aussie food, mate

G'day mates!

At work tomorrow before the Easter long weekend we are having a big team lunch. We have been asked to bring a plate of food each from our culture/background. The last time we did this i had just got back from Japan and I arrived back at work to find I was expected to bring SOMETHING with me. So being the smartypants I am, I went and got a whole bunch of sushi rolls and cut them up and said i was Japanese deep down. It worked. People like sushi, what can i say...

THIS year I have to make something "Australian" it seems. I have had this conversation with people before... there are no famous Australian dishes. We inherited all of 'our' recipes from every other culture that resides here! When I googled "Australian Food"...these were the first 2 images:

HA! So I have decided to just make sausage rolls tonight. Should go down a treat. Last year one guy brought along an esky full of VB cans and a pie oven full of meat pies. It was the best! Unfortunately I cannot be bothered with grand stunts this time so i am copping out and going for the sanga rolls.

This has got me thinking about Australia's origins... Here are a few vague gold nuggets of info about AUSTRALIA sourced from an Australian Government website...(for kids) hehe

- The first records of European (Dutch) mariners sailing into 'Australian' waters occurs around 1606, and includes their observations of the land known as Terra Australis Incognita (unknown southern land).

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- In 1770, Englishman Lieutenant James Cook charted the Australian east coast and named it "New South Wales"

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- 'The First Fleet' from England, comprising 11 ships and around 1,350 people, arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788. Most were criminals sent here as punishment. Great start...

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- The Second Fleet's arrival in 1790 provided badly needed food and supplies; however the newly arrived convicts were too ill, with many near to death, to be useful to the colony. The Second Fleet became known as the 'Death Fleet' - 278 of the convicts and crew died on the voyage to Australia, compared to only 48 on the First.

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- Free settlers started to arrive in 1793 to co-exist with the prisoner majority.

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- The question of land ownership by Indigenous people was not dealt with by the colonisers until the mid-1830s.

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Then a whole bunch of other awful stuff happened, laws were formed, then people started coming from other coutries to look for gold, then Ned Kelly (aka Heath Ledger/my great great great something grandpa) did some stuff, then I was born. That's about how it happened.

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The great thing about living in such a multicultural country is that it is fun and there are so many restaurants and foreign groceries, and i like to think that as a whole we are more tolerant than other countries who might not interract with many other cultures. Wow. that is my Miss Australia acceptance speech right there. whatever, it's been a long day and I can't think properly. I have heard Australia described as a 'melting pot' of cultures. Pretty accurate.

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anyway, i have to go home before i die. I might listen to a podcast on the way home! Thank you Jim for enlightening me about "The Moth"... i beleive i heard Josh mention that yesterday too, I'll check it out tonight!!