Cuisine

Australian

Australian

The oldest continuous food cultures on the continent sit beside a café breakfast culture that is barely a century old. First Nations fire, fish and plant knowledge is cuisine when cooks treat it as such, not as a garnish on a European plate. Colonial British baking left lamingtons — sponge dipped in chocolate and coconut — and ANZAC biscuits of oats, golden syrup and coconut. Damper is a simple camp bread. Smashed avocado on toast is a café weekday breakfast. Chicken parmigiana is pub food: crumbed chicken, tomato, cheese. Fairy bread is white bread, butter and sprinkles.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander foodways are tens of thousands of years deep. British colonial cooking brought wheat, sheep and a sweet tooth. Postwar European and later Asian migration built restaurant cultures that are now local: Vietnamese, Greek, Italian and Chinese kitchens in Australian cities. Vanilla slice is a bakery slab of puff and custard with a taut icing. Native ingredients — wattleseed, finger lime, kangaroo — appear seriously in some kitchens and as a sprinkle in others.

Grilling and baking do a lot of work. Seafood is often treated simply. Café breakfast is a real meal structure: eggs, avocado, sourdough. Lamingtons should be sponge that still has crumb, not a dry cube. ANZAC biscuits spread and crisp; they are not a health cookie. Damper is unleavened or lightly raised bread cooked in the coals or the oven. Australian cooking is First Nations knowledge, immigrant restaurants and a bakery-and-pub line that still sells vanilla slice.