia.
Australian cuisine in the 21st century reflects the influence of globalisation, with many fast-food restaurants and international trends becoming influential. Organic and biodynamic foods have also become widely available alongside a revival of interest in bush tucker. Australia exports many agricultural products, including cattle, sheep, poultry, milk, vegetables, fruit, nuts, wheat, barley and canola. Australia also produces wine, beer and soft drinks.
While fast food chains are abundant, Australia's metropolitan areas have restaurants that offer both local and international foods. Restaurants which include contemporary adaptations, interpretations or fusions of exotic influences are frequently termed Modern Australian.
History
Indigenous Australian bush food
Indigenous Australians have lived off native flora and fauna of the Australian bush for over 60,000 years. In modern times, this collection of foods and customs has become known as bush tucker.It is understood that up to 5,000 species of Australian flora and fauna were eaten by Indigenous Australians. Hunting of kangaroo, wallaby and emu was common, with other foods widely consumed including bogong moths, witchetty grubs, lizards and snakes. Bush berries, fruits, and nuts were also used, including the now widely cultivated macadamia nut, and wild honeys were also exploited. Fish were caught using tools such as spears, hooks and traps; in some areas, the construction of complex weir systems allowed the development of forms of aquaculture.
Resource availability and dietary make-up varied from region to region and scientific theories of bush tucker plants being spread by hand have recently emerged. Food preparation techniques also varied; however, a common cooking technique was for the carcass to be thrown directly on a campfire to be roasted.
Native food sources were used to supplement the colonists' diet following the arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay in 1788.
Development of Australian cuisine
Following the pre-colonial period, European colonisers began arriving with the First Fleet at Sydney harbour in 1788. The diet consisted of "bread, salted meat and tea with lashings of rum." The British found familiar game in Australia including swan, goose, pigeon and fish, but the new settlers often had difficulty adjusting to the prospect of native fauna as a staple diet. Meat constituted a large proportion of the Australian diet during the colonial era and into the 20th century.After initial difficulties, Australian agriculture became a major global producer and supplied fresh produce for the local market. Stock grazing is prevalent throughout the continent. Queensland and New South Wales became Australia's main beef cattle producers, while dairy cattle farming is found in the southern states, predominantly in Victoria. Wheat and other grain crops are spread fairly evenly throughout the mainland states. Sugar cane is also a major crop in Queensland and New South Wales. Fruit and vegetables are grown throughout Australia and wheat is a main component of the Australian diet. Today there are over 85,681 farm businesses in Australia, 99 percent of which are locally owned and operated.
Barbecued meat is almost synonymous with Australian cuisine, though it is estimated that more than 10% of Australians are now vegetarian.
Modern Australian cuisine
After World War II, subsequent waves of multicultural immigration, with a majority drawn from Asia and the Mediterranean region, and the strong, sophisticated food cultures these ethnic communities have brought with them influenced the development of Australian cuisine. This blending of "European techniques and Asian flavours" came to be known as Modern Australian cuisine.Arguably the first Modern Australian restaurant was Sydney's Bayswater Brasserie, which offered Mediterranean dishes with Asian and Middle Eastern influences and "showed Sydney that food can be adventurous without being expensive". The term itself was first used in print in the 1993 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide, which placed 34 restaurants under this heading, and was quickly adopted to describe the burgeoning food scene in Sydney in the 1990s. Leading exponents of the style include Tetsuya Wakuda, Neil Perry and Peter Gilmore.
As of 2014, the term is considered somewhat dated, with many restaurants preferring to call their style "contemporary Australian cuisine" instead.
Fruit and vegetables
Fruit
There are many species of Australian native fruits, such as quandong, wattleseed, muntries/munthari berry, Illawarra plums, riberry, native raspberries, and lilli pillies, as well as a range of native citrus species including the desert lime and finger lime. These usually fall under the category of bush tucker, which is used in some restaurants and in commercial preserves and pickles but not generally well known among Australians due to its low availability.Australia also has large fruit-growing regions in most states for tropical fruits in the north, and stone fruits and temperate fruits in the south which has a mediterranean or temperate climate. The Granny Smith variety of apples originated in Sydney in 1868. Another well-known Western Australian apple variety is the Cripps Pink, known locally and internationally as "Pink Lady" apples, which was first cultivated in 1973.
