What kind of food does Australia have?

Question

I have to do a project for my class. It's on where would you go on a vacation. We have to talk about all this kind of stuff!

Answer 1

We do NOT usually barbecue "shrimp". Shrimp are called "prawns" here and are usually boiled. Almost anything you can buy in an American supermarket can be bought in an Australian supermarket but the brand and sometimes common names are different. The style of cutting meats may be different too.

For instance "Oscar Meyer weiners" are not sold here that I know of but we have the same kind of sausage under a different name and different brand name. In Australia we probably call them Vienna sausage. Until recently Oreos were not available here but there has been a local brand of exactly the same thing for as long as I can remember under a different name.

Because the climate is warmer than in the USA, we have more tropical fruit. Lychees and other Asian fruits. Bananas are locally grown and are available year round. Mangos are seasonal. Oranges, lemons, mandarins, limes all of the time. Tomatos are available year round and usually cheap. Most supermarkets have two kinds, sometimes more.

All the usual vegetables, onions, potatoes, carrot, peas & beans dried and green, chickpeas, pumpkins of various kinds, chokos, squash, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, corn.
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I have never eaten kangaroo and it is usually regarded as dog food though some restaurants do serve it. A very, very few places have crocodile.

Turkey has never been a big thing in Australia but it has always been about. Chicken, duck and if you looked hard enough you could find goose I suppose.

Pork as roast or chops or sausages, ham & bacon. Australians have a lot of beef, eaten as steaks or roasts, and as ground beef, we call it mince, and in beef sausages. Lamb or mutton as chops, roasts and diced as a component of curried lamb. Beef lamb and mutton are often corned or pickled (salted) and served boiled with white sauce or hot mustard.

Fish. Some of the more expensive types are barramundi, coral trout and red emperor. Salmon, freshwater trout, tuna. Lots of other cheaper types as well. Cheapest is probably mackerel and "flake" or a variety of shark which is or was popular around Melbourne. Crab and lobsters and a lobster-like animal called the Moreton Bay bug. Also oysters and mussels.

Dishes like curried beef, fish or lamb and rice have always been popular. I'm probably one of the very few people in the country that once had curried water buffalo! Curries range from very mild to quite strong. We have a lot of Italian influenced meals like pizza, lasagne, spaghetti bolognaise and with meatballs, ravioli and other pasta things. German, Greek, Turkish and Lebanese restaurants and fast food places. There is even an Ethiopian restaurant near here. Their coffee is from unroasted or very lightly roasted beans.

Asian dishes range from cheap chop suey to Pekin duck, stir frys of all kinds, soups like laksa. I had green curry chicken soup with noodles and bean sprouts yesterday. Day before that I had fish and chips (french fries) with salad. Sushi, Korean too.

Breakfast menu has things like oatmeal, muesli, the usual run of Kelloggs stuff made by them and other makers.

Milk, butter, margarine, many kinds of bread, many kinds of cheese from cheap soapy stuff to aged vintage cheese with blue veins. Olive, sunflower, safflower etc and canola oil.

Tea, cocoa, coffee, beer, imported but mostly local red, rose and white wines. Locally made rums, used to be a local whisky distiller too but have not heard of them for years. Local and imported brandy.

Coca and Pepsi Colas, all of the other varieties of fizzy lolly water.

The Australian meat pie is a small pie with ground beef and sometimes vegetables in it. The "pie floater" was a Melbourne speciality and was a meat pie floating in thick pea soup. Yummo (not). Favoured in Melbourne but not much elsewhere.

Many Australians have partially abandoned the meat pie in favour of the Australian hamburger, which is a ground beef patty in a bread bun. But it's basic form includes tomato, lettuce, onion usually beetroot too. A better deal than the US form I say.

Burger with the lot will have the beef patty, tomato, lettuce, onion, cheese, bacon, slice of pineapple, fried egg, beetroot, barbecue or tomato sauce. Sometimes served on a plate with a knife and fork.

