OK, you lot. You asked for it. Hmm, Australian food...
Culturally, we're a different mixture. We have some British traditions such as CHIPS with vinegar (chips are fatter than fries - poor, malnourished weedy things). Chips with sour cream and sweet chili sauce. A lot of Indian food popular in Britain is now on our menus, such as tandoori chicken, chicken tikka and other curries such as butter chicken and roghan josh.
husband picked up a habit from his border Scots ancestors - traditional Christmas cake eaten with a slice of Wensleydale cheese and a glass of Scotch whisky.
Then we have food from our nearer Asian neighbours - ANYTHING Thai, especially laksa (personally, I think it's a plot to destroy our tastebuds). Satay anything. Singapore noodles. Chinese barbecued pork and barbecued duck (sold with the head on).
A HUGE range of fresh fruit in season - strawberries, grapes, stone fruit, nashi pears, dragon fruit, passionfruit, mangoes, bananas (they're back! hooray!), star fruit and the dreaded durian. Jackfruit is making more of an appearance. Lots of watermelon, honeydew melon, pawpaw, papaya (it's not quite the same as paw paw) and pineapples.
We're now getting a lot more exotic food in other areas - fresh Asian mushrooms and fungi, for example. We don't need to use dried fungus any more. An oyster mushroom omelette is light and delicate in flavour - absolutely delicious if you like mushrooms at all. They're now beginning to farm truffles in Australia, so we'll be producing them when the northern hemisphere has shut down production, and vice versa.
Lots of corn (preferred on the cob) plus baby corn, Asian greens, salad vegetables, the usual European staples. Some parts of Australia are renowned for various delicacies, such as King Island in Tasmania is famous for it's cheese (especially Brie and Camembert styles).
Some things we don't have - like fresh cranberries. Maple syrup, unless we import it. I have learned to like GOOD maple syrup. The trouble is, it's too easy to find the imitation rubbish. And I haven't a clue what grits are, apart from what I find on the bottom of the budgie cage.
The foods we cook - European, Asian (I'm doing chicken & corn soup tomorrow - without the noodles, I do egg flower instead), and our own styles gleaned from all the contributing cultures. We do beach bakes Aboriginal style, similar to a clambake, I gather. Increasingly we're eating more exotic meat such as camel. We've been eating kangaroo for years. Emu is now farmed for the table, too. So is croc. Frankly, I think camel is over-rated. But you can do a lot with 'roo. It's very healthy, as well. I know it seems odd to eat your national symbols, but I think we're one of the few countries with edible national symbols in plague proportions. Maybe the drought would have less impact on us if we farmed roo instead of sheep & cattle.
But we do eat a lot of beef and lamb, too. As well as chicken, a little turkey and duck (mostly Asian style). We can get pretty much anything we want. We farm venison, but few people eat it. We eat it about as much as roo. But roo is cheaper - about the same price as beef, for a better cut.
husband has eaten snake and goanna, but he said the goanna meat was tough & gamey. More wild food - Captain Cook kept his men free from scurvy by feeding them on native greens called warragul greens (warragul = dingo). The leaves have a mild, slightly soapy taste which then tastes more like spinach if you blanch it. We've got stacks of it growing down near our beaches. I don't mind it but my kids won't eat it unless I disguise it in Greek food - a sort of Aussie spanakopita.
And Aussie seafood - fabulous. Sydney Rock Oysters are reported to be among the best in the world. Prawns (shrimp) and lobsters are full of flavour. We've got one of the best eating fish in the world - barramundi. And one of the worst - mullet.
if you ever come down under, you certainly won't starve.
Oh, and there's Tim Tams... forget the Oreos, these are better. And we can GET Oreos here now, as of about five years ago.
Marg