Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Typical Australian Cuisine

Food food food!

Every different place in the world is going to have different food and different traditional foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Americans, for example, are all about their bacon and eggs with a side of toast for a normal breakfast. For lunch, maybe a sandwich, and meat and potatoes for dinner.

But what is a typical Australian day look like for food?

Breakfast

For breakfast, a light meal typically includes porridge, cereal, toast and fruit. In the colder regions, or simply if someone wants a little heartier meal, breakfast in Australia can resemble a full English breakfast. A full English breakfast and a heavier cooked Australian breakfast will frequently include your typical bacon, eggs, sausages and toast with spread, but also mushrooms, baked beans and tomatoes. Vegemite is a popular black, salty spread which is put on toast or bread and eaten in the morning. It is similar to Marmite, which is made from yeast extract.

In seventh grade my social studies teacher asked if anyone wanted to sample Vegemite. I did. Let's just say my opinion of the stuff is less than favorable.

Lunch

Lunch is not big in Australia since they fill up on morning tea. However, if one was to eat lunch, chances are they would eat a Vegemite sandwich, or one made of pretty much anything they could find. For example, they would make sandwiches out of baked beans, sweet corn, mushrooms, fish paste, banana and sugar or even cold spaghetti. Also popular are hamburgers, but with their own flair of course. Some even add a fried egg, pickled beet root or pineapple.

Dinner

This is the biggest meal of the day. Australians have family dinners for the most part- sitting around the table with immediate family. Like America, there are various typical dinners according to each household and their background; common choices would be meat and vegetables, stirfry, pasta, pizza, casseroles, barbecue meat, vegetables, salad and soup. To me that seems pretty "Americanized." Restaurants serve the same type of food: salad, curry dishes, steak, chicken dishes, risotto, along with the red or white wines.

Specialities

Considered by some as national foods, ANZAC biscuits and pavlova are popular in Australia, though the oldest recipes trace back to New Zealand. ANZAC biscuits are made of rolled oats, flour, cocnut, sugar, butter and golden syrup and were highly popular during the war times since the ingredients didn't spoil. Pavlova is a meringue cake with a light, soft inner layer complete with a crispy crust. It was named to honor the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova after one of her tours in 1920 to Australia and New Zealand.

Meat pies and sausage rolls are big in Australia. There is even an annual competition to find the "Great Australian Meat Pie." Some places where they sell meat pies are Four-and-Twenty, Mrs Macs, Balfours, Villis, J. R. Pinders and Big Ben. The picture below is of a meat pie with tomato sauce on it. Look for my next blog about the weird foods of Australia!


3 comments:

  1. somebody once told me the world was gonna roll me I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.

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  2. I have read your article care fully. It was really good and informative to us keep posting this kind of article Indian Cuisine in Southern River

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