Answer 2

In Australia you will find many international cuisine Asia, Europe, etc. If you are askingwhat is local for Australia, they are famous on the meat pies, lamington cake, Pavlova ( a desert created in the 50's when ballet dancer PAVLOVA visited the country) they also have the best fish and chips. The Australian love the great outdoors because the weather is good most of the year so barbeque is common the phrase "shrimp on the barbie". And if you heard of Vegemite then that is the Icon for Australia also, it is a paste commonly use for making sandwich which happens to be my favorite. Apply thin butter on bread followed by a thin spread of vegemite, it is delicious.

Answer 3

Bush tucker! Any fruits from bushes and trees which are eatable, every now and then a kangaroo when its hopping by (and if you're fast enough to catch) - and yeah, don't forget the tasty witchatty grubs. But therefore you firstly have to dig at the roots of a certain bush acacia. Could be too much work maybe. But you also can go to any restaurant and have a steak and salads or a pizza or anything. And if you don't like this go to McDonald's or Hungry Jack's (known as Burger King in the USA).
Drink plenty of water - temperatures are hot at the moment.

Answer 4

We have pretty much what you would have in any westernised countries: meat, vegetables, bread, Chinese restaurants and pizzas and burgers. Of course there are minor differences in the way things might be prepared or what we call it. (eg we call "fries" - chips). We go to supermarkets to shop just like any "western" country.

The other stuff you hear about - Kangaroo meat - this is NOT everyday food. You need to go to restaurants that serve them. I myself have tried crocodile meat up in Queensland (up north)

Everyday stuff like meat pie and beer - this is popular with social outings and sporting events.

These days we have a lot of food from different cultures available everywhere. But there are still a lot European influence in most part and still have the traditional stuff, like ham for family Christmas.

Answer 5

as an american living in australia, the first thing i noticed was the abundance of meat pies and indian curry and thai joints. they do have a very nice native fish called baramundi. the food is actually quite nice over here for the most part, though, after a year and a half, i could really go for a nice slice of pizza

Answer 6

I am Australian and we DO NOT eat our Kangaroos, some places might serve it but i have lived hear all my life and i have never seen a place that serves it! We do eat Vegemite sandwiches though, their actually really yummy with the right amount of Vegemite on them. We mostly have Mc Donalds and Dominos just like the USA, but instead of Burger King we have Hungry Jacks(its the same thing), we do eat alot of meat pies and drink lots of Iced coffee.

I would just like to inform everybody that I have never even met somebody in my counrty that BBQ's Shrimp.

Answer 7

When i was university, our main meat was Kangaroo. $2.50 for 500grams or 3.50 for a KG. Cheap and healthy. The shops used to sell kangaroo tails in long plastic bags in the supermarket fridge. They stopped it last year because the Black Fellows would walk around with them for a few days before they cooked them and they would go off. We also eat alot of a fish called barramundi at the moment because they are easier to catch in the wet season. We eat lots of indonesian food because Indonesia is close to Northern Australia.
I just moved down south and they seem to have more fruit and veg than up North.

Answer 8

in general we eat normal food!
kangaroo is not something that is on our everyday menu. It is a specialty that is rarely found in restuarants.
vegemite is a national favourite, as is tim tams.
we dont throw shrimps on the barbie - we call them prawns.

we really eat the same sorts of food as americans though - meat, vegies, salads, fruit
burger and fries
pizza
junk food like potato chips and chocolate
we also have many international cuisine restuarants

sorry, almost forgot meat pies! oops

Answer 9

Depends where. Majority of the population reside along the coast and Aborigians live in the interior. People along the coast eat pretty much what Americans eat. They do eat kangaroo. They call them Skippies. They make Skippy pies which was sort of a mince meat in small individual pies like chicken pot pies. They have great shrimp too!

Answer 10

No, we don't eat Kangaroo, that is usually sold as dog food!!!
As a multicultural nation, we have the pleasure of eating dishes from all over the world!