The Pavlova Controversy and Good Old Lord Lamington

Australia does have its own culinary traditions, primarily pertaining to baked goods (shocker). Two iconic Aussie treats are pavlova and the Lamington, a couple of snacks that can be found just about everywhere in both Oz and New Zealand. My aunt was kind enough to bring me examples of both the other day. A brief explanation for the ignorant. I like to write about Very Important Things, you see.

A Lamington is, in simplest form, a yellow sponge cake rolled in chocolate frosting and coconut, causing it to resemble a furry brown square. (Charming). Lamington's are often filled with jam or cream - raspberry jam in the case of the specimen you see above. Many people react with revulsion and horror to sponge cake and coconut, which is a bit odd since both are tasty additions to the dessert pantheon and do not deserve the reputation they carry with them. Australians and Kiwis are nuts for Lamingtons and often hold Lamington drives for schools and charities, which are probably like a cake walk minus the pedestrian element. The 21 of July is now designated as Lamington Day in Australia. I love humanities willingness to declare national holidays revolving around cake.



The Lamington got its officious name from one Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, who was the Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901 - not exactly a long reign. One day, Baron Lamington took his entourage up to the hills to escape the horrible heat of Brisbane, and tasked his French chef, Armand Gallard, to produce something exotic and interesting for his pals to consume on very short notice. The chef thought quickly and came up with the Mighty Lamington. There are about a zillion more theories about the Lamington's origin, of course - some say they resemble the hats the Baron used to wear (in which case he had horrible taste in headwear).

As for the Baron himself, he was certainly not a pressure-washed Aussie icon of goodness and light, which pleases me to know. The Baron apparantly disliked the cakes named for him, dismissing them as ""those bloody poofy woolly biscuits". It appears that he was fine with the taste but disliked their fame - doubtless no one could talk to him for years afterward without referring to Those Cakes, the cakes, and no government official is ever pleased with being associated with baked goods forever more. He shot a koala right out of a tree in 1899, much to the horror of his companions. I love this guy.

A Lamington recipe can be found here, if you are feeling exotic.



Pavlova is another hotly contested Aussie baked good, primarily because no one - Australians or Kiwis - can agree on who actually invented the stuff. Pavlova is, simply enough, a meringue in the shape of a cake, prepared with egg white, sugar, white vinegar, vanilla, and cornflour, and is almost always served with cream and some sort of fruit topping - often passion fruit, kiwi, or strawberry. Australians claim that it was invented in Perth in 1953 by Chef Herbert Sachse to recognize famous ballerina Anna Pavlova, but Kiwis beg to disagree. Most research indeed indicates that a Kiwi chef created the dish in Wellington when Pavlova stopped there. Professor Helen Leach, a culinary anthropologist, has even put together an entire book devoted to Pavlova history, called The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand’s Culinary History. Pavlova appears to be Australia and New Zealand's answer to Southern BBQ: universally loved and consumed, and just as universally contested and argued about.

I find the stuff incredibly delicious, and Pavlova carries the added benefit of being pleasingly low in fat and calories. It's a mystery that it hasn't hit big-time in the USA. Hopefully I can get the stuff in Cambodia. Fingers crossed.

Australian Food: A Brief Primer

Australian food. It's not a topic that really comes up often in the annals of culinary research. I suspect that most non-Australians think Aussie food is some combination of British and American glurgh with a small infusion of interesting "bush" meats - kangaroo meat pies, sandwiches made with emu, so on and so forth. This is at least partially accurate. But I've been pleasantly surprised by the variety, freshness, and flavor of the food I've sampled in Australia. Perhaps the old meat pie and shrimp on the barbie mythos is unfounded and specious after all. Let's take a closer look at Australian food.

But first, some history.

Prior to the arrival of Captain Cook and his merry (hah) band, the Aborigines subsisted primarily on food they hunted and gathered. Australia's warm climate supported a prolific and tasty native flora and fauna, and as a result, the Aboriginal people rarely practiced substinence agriculture as we know it. As the Aborigines have resided in Australia for upwards of 40,000 years, their knowledge of local foods or "bush tucker" remains unsurpassed. Bush tucker has experienced a mild upswing in popularity among outdoorsy Australians, and guides can be purchased at most tourist bookstore. "Bush tucker" can include a startling variety of foods, from Macademia nuts and native fruits to goanna monitor lizard and bacony witchetty grubs. Coastal aborigines subsisted primarily on seafood and fish and lived a stationary lifestyle, whereas inland groups followed the goods from place to place as the seasons changed.


Aborigines also enjoyed feasting on honey ants, whose swollen and enormous rear-ends apparantly make for good eating.

This was, of course, entirely too idyllic and simple to last. In 1788, the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay from England, carrying 751 and 252 marines with them. These British settlers were unused to native Australian foods and had a hard time of it at first, as most steadfastly refused to take note of Aboriginal hunting and gathering technique. Indeed, according to Aussie Info.com, the original British settlers brought with them "familiar dishes such as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, Irish stew and steamed pudding were, for most of the year, totally unsuitable for the harsh climate and conditions." Settlers attempted to transplant English foods onto Australian soil with substantial success - and the introduction of a large number of ecologically disastrous species in the process, from bunny rabbits to deer. They also brought with them rum, which was valuable enough to serve as a currency in Australia's earliest days. (This holds true into the modern era on college campuses)

Some report that food in Australia is incredibly expensive. This is also accurate. Standard issue salads are 15 Aussie dollars, and entrees at "nice" restaurants can get into the mid thirties and forties. Eurgh.