Fruits cultivated and consumed in Australia include apples, banana, kiwifruit, oranges and other citrus, mangoes, mandarin, stonefruit, avocado, watermelons, rockmelons, lychees, pears, nectarines, plums, apricots, grapes, melons, papaya, pineapple, passionfruit and berries.
Vegetables
In the temperate regions of Australia vegetables are traditionally eaten seasonally, especially in regional areas, although in urban areas there is large-scale importation of fresh produce sourced from around the world by supermarkets and wholesalers for grocery stores, to meet demands for year-round availability. Spring vegetables include artichoke, asparagus, bean shoots, beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, leek, lettuce, mushrooms, peas, rhubarb, and spinach; summer vegetables include capsicum, cucumber, eggplant, squash, tomato, and zucchini.Meat and poultry
Chicken is the most commonly consumed of all meats or poultry by weight, with approximately 47 kilograms of chicken consumed by the average Australian per year.Australians ate around 25 kilograms of beef per person with beef having a 35% share of fresh meat sales by value, the highest of any fresh meat in 2018–19.
Lamb is very popular in Australia, with roasting cuts, chops, and shanks being the most common cuts. Lamb will often form part of either a Sunday roast or a barbecue. It is also commonly found as an ingredient in gyros and doner kebabs, brought by Greek and Turkish immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s. Australia consumes more lamb and mutton than any other country listed by the OECD-FAO. In 2017, Australians consumed an average of per person. By way of comparison, New Zealanders average and Americans just.
Lunch at an Australian pub is called a counter lunch, while the term counter meal is used for either lunch or dinner. Common dishes served at counter lunches and counter meals are steak and chips, chicken parmigiana and chips, a mixed grill, and roast lamb or beef with roast vegetables.
Lunch meats are known as smallgoods in Australia and New Zealand, referring to products such as ham, bacon, sausages or salami.
Game
is available as game in Australia, although it is not among the most commonly eaten meats. In colonial-era recipes, kangaroo was treated much like ox tail, and braised until tender forming a rich gravy. It is available today in various cuts and sausages. Kangaroo is, however, a common commercial dog food in Australia.Other less commonly eaten forms of game are emu and crocodile.
Fish and seafood
Seafood consumption is increasing, but it is less common in the Australian diet than poultry and beef.Australian cuisine features Australian seafood such as southern bluefin tuna, King George whiting, Moreton Bay bugs, mud crab, jewfish, dhufish and yabby. Australia is one of the largest producers of abalone and rock lobster.
Fish and chips is a take-away food that originated in the United Kingdom and remains popular in Australia. It generally consists of battered deep-fried fish with deep-fried chipped potatoes. Rather than cod which is more common in the UK, the most popular fish at Australian fish and chips shops, at least in southern Australian states, is flake, a fillet of gummy shark.
Flathead is also a popular sport and table fish found in all parts of Australia. Barramundi is a fish found in northern Australian river systems. Bay lobsters, better known in Australia as Moreton Bay bugs, are common in seafood restaurants, or may be served with steak as "surf and turf".
The most common species of the aquaculture industry are salmon, tuna, oysters, and prawns. Other food species include abalone, freshwater finfish, brackish water or marine finfish, mussels, mud crabs and sea cucumbers.
While inland river and lake systems are relatively sparse, they nevertheless provide freshwater game fish and crustacea suitable for dining. Fishing and aquaculture constitute Australia's fifth most valuable agricultural industry after wool, beef, wheat and dairy. Approximately 600 varieties of marine and freshwater seafood species are caught and sold in Australia for both local and overseas consumption. European carp, common in the Murray River as an invasive species, is not considered edible by most Australians despite being common in cuisines across Europe.