An acronym for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, Anzac biscuits are the brainchild of 1920s-era military wives and mothers who sold the cookies for war-effort fundraisers. Heather Sperling, who developed this recipe for the 2014 edition of the Saveur 100, first tasted them at an outdoor market in, of all places, Berlin. “As a lifelong oat cookie devotee, it was intense love at first bite,” she says. Loaded with coconut as well as oats, the dough will have a crumbly texture. No matter; once pressed into patties, it’ll bake to a sturdy, satisfying crunch.

Featured in: “Anzac Biscuits.”

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In an excerpt from her new book, You Had Me At Pet-Nat: A Wine-Soaked Memoir, Rachel Signer traces her journey on how leaving New York and following an obsession for natural wine led her to meet her future partner (aka “Wildman”), set up a new life on a farm in South Australia (by way of Paris), and learn the beauty—and many, many intricacies—of making wine the old-school way, including her very own bottles of pét-nat. The founder and publisher of Pipette magazine also shares her favorite bottles of the moment here.

PFFFFFFFFFZZZZZZZZZZ. Wildman popped the crown cap off another bottle and put its neck through a hole in the large plastic bin. Excess wine foamed out, bringing with it chunks of naturally occurring crystalline deposits known as tartrates, and lees made of dead yeasts and grape skins that had accumulated in the bottle while it rested, upside down, over the past few months. Now, the disgorged bottle was only three-fourths full—it surprised me that so much wine was lost during this process.

“It will be worth it,” Wildman reassured me. And I agreed—having opened a few non-disgorged sparkling wines before, I could attest that they too often sprayed everywhere. Better to lose the wine here and present customers with a properly finished wine that wouldn’t fizz in their face.

Swaying to the beat of “Hot Stuff,” partly to stay warm and partly to keep my energy up, I tilted a bottle of the same sparkling wine into the recently disgorged bottles, topping them back up one by one, then capping them manually on a table. That day we’d repeat this with 200 bottles of my pét-nat—a pink wine I’d made at the start of vintage from blending separately fermented chardonnay and pinot noir.

“Well, I feel stupid,” I said. Wildman looked at me quizzically. “If you only knew,” I said, reaching for another bottle to pop open, “how many explanatory articles I’ve written that introduce pét-nat as the ‘simpler, easier’ version of champagne.”

It was true, of course, that the fancy French stuff was made with two fermentations, while pét-nat had only one. But as I was learning, that didn’t make the latter any easier, especially given that we did all of the work by hand, rather than with machine-operated riddlers and disgorgers, as many Champagne houses use.

The challenge began with carefully timing the bottling of the wines. Pét-nat is generally made by bottling wine with a tiny amount of residual sugar, so that bubbles occur as a result of fermentation finishing. In my case, I’d been so busy working the basket press and picking in the vineyards that my pinot and chardonnay had fermented dry over the course of a month. So we had added some fresh Gamay juice before bottling, to help fermentation restart. Wildman made the calculations carefully, using a textbook from his student days to determine the exact number of liters we should add. For his wines, he’d been more on top of the timing and had bottled them with sweetness. Either method was fine to us—it was pét-nat regardless. Natural wine was a world without definitions, anyway.

For many who adore natural wine, pét-nat is the heart and song of our movement, something we rely on to set a cheery mood amongst friends or kick off a weekend gathering. A chilled, cloudy, low-alcohol bottle of pét-nat is the bad boy in a leather jacket, while a bottle of champagne is more like a woman in a Chanel suit with pearls. Of course, there are plenty of champagne grower-producers who actually do farm and vinify entirely by hand and whose wines can display some very unique aspects. They operate quite differently than large champagne “houses,” which purchase fruit from all over the region and more or less use a recipe to make their sparklings. But pét-nat is the natural wine movement’s darling because it refuses to be dressed up.

Back in the day, the folklore goes, in 16th-century Southern France, the first sparkling wines happened largely by accident when producers in the town of Limoux bottled their young juice before it had finished fermentation. Bottling wine was a rare thing then (it was served directly from the cask). In the cases where a wine wasn’t yet dry, its residual sugar might be converted to carbon dioxide—in other words, bubbles—if fermentation restarted once it had been bottled. Although it happened accidentally at first, that approach was adopted as an intentional way of making sparkling wine and became known as méthode ancestrale, or the “ancestral method,” in contrast to the method developed in Champagne in the 19th century. The Champagne method involves bottling still, dry wine with added yeast and sugar to kickstart a secondary fermentation and aging it extensively in a cellar so that the sparkling wine develops complexity. Today, some wines labeled méthode ancestrale achieve fizziness by arresting fermentation through temperature control or adding sulfur before bottling, when the process is then allowed to resume. Generally, both méthode ancestrale and Champagne wines are disgorged, meaning they are opened to allow for tartrates and yeasts to spill out, before refilling and sealing with a cork.

Pét-nat may or may not be disgorged. If it is disgorged, it’s usually not resealed with a cork—a regular crown cap will do. The specific term pét-nat and its natural wine ideology came about in the 1990s, with credit going specifically to Christian Chaussard, who made wine in Vouvray until he passed away in a tractor accident in 2012. In Vouvray, the main variety is Chenin Blanc, which can produce a sweet wine if harvested late. Sometime in the late ’90s, Chaussard bottled one Chenin Blanc wine with a touch of residual sugar, and he either did not add sulfites or added very little to arrest fermentation—therefore, the wine kept going in bottle and became fizzy. Instead of tossing out the wine, which he found quite enjoyable, Chaussard called it a pétillant-naturel, a natural sparkling, and referenced the méthode ancestrale as an example of its historical occurrence. Pét-nat, therefore, is a perfectly postmodern thing in that it’s made with an irreverent eye to a modern ancestor. It stands apart from méthode ancestrale wines in that no added yeasts or preservatives may be used—it should be 100 percent grapes-only.

