How to Survive Australia. Step one: Adapt

 

Everyone remembers when they first learnt to fish. Nestled down in the comfiest yet cheapest lawn chair, spending countless hours trying to get that one magic moment when that first fish is caught. Your father or your mother, your brother, sister or best friend standing behind you coaching you on what to do. Reel it in or let it go, learning to fish is a childhood experience all Australians share. Australia and its inhabitants have learnt how to be resourceful, with a large percentage of its population being located on the coastal regions in relative isolation. Combined with influences from the Aboriginal population, resourcefulness is a trait that Australian cuisine possesses, making do with what is available and needed rather than what is wanted, with a particular emphasis on using meat caught locally rather than having it imported.

 

The history of Australia can be measured in blood, beginning as a penal colony where both criminals and dungaree settlers (emancipated convicts) were sent to build the newest colony of the British empire where they had to use what was available to survive. Botany Bay, a harbour glowing in the radiant sun, unbeknownst to that first fleet, the area that would be sailing into would become Sydney though it had nothing but swamp to the north of it and marsh to the south. Within days, the people of the first fleet would be met by the local Indigenous Aboriginal people, but like many first interactions between the English and a countries’ indigenous culture, it ended with bloodshed and the forced relocation of the indigenous aboriginal people from their land. Bain Attwood asserts that the land was “neither [taken] by inheritance, by purchase, nor by conquest, but by a sort of gradual eviction,” taking place over many years. Thinking about Australia’s history, there has been a concerted effort to increase the awareness of the English settlers taking the land from the Indigenous aboriginal people with an emphasis being placed upon educating schools. However, there are still many questions left to be asked.

Today, many Australians ask the question: how can you evict a population that had been there for millennia? Otherwise known as Australia’s first people, the Indigenous Aboriginal Australians had been the sole inhabitants on the continent for over ten thousand years. Nomadic and hunter-gatherers in nature, there were over four hundred distinct groups of Indigenous Australians, each with their own language, dialects, history, and beliefs. The white English settlers laid claim to the land that belonged to the Aboriginal population because they did not recognise the sovereignty of the Aboriginal people had, arguing that they were “not actually in possession of [Australia]” (Attwood 25). Many descendants of both cultures today lay claim to Australia as their home. Being a large place, it is surprising to find how empty the country actually is, the opposite to how many people think when they think of Australia.

 

What do you think of when you think of Australia? Could it be the Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Sydney Opera House, Uluru or the great open deserts that span the majority of the country causing it to have one of the smallest population densities in the world? The 2011 Census, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, states that there are only 2.8 people per square kilometre. With 69% of the population living in a major city and 90% living in the urban areas, all of which reside near an ocean, a lake or major river, fishing and consumption seafood are universal in Australia due to how close the desert and the bush are to people’s homes.

 

Nature is in everyone’s backyards. The bush may as well be their neighbour. Driving for less than five minutes from houses in the suburbs and only 30 minutes from the center of Sydney delivers you into the bush, surrounded by native Australian flora and fauna. Within minutes you can find yourself in untouched parts of Australia, becoming a modern day Charles Sturt, an early explorer of Australia. Cityscapes of Australia are built upon the coastline or near major water sources. With the bush encompassing those cities, Australians historically have used what is available to them, with local foods caught and grown naturally rather than imported foods being preferred. There is an emphasis for Australian cuisine to use what is necessary and available rather than having an abundance of choices.

 

Resourcefulness in engrained within Australian cuisine as much as it is within our history. Rather than settle with finding another location to construct a colony, the early settlers chose to settle upon marshland and swamps and make do. When thinking about Australian cuisine this applies to the gathering of meat for human consumption rather than import it through other international means. Australian Geographic states that until the 1900’s, “Colonial Australia remained highly dependent on imports, other than for meat.” Indeed, the first settlers brought “inadequate seeds, stick, implements and expertise,” when they first settled into Australia, with the largest recipe book only comprising of two pages and only seven different ways to combine meat and flour. Refrigeration at this time was non-existent and therefore any meat that was imported from England or even Australia’s closest neighbours was often spoiled long before it reached the kitchens of those early settlers. The settlers quickly realised that their palate needed to change and began by adopting several traditionally hunted Indigenous Aboriginal animals into their diet, supplementing their little or no meat that they received from other sources. They quickly realised that the several animals that the aboriginal people had eaten for thousands of years, such as the Kangaroo, Witchetty Grub and Barramundi fish could sustain them better than their imported meat could. These are common staples today, and I attribute that to how Australians had to learn to adapt to their surroundings in a place that was not easily accessible. They had to and fend for themselves, leading them to eat a cuisine that was based on need and availability rather than what they had previously only eaten (Australian Geographic). Their ability to adapt to their surroundings is a testament to their resourcefulness, but it also helps when the food they were eating was excellent, especially freshly caught Barramundi.

