Eat and drink, Australia

Part 1: Eating

Australian cuisine - the background

Australia doesn't has it own cuisine. Sounds a little hard - and maybe we should say that the variaty was not very huge due to the history. While nearly everything grows in Australia today, in earlier days the variaty of food was low. The eating behaviour was reduced to their Anglo-Saxons and Irish ancestors.

Australians love meat, earlier days and today. Beef and lamb are the main cattle - and this barbiecued.

Australian cusine - today

Some things are Australian - such as the typical Australian Meat Pie, which you find in every bakery and every super market.

It has a very strong influence of the Asian Cusine and you will find a lot of Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Indian food. Due to the fact that most Australians have a European background, European food is also strong.

Depence which state of Australia you are visiting you will find different empahisis of food. Victoria for example has mainly European cuisine.

The typical Australian Breakfast

...might not exist. Still if you have to name one, it will the English sausages and eggs.

And can you eat kangaroo?

Yes, you can. It is not very often on the menu. Kangaroo is never a breeded animal, it always comes from the bush.

Part 2: Drinking

Wines

Great wines have their homes in Australia, white ones as well as red wines. The best wines have their origin in the south of Australia, due to the better cooler climate. In the north it is getting to hot for wine.

The range for a bottle of 0.75 liter ranges from about 5 AUD to 100 AUD, whereas most lie inbetween 10 and 20 AUD.

One particular brand "Climbing" (you will recognise them from a very unusual label) has done a couple of award winning wines with different white and red grapes (around 18 to 20 AUD). Excellent! The wine is called "Climbing" because it comes from a climb that begins at 600 m above sea level. Their high altitude cool wineyard estate delivers wine is from Orange, a small argricultural city in New South Wales (www.climbingwines.com.au).

Beer

Foster is the brand which every one in the world knows. Queensland has the famous 4XXXX beer. And Australians in general like to "have a cool stubby" - one typcial Australian thing. And even much more famous than wine. Some people might even say they drink to much, especially when they go fishing or they put their "barbie" on.