way in the Red Centre, beneath the MacDonnell Ranges outside Alice Springs, where restaurateur Ron Tremaine provides billy tea, damper, bush salad and Territory beef served under the stars—an experience not to be forgotten. I think the original Australian joke is the "bushman's recipe for cooking cockatoo. Catch a cockatoo and boil it with two stones. When the stones are soft, the bird is ready. Another version commands you to throw away the cockatoo and eat the stones. Another bush recipe calls for 3 medium-sized camels, 700 bushels of vegetables, 1,000 gallons of gravy and 2 small rabbits. You are directed to spend several months preparing and simmering the stew, which will serve 3,800; if more people are expected, add the 2 rabbits.
The traditional bush camp, a necessity for drovers and travelers in the early days, is now included in tour operators' packages in parts of Australia.
Thanks to its climate, eating out around Australia is also a mass affair. Rare is the Australian event, from the running of the Melbourne Cup to the Adelaide arts festival, which does not feature outdoor eating, usually around a "barbie," perhaps a picnic or that sturdy Australian staple, meat pie with tomato sauce.
When Victoria embarked on a tourism promotion campaign, the promoters did so with the world's longest lunch at which hundreds of people sat down to seafood on a long pier. There are now at least a dozen regional wine and food festivals in which premier restaurants set up in wine cellar doors for a day or weekend and people travel the district for a glass of wine and plate of food at each.
Despite the national passion for the outdoors, it is only in recent years that what seems the most obvious way of enjoying this has caught on. Australia's liquor licensing laws and local council regulations once made pavement or boulevard eating and drinking impossible. Battle was joined and won and today, entire city streets from Fremantle in Western Australia to the tourist belts of Queensland are now lined with tables and chairs. That alfresco feeling is also an integral part of many frontline restaurants. Where once the backyard was the place for the empties, today it is likely to be a shaded garden with foodies taking their ease. When making a booking at an Australian restaurant, it's wise to check the weather forecast and then inquire whether there is an outdoor option.
The final touch to any Aussie barbecue is a handful of gum leaves in the fire for that dinky di (authentic) outback flavor
The national partiality for eating outdoors has perhaps also contributed to Australians' longevity. From bush tucker to barbies, Australians have learned the simple pleasures of the plain grill and taught themselves to be inventive when devising salads, Paul Hogan's shrimp on the barbie was a health as well as a lifestyle statement.
Gourmet Dining in the Country
The transformation of the Australian countryside
by Marieke Brugman
Only a generation ago, the prospect of a handsome dining room, a fine meal and superb wines away from an Australian metropolis would have been merely fanciful, unless one had the good fortune to be visiting a traditional farming family. In less than twenty years, there has been a virtual revolution across the countryside, both in terms of the variety of choices of character-rich. places to stay overnight and to eat regionally focused cuisine, and in terms of the agricultural landscape itself.
Long anchored in largely Anglo-Celtic traditions, the rural landscape was dominated by sheep, cattle and wheat. The farms (known as stations) supported the extended families of the rural "gentry" as well as their workers and families, and because of their isolation, were virtually self-sufficient.
The enclave of buildings would have included a schoolhouse, stables, shearing sheds, outlying buildings for machinery and repairs, and a meathouse in which to hang home-killed carcasses. Meat, because of its bountifulness, tended to form the major dietary staple. Rabbit and wild duck in season were shot for the table, poultry raised, the house cow milked, an orchard kept and a vegetable garden tended. Bulk dry-foods would be procured on long, infrequent forays to the nearest "town."
Homestead kitchens were the norm and the hub of social life. Huge wood-burning stoves allowed the preparation of copious quantities of food. A secondary kitchen or separate space was devoted to the processing and preserving of jams, pickles, chutneys and sauces. Often there was a stone-lined cellar beneath for the storage of orderly rows of preserving jars with their aesthetic placements of fruit and vegetables. Roast dinners were typical of fare which could be characterized as plain, simple, hearty, honest cooking with "fancy" cooking reserved for the dessert repertoire.
One of the many hundreds of delicious options throughout the Australian countryside, the Uraidla Aristologist in the Adelaide hills offers excellent cuisine.
Much of this is now a thing of the past, yet never before have the gastronomic opportunities in country Australia been more bright. The increasingly adventurous and curious nature of the Australian palate has not confined itself to city sophistication. From the 1950s, when Australians started to enjoy a somewhat Westernized rendition of Chinese food, they have consistently expanded their repertoire of flavors, so that now even ordinary households all over the country include ginger, garlic, cilantro and basil in their weekly shopping lists.
Country-fresh produce can be enjoyed in restaurants, cafes, country homes or simply on a picnic.
Where once the dining options outside major cities were limited to a counter-meal at a pub (basic variations on steak and chips or a mixed grill), Victoria's spectacularly scenic Great Ocean Road is now known as "the cappuccino coast," testament to a myriad of cafes serving proper coffee, lovely wines, and everything from focaccia and pasta to fresh salads and local grilled fish.
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