 

Grilled Barramundi is delicious but there is no other feeling like catching the fish, cleaning and descaling it and then cooking it yourself. Sitting along the shore of the river, the scent of the cooking fish wafting toward you, an invitation to taste the delectable dish that millions have prepared throughout history. Australia is severely isolated from the rest of the world but contains several animals that sustained the early settlers in those early years. This allowed those settlers to not having to rely on importing expensive and often already spoiled meat products. No animal in Australia sustained these settlers better than Barramundi and the Kangaroo.

 

Seen by all Australians as a symbol of Australia, Kangaroos along with the Emu are portrayed on thecoat of arms of Australia symbolising their and Australia’s inability to take a backward step. (See image one) EcoWatch describes the Kangaroo as an animal that was hunted by the Indigenous Aboriginal Australians because of its abundance as a source of food, citing that other food sources did not provide enough sustenance to be able to sustain the local Indigenous Australian population. The Kangaroo and the Barramundi are two native Australian species that were traditionally hunted by both the settlers and the Indigenous Aboriginal People, but are still served today in many high end restaurants.

 

Both of these two dishes are served at many famous high-end restaurants within Australia, several of whom feature Barramundi and Kangaroo several times in their menus with the Australian Heritage Hotel at The Rocks in Sydney features Kangaroo meat in five of its dishes on the menu. Barramundi is also one of the only fish featured in this menu. This hotel sits in one of the biggest tourist area’s, only minutes walk from the Sydney Opera House and Harbour bridge. From the second level balcony, the collective sights are breathtaking with the views across the city and Darling Harbour providing some of the most spectacular views in the entire country. (See image two) The Australian Heritage Hotel is famous for only serving food that is seen as being quintessentially Australian, hence why it serves two of the foods that are seen as quintessentially; Barramundi and the Kangaroo. I believe that these are served because they appease the pallet of Australian’s whom have grown accustomed to eating these animals. The Australian Heritage Hotel and many other restaurants appreciate the humble beginnings of Australia and appreciate the resourcefulness that Australians have shown through the menu choices, though many early culinary experts would call them “Abominable.”

 

“Abominable” (Australian geographic) was the word used to describe the food in Australia in the early days of its colonisation though nothing could be further from the truth. Australian Cuisine uses what is available rather than what is not. It was developed over tens of thousands of years by the Indigenous Aboriginal Culture to feed themselves and adopted by the early English settlers to thrive in the relatively isolated colony. There is nothing like Australian food. It may not be seen as overtly unique. It may not be seen as especially palatable towards many. It may not seem to be great food. Australian cuisine wasn’t developed for how it tasted or how it looked. It was created to help people survive in isolation, taking what resources they had and adapting it to suit the landscape. Australian cuisine, like its people is resourceful and adaptable.

 

References

Attwood, Bain. “Denial in a Settler Society: The Australian Case.” History Workshop Journal, vol. 84, September. 2017, pp.24-43.

 

“Australia’s Cuisine culture: A history of our food.” Australian Geographic, 27 June. 2014, https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2014/06/australias-cuisine-culture-a-history-of-food/

 

“The Average Australian.” Australian Social Trends episode 12 from The Australian Bureau of Statistics, 10 April 2013, http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features30April+2013#back7

 

“Eats.” The Australian Heritage Hotel, 2018, https://australianheritagehotel.com/eats/

 

Koorey, Stephanie. “Controversial kangaroo Cull Underway in Canberra.” EcoWatch, 21 May. 2018. https://www.ecowatch.com/kangaroo-cull-canberra-2570795213.html. Accessed 15 September 2018.

 

 

Image References

Image One

 

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The Australian Coat Of Arms. Parliamentary Education Office. https://www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/national-symbols.html Accessed 25 September 2018.

 

Image Two

 

Gallery. Image 1/11. The Australian Heritage Hotel. http://australianheritagehotel.com/gallery/. Accessed 25 September 2018.