Down Home Australian

[spoonbread]

Ok, being a naive person who doesn't live in Australia, what would you all consider comfort food? When growing up, what food brings the fondest memories?

[Shinboners]

For me, it has changed over the years, but the one constant has always been the standard Cadbury's plain chocolate bar.

As a kid though, I used to love the humble meat pie....the "Four and Twenty". These days, I rarely eat one.

Growing up, it then became braised beef briskets - a winter food for Chinese people. However, the problem was that I had to wait until my parents made it. I never did cook when I lived with my parents....but I must have learned by osmosis because once I left home, I didn't find cooking for myself that big a jump to make.

These days, it's congee. My parents would cook congee during winter and whenever they thought that my sisters and I needed a bit of "inner warmth" from food.

[Adam Balic]

I'm afraid my mother is a brilliant gardener, not a cook, but best childhood memories of food:

- Spit roasted pig/lamb at family gatherings

- Hot Jam doughnuts at school

- Scones baked by my grandmother during shearing

- licking the cream out of the middle of Fairy cakes

- Dim sims with soy sauce

Later comfort memories:

- Pho

- Shopping very early at the Queen Vic. and having a Bratwurst in a roll.

- Seafood BBQ

- Stew/casserole of beef shins

- Visting wineries

[Laksa]

Although it's been seveal years since I left Australia, fond memories of the years I spent in Melbourne have never left me. There are so many memories of food that I just don't know where to begin.

During my childhood, the primary sources for comfort food were the fish and chips shop and milk bar. After school, I would sometimes get a "bag of chips", or potato cakes from the chip shop. Chips are like American french fries, of course, but thick cut. The best ones are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I have not seen the Australian potato cake anywhere else. These are deep-fried flat disks, made from potato flour (I think), about the same diameter as a dunkin' donut, with a crispy exterior. Chips and potato cakes are best with a small sprinkling of salt and white vinegar.

Of course, Four 'n Twenty (a pie and pastry company) pretty much dominated my school lunch diet. Meat pies, pasties and sausage rolls were the staple of most secondary school "tuck shops". "Tuck", short for "tucker", is Australian slang for food. And I cannot leave out the Chien Wah "dim sim", which you can have steamed or fried, but served with copious amounts of soy sauce either way. The dim sim is a shaomai-like dumpling quite unlike any "dim sum" that you'll find anywhere in the world. I don't know given a choice if I'll ever eat them today, but they sure tasted good then.

For dessert, how about a loganberry pie? or a peanut butter and honey sandwich?

After I graduated from the meat pie, though never straying too far from one, I started on the souvlaki and the turkish pide (turkish pizza). That coincided with my move to East Brunswick, where very, very good turkish pide and lebanese roast meat sandwiches can be found.

In my college years, restaurants in Clayton and Springvale offered a new world of pleasure, in the form of beef pho and banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches). I had countless bowls of "large special beef" during that time. That was also when I discovered the pleasure of scones with fresh cream and strawberry jam from the Uni (short for university, not sea urchin roe) cafe.

I can list many other items that were favourites throughout my stay in Melbourne: congee at 3am at the Supper Inn, the ubiquitous roast leg of lamb, La Porchetta pizzas in Carlton at practically give-away prices, all you can eat felafel from a franchise whose name I should remember but have forgotten, Little Bourke Street - enough said. Well, let's not forget dim sum (Australians tend to say "yum cha") and dinners at Sharks Fin Inn and all its branches.

Excuse me for rambling, but writing about that time in itself gives me so much pleasure that I don't care if everyone else finds my post boring.

[Adam Balic]

Never has somebody spoken about living in Clayton with such loving memories!

From my time Clayton* I remember a local chip shop that sold battered deep-fried dim sims that had been re-batted and fried until they were as big a tennis balls. Not sure if this is a fond memory.

*outer Melbourne suburb were Monash University main campus is located.

[ludja]

Excuse me for rambling, but writing about that time in itself gives me so much pleasure that I don't care if everyone else finds my post boring.

On the contrary, great post! I had never heard of "potato cakes" and now I"m salivating for some scones with strawberry jam and fresh cream.... and, um, maybe a bahn mi before that!

[Adam Balic]

I have not seen the Australian potato cake anywhere else. These are deep-fried flat disks, made from potato flour (I think), about the same diameter as a dunkin' donut, with a crispy exterior. Chips and potato cakes are best with a small sprinkling of salt and white vinegar.

An essentially similar item is called a 'scallop' in the North of England.

[Shinboners]

By the way, does coffee count as comfort food? Or just a comfort drink? Either way, a coffee at Pellegrini's often does the trick for me.

[Niall]

While only haven lived in Oz for 6 years, now that I've left I really miss Yum Cha, Pho and Aussie burgers. The bloody big ones you get from any non chain chipper with pineapple, eg and bacon. (skip the beetroot)

[monkeyc]

I tend to think of comfort food as the sort of food my mother used to cook or my grandparents cooked. Perhaps it's growing up in the bush but for me comfort food is stuff like the Sunday Roast with all the trimmings (roast beef preferably) or a nice juicy steak off the BBQ with salads or maybe mums rissoles and mashed potato with tomato and onion gravy.

