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AUSSIE TUCKER
Let's quickly reflect on what exactly “Aussie Tucker” means, and on some of the influences that have affected our cuisine, and the multicultural flavours we have adopted over the years. The first Intense European migration throughout the 19 th and 20 th century brought a lot of English and Italian food to the fore, and indigenous foods were largely ignored, at least in the mainstream. The 70's and 80's saw a boom in Asian food accompanying similar immigration, and the adventurousness of the new youth culture spreading around the world meant traditional European tastes were no longer the be all and end all of Aussie cuisine. The nineties saw the interest in indigenous foods – by now known as Bush Tucker - gather momentum, and Kangaroo, Emu and Crocodile began to be farmed and appear on more menus. Likewise, native nuts, berries and herbs were harvested commercially and more chefs started using these intense ancient flavours. The 90's saw ‘Fusion' cuisine come to the fore – instead of the old Aussie meat pie, chefs were creating teriyaki pork pies, infusing traditional French cooking methods with Asian (and other) ingredients and flavours. This trend soon spread to Europe and it has become normal in many restaurants around the world. There is, of course, still a strong backlash around the world among old-school traditionally-trained chefs to resist what they see as the insidious breakdown of their heritage by the use of these so-called ‘new' ingredients and methods. Personally I think as long as the traditional methods and recipes are not lost, and have a valid outlet in “traditional” themed restaurants, then skilled experimentation in a more relaxed environment can only be a good thing! The other main influence of the 90's seems to have been the Americanisation of our eating habits – and that means more and more fast food…The worst aspect of this hostile takeover is the complete disregard for traditional food – but don't get me started against this blatant dumbing down, else I will go for pages and pages! A sad upshot of this trend is that many teenagers and early twenty-somethings wouldn't know a decent restaurant if it were right in front of them. Happily though, indigenous Bush Foods are more popular than ever amongst restaurant goers, supermarket shoppers can buy kangaroo steaks, burgers and sausages, travellers can go on ‘Bush Tucker Tours' throughout the country to see how these great and ancient foods can be used, and the indigenous community has a strong hand in the harvesting of these venerable foods. Aussie cuisine is more diverse than ever – a quick glance through the restaurant listings by cuisine of the 2006 PAUL EATS PERTH restaurant guide shows American, Australian, Burmese, Cajun/Creole, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Indian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lebanese, Malaysian, Mexican, Moroccan, Native Australian, Nepalese, South African, South American. Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese styles all strongly represented, and there are countless cafes with adventurous chefs practising fusion styles, trying to incorporate elements of these different cuisines and cultures into their daily menus and specials. We've come a long, long way from Sunday roasts in summer, Christmas in July, and the humble meat pie! By the way, the colloquialism “Tucker” comes from the first European settlers to our fair land – the English. The phrase “tuck in” was used at that time to encourage eating, or announce a meal was ready. It was only a matter of time before that evolved into “tucker”, “tucker bag” (the bag swaggies used to store food), and eventually even the humble canteen became known as a “tuck shop”. |
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Shane Pinnegar All text, images and recipes are ©Voodoo Moon 2002 - 2007
copyright
protected by international treaties & laws
and should not
be reprinted without express permission
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Last Updated - August 2007 |