Since the olden days, Australia has undergone a considerable renaissance in terms of fresh and organic ingredients, and its considerable immigrant population has brought a number of new recipes, techniques, and flavors to the table. Downtown Perth's selection of ethnic foods is roughly equivalent to that of California's. There's just about everything on offer, from Korean to German to Portuguese to Chinese. Emphasis on the Chinese restaurants, of which there are roughly a zillion. Local celebrity chefs incorporate native Australian ingredients and preparation methods into their high-end cuisine, producing distinctive and uniquely Australian flavors.

There is considerable overlap in American and Australian tastes. It's not hard to see why. Both are new countries formed from former British colonies, overlayed onto an existing and ancient local food culture. Both Americans and Aussies are incorporating old foodways and new into a harmonious and delicious expression of distinctive local flavor. Both nations, most importantly, have an incredible affinity for french fries (chips) and drive-through fast food joints. (The fast food drive-throughs are on the other side here. This is both mind-blowing and comically obvious when you first notice it)


Incredible looking tiger prawns at the Fremantle fish market.

Grocery stores here have been another pleasant surprise. They overwhelmingly feature attractive, fresh, and seasonal produce. Meats and seafoods are varied, ultra fresh, and appealing, in both appearance and flavor. Specialized butchers, fishmongers, and bakers abound and have set up shop in standard consumer shopping malls, meaning that shoppers can get food prepared and selected by experts, rather then resorting to the catch-all of the supermarket - though they have those, too. Ethnic grocery stores are everywhere and are usually well stocked with all manner of esoteric ingredients. Everything, I reiterate, is extremely expensive. Groceries are at least cheaper then those of any of the countries under the Euro regime at least, which is a small consolation.



Australians love Vegemite. Vegemite tastes like condensed evil and can probably be used to ward off vampires. I can't explain it. It is made from dark yeast extract and its continuing popularity is totally unexplainable by modern science. This is a nation that possess jam, marmalade, and cream. WHY?


Wine is super popular in Australia, and for good reason. Australian wines are often seriously good. Western Australia and the Perth Hills have a number of superb wineries, and most of them offer tasting rooms, high-end restaurants, and special events. (See the truffle dinner I experienced last week at Darlington Estate). The wine region looks eerily similar to Napa. Go figure.

Restaurants are everywhere and are heavily patronized. Australians, like Americans, are fascinated by food, food TV shows, and food journalism, but do very little actual cooking. Fast food is enormously popular, and chains include standard burger n' fries joints such as McDonalds and Hungry Jacks (Burger King) to chicken shillers (KFC, Red Rooster, Nandos) to sandwich shops (Subway). There's also a profusion of cheap and snappy ethnic places - think quicky Chinese food, Turkish bread (pita) sandwiches, and plenty of German sausages.



Cafes and sit down restaurants adhere to surprisingly high standards of freshness and taste. On the downside, almost every non-ethnic restaurant seems to have the exact same menu. There will always be a Caesar salad, prepared with a weirdly sweet mayonnaise dressing and plenty of lean Aussie bacon. There will always be a big bowl of chili mussels, prepared with a spicy tomato sauce. There will always be fish and chips, served with a side of sweet chili sauce and sour cream. There will always be fried salt and pepper squid with herbed aioli, and there will always be some variation on the burger, made with chicken, beef, or whatever the chef feels like at any given time. There will almost always be a pumpkin soup, some sort of berry cheesecake, and an in-house cappuccino bar. The list goes on.

Italian style coffee is extremely popular, especially in the Perth areas "cappuccino" belts. Many Italian and European refugees settled in the region after WWII and bought their food and love of caffeine with them. This historical incident means that excellent coffee and tea is available just about everywhere, often in scenic coastal spots.



Ethnic restaurants, as previously mentioned, are all pervasive and have just about every cuisine you can think of on offer. They're a great option if the tasty yet exceedingly derivative offerings of the continental joints are beginning to get to you. They are also (usually) the more economical choice, although it pays to look at the menu first.


Farmer's markets are common and feature a healthy variety of seasonal produce. In other words, they are exactly the same as farmer's markets everywhere else. The farmer's market near Applecross in Perth is excellent: fresh fish, locally raised meats, organic fruits and vegetables, and a profusion of coffee stands. And the Best Croissant Ever.

A final quirk of the Australian restaurant experience relates to service. In other words, there is not much of it. A healthy majority of restaurants, even the high-end types, require you to order and pay up front. Sometimes you take a number and the food is delivered to your table, and sometimes, you go up and get it yourself. This all becomes a lot more pleasant and understandable when you remember that no one expects you to tip, or at least not tip more then a buck or two. Australian servers are, after all, paid a living wage.

As far as expense goes, I can offer no recourse to those horrified and disgusted by the sheer expense of Australian food. Prices are driven up primarily by geography. Australia is an isolated nation with a relatively small population and not a lot of land suitable for agriculture or ranching. Perhaps an Australian visit is a good time for a budget motivated diet regime. Just an idea.

Next post will feature some common Australian food products. Shockingly enough, kangaroo is not among them.