Thats what I think of when i go to comfort food, and funnily enough when I am away for work its what i like to try and order if I have worked a long day and dont feel like going out for dinner - and do not get me started on hotel room service menus - comfort food for me in hotels is stuff like hamburgers, steak sandwiches, steak and chips etc and the current need to turn every room service menu into 'fusion' cusine is pathetic - lets face it folks lukewarm steak sangers are ok lukeworm peking duck on a bed of noodles isnt... (well to my mind)

[primowino]

An essentially similar item is called a 'scallop' in the North of England.

Edited July 23, 2004 by primowino (log)

[Laksa]

It's been almost 8 years since I lived in Melbourne, but I remember having these truly indulgent breakfasts at greasy delis/coffee shops in the city. Seating is in booths that invariably have those mini-jukebox thingies you put coins in to dial up your favourite tunes.

If memory serves, they're called "mixed grill" breakfasts. The mixed grill breakfast will send your cardiologist into shock. You get a steak or lamb chop, fried eggs, sausages, bacon, fried tomatoes, toasts thickly buttered on both sides, baked beans, chips and I'm sure there are other things on the plate that I don't recall. Nothing like a mixed grill breakfast to bring comfort at the end of an all night drinking session.

Ok, maybe there weren't that many items in a mixed grill breakfast, but that's how I like to remember it.

Edited July 23, 2004 by Laksa (log)

[Aussie_Gusto]

From child hood and still favourite or favourite memories:

Roast Lamb and the timmings

Lamb shank pearl barley and vegetable broth is top of the tree.

Tomato and onion sangers.(sandwiches)

Dripping on toast (yep some of us loved it!)

Bonox with a piece of bread dunked in it

Fish and chips,potato cakes ( yes a slice of potato is used) ,FLAKE (fish)

Poons chinese in Footscray (home made dim sims)and Hoy Heng in Williamstown, we used to take a saucepan into the shop with a note for number 17 and number 23 etc. till I graduated to Little bourke street hahahahhaha

The Classic Cafe in swanston street and their pineapple doughnuts (now gone)

Chicken patties on Flinders street station (now gone)

Melbourne Pizza late 60's nice and oily and rich with garlic.

Little milk bars who sold home made salamis in the Western suburbs

The doughnuts at the Vic market been there since the 1950's

Vanilla slices - snot blocks

The cafes near the Vic Market who used to sell hot brekkys and the Holbrooks was always on the table - they are all now gone I think

Now living overseas almost 3 years I crave: Meat pies, pasties, sausage rolls FISH AND CHIPS dim sims, Australian chinese food (cos its not SWEET) ahhh the list is so long. Most things I make myself or made 'do' till I get home. actually would sell all my jewells (if I had any) for some Chinese from Little Bourke street right now

I won't even START on the lollies.......*sob* think I may just have to have a lie down with a nice Bex and a hot cup of tea.

[spoonbread]

This is really good stuff! Thanx all and please keep them coming!

[Tangle]

I've seen a few familiar things mentioned already like the bread and dripping, my favourite part of a roast lamb dinner.

Flake is probably number one, it's the must have sharky goodness that I always go for the minute I find myself back in Melbourne. Mercury be damned.

Vegemite on toast soldiers when home sick from school.

The half fish and chips half Chinese takeaway meals we'd have because my sister was too fussy to eat Chinese food and the two take-aways were right next door to each other.

Mum's totally inauthentic chow mein made with Clive of India curry powder and fartloads of cabbage.

Chocolate ripple cake.

I never graduated to tomato and onion sandwiches although my grandfather ate them regularly.

Edited August 4, 2004 by Tangle (log)

[Romaney O'Malley]

The things I remember best are my mum's cooking from women's weekly cookbooks (during the week and baking) and Margaret Fulton (for dinner parties and special occasions).

The things that most stick in my mind were:

Chicken and asparagus casserole

Margaret fultons (I think) salmon mousse complete with fish mould and an olive for the eye

women's weekly lemon slice

Pumpkin scones with homemade jam and whipped cream

Steak Diane

I know these aren't all necessarily authentic Australian but a couple of them I just identify with the Australian dinner party scene in the 70s and 80s. I remember my parents having everyone over all dressed up and eating this great retro food.

Did anyone eat weetbix as a snack with margarine and vegemite?

And it has to be asked - Can you fit a SAO in your gob in one go???

[Romaney O'Malley]

Forgot to say - the food I miss most over here in the UK is BBQ and pizza shapes - and mint slices mmmmmm

I'd also kill for a cherry ripe but I refuse to pay £1.75 for one at Harvey nicks (yes you did read that number correctly)

Oh - and my mum gave me that fish mould when she was last over. I made the salmon mousse for a BBQ on the weekend and they demolished the whole thing - couldn't wait to tell my mum.

[Laksa]

I ate weetbix with peanut butter.

Oh yeah, Cherry Ripe. It's also virtually impossible to get honeycomb sweets like Violet Crumble in the states, but I think I've seen Crunchie around once.

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Tim Tams! And Kingston biscuits! What about Iced Vo Vos? I like to look at them more than I like to eat them though

Whenever someone opens a pack of Family Assorted, I reach for the Scotch Fingers first.

Although not really a comfort food, I miss the soft (not toasted) muesli you get in Oz. Most muesli/granola is the crunchy kind here.