Australian cuisine is heavily influenced by the cultures and people that have migrated here.
Being a melting pot of different cultures and ethnicities, Australia doesn’t really have its own food really. The cuisine of the original Australians, the Aborigines, included eating roasted kangaroo, berries and leaves, and whatever they could find in the wild. Today, however, with the influx of people from Europe, Asian and the rest of the world, Australian food encompasses everything from fish and chips to Asian noodle dishes.
When one thinks of Australian food, the quintessential ‘Aussie barbie’ comes to mind. Yes, summers are popular for BBQ with sausages (‘snags’) and lamb chops being the order of the day. Since most of the cities and towns are located along the coast, seafood is plenty, especially in the seaside cities of Western Australia and Queensland. Australian pies are also a very common snack, easily found at road-side stands, supermarket freezers and anywhere in between. Australians are experts at taking food from other countries and making it their own. ‘Surf and turf’ or ‘beef and reef’ is one example of an Australian dish made up of a combination of a steak topped with shrimps.
Australian cuisine is incomplete without some of the decadent desserts that are so popular in the country. Tim tams are Australian chocolate biscuits (cookies) that are well-known all over the world. Pavlovas and lamingtons are Australian cakes that are as different as they come.
While good Australian food is prevalent everywhere, the best Australian food can be found in the metropolitan cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Hobart. Cosmopolitan Melbourne has some of the best valued restaurants with the most diverse range of cuisines from all over the world. Both Sydney and Perth have excellent restaurants as well although a tad on the expensive side.
So whatever your taste is, Australian food is sure to be a crowd pleaser. So be ready with your chomp chomp hat and get on the gastronomical food train when you reach Australian shores.
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