This bloke loves a lamington, but really, who doesn't?
AS A melting pot of cultures we’re lucky enough to enjoy cuisine from around the world, but there are only a handful of true blue items that will be dished up on Australia Day.
From our colonial days of blending European cooking methods with native ingredients to now, our culinary history is a topic explored by University of Adelaide food studies professor Barbara Santich in her book Bold Palates.
Professor Santich has helped us break down the origins of some of Australia’s most famous foods:
DAMPER
Damper is easily made without using an oven.
Simplicity was the driving force behind the popularity of this unleavened bread staple.
The combination of flour, raising agent and water was much easier to make than yeast-raised breads in the early years of settlement without ovens or cool storage places and could be baked in ashes.
“It bears many similarities with the Canadian bannock,” Prof Santich said.
“(It) used the same ingredients as the damper but was usually cooked in a pan rather than in the ashes.”
PAVLOVA
The classic pavlova has been around for at least 80 years.
The great debate about whether this meringue cake originated here or in New Zealand rages on to this day.
“We don’t know for sure, but we can say the first written recipe for pavlova as we know it is in a New Zealand book,” Prof Santich said.
The Australian story says it was created about 1935 by Herbert Sachse, a cook at Perth’s Hotel Esplanade.
Prof Santich’s findings in Bold Palates suggest pavlova was more likely a gradual evolution of meringue cakes rather than invented by one person.
KANGAROO
Kangaroo was a meat of necessity that soon was enjoyed for its taste.
One half of our national emblem was one of the few fresh meat options available when the first settlers arrived on our shores.
“Kangaroo became part of the Sydney colony’s food supply, regularly featuring on market lists from 1793,” Prof Santich said.
“As time went on, it seems that colonists developed a taste for kangaroo and started to eat it out of enjoyment.”
Kangaroo steamer became a common dish in 1820, which was made of minced meat stewed in its own gravy, with rashers of salt pork.
LAMINGTONS
There is fierce debate among Queenslanders over where the lamington originated.
The origins of these are still considered a mystery.
A common theory is that they were made by chance after Queensland Governor Lord Lamington’s maid accidentally dropped his sponge cake in melted chocolate.
Toowoomba history Professor Maurice French’s 2013 book, The Lamington Enigma, narrows it down to three contenders who made it between 1890 and 1910 — the governor’s chef, Armand Gallad; Fanny Young, a cook from Toowoomba; or Amy Schauer, an instructor at Brisbane’s technical college.
VEGEMITE
Vegemite toast has stood the test of time for more than 90 years.
The story of this salty spread began in 1922 when a chemist was hired by the Fred Walker company — which later became Kraft Food Company — to create a spread from brewer’s yeast.
Sales of the pure vegetable extract were shaky at first but slowly grew until Vegemite became a national dish.
During World War II the armed forces bought Vegemite spread in bulk for its nutritional value.
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