The post At This Australian Winery, Making Pét-Nat Is Not a Spectator Sport appeared first on Saveur.

This tart and tropical fruit pavlova recipe comes to us from Paris chef Alexia Duchêne. She typically serves the dish individually plated. If you prefer a family-style presentation, arrange the meringues on a serving platter or bowl and layer with the fruit and yogurt cream. Stored in an airtight container, leftover meringues will keep for up to 2 weeks.

This recipe is adapted from Duchêne’s cookbook, La Cuisine D’Alexia: Mes Recettes & Conseils Pour Cuisiner Comme une Cheffe à La Maison.

Featured in “The 26-Year-Old Chef Leading a New Wave of French Cuisine.”

The post Kiwi, Dill, and Yogurt Pavlova appeared first on Saveur.

In this recipe adapted from Australian cookbook author Odette Williams, French meringue is baked until perfectly crisp on the outside and gooey and marshmallow-like on the inside. Served with whipped cream, curd, seasonal fruit, or a combination of all three, the individual meringues make an excellent celebratory (and gluten-free!) dessert.

Reprinted with permission from Simple Cake by Odette Williams, copyright © 2019. Photographs by Nicole Franzen. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House, Inc.

Featured in: French Meringue Is the Dessert That Will Make You Look Like a Star

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Equipment

• Large Baking Sheets
• Parchment Paper
• Stand Mixer with Whisk Attachment
• 1/3-Cup Measure or Ice Cream Scoop

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My first foray into tasting Vegemite came from living with an Australian roommate a few years ago. Her habit was to keep multiple jars stashed in our pantry, lest she run out of the brown, yeasty paste. I barely touched the stuff, its unfamiliar scent and texture was, for a long time, more than slightly daunting in nature. It would be a few years before fate forced me into cracking open a jar (Vegemite, by the way, will keep through the end of the world).

Developed in 1922 by Cyril Callister in Melbourne, Australia, Vegemite is made using leftover brewer’s yeast from the beer-making process. (British Marmite already existed by that point, but their supply was interrupted by the arrival of World War I and import issues with the British.) Once their own version was created, it became a staple item in many Australian homes. By World War II, it would find its way into every ration kit given to on-duty soldiers.

In its home country, the thickly syrupy, almost blackish paste is most traditionally eaten slathered onto toast with a bit of butter nestled underneath. The first time I tried it, I was immediately assaulted by the amount of sodium. “How do people enjoy this?”, I wondered silently. But I smiled and nodded at my roommate, as the moisture completely evaporated from my mouth. (Now, I’m sure you’re asking, “Where does the part come in where she likes it?”. Follow me down the science brick road here.)

Vegemite contains glutamate, or glutamic acid, also known as the main driver of the 6th taste, umami. Ingredients such as parmesan cheese, dried mushrooms, even tomatoes, contain varying levels of glutamates, bringing a hard to describe background complexity to a dish. Vegemite is packed full of it. Sometimes I even call it a vegan bouillon. That helped me figure out the mystery of what to use it on.

Vegemite

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I was throwing a totally not-vegan pig pickin’ (born and bred North Carolinian here, y’all) and needed a vegan barbecue dish so all of my friends could enjoy the celebration. I decided to whip up some jackfruit barbecue, my go-to replacement for a pulled pork texture, and after adding the sauce and braising it for 45 minutes, it tasted sort of bland and insipid. I was quickly running out of time and simultaneously still keeping a close eye on the smoker. I rummaged through the pantry, needing a culinary Hail Mary, and eyed a jar of Vegemite. Creativity and desperation met. I twisted the jar open, scooped out a tablespoon and plopped it into the braising fruit, crossing my fingers for the best. After it melted into the mixture, I had a taste of it. My mouth was filled with salty, sweet, spicy and a hint of vinegar. It was like the Vegemite had turned the volume up to eleven. From then on, I’ve realized you can use Vegemite to help put the finishing touches on many dishes in similar need of some punch. It’s good for everything from stews to beans, but one of the most successful recipes I tried it in was a split pea soup during a time when I had run out of chicken stock.

I encourage you to open your heart to the humble Vegemite spread. Every underdog deserves its day.

More Dishes to Try with a Touch of Vegemite

Barbecue Sauce
Braising liquids for vegetables
Braising liquids for red meats
Pesto
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Wing sauce
Mushroom bread pudding
Veggie burgers
Black beans
Baked beans
Richer soups and stews
Glazed ham
Breakfast hash
Fondue
Chili
Turkey gravy
Gumbo

The post How an American Fell in Love with Vegemite appeared first on Saveur.

Looking into a glass-fronted case in a Sydney seafood shop, you might think you’re staring at a pile of giant pill bugs. But Moreton Bay bugs (named after the bay near Brisbane) and their cousins, Balmain bugs, are crustaceans, not insects, and they’re beloved treats on ­Australia’s eastern coast.

Despite the bugs’ alienlike look—broad heads, flattened antennae, and no claws—Aussies eat them as readily as we do blue crabs in Maryland or crawfish in New Orleans. Most of the meat is in the bug’s tail, so a lengthwise slit down the center is the fastest way to get at it after grilling, the most popular preparation. Considered a species of “least concern” by conservationists, the sweet, white, lobsterlike meat is served atop picnic tables and white tablecloths alike.

Not everyone loves the cheeky name as much as the meat (marketers prefer the “official” term, bay lobsters). But Australians are notorious for their slang, so good luck eradicating “bug” in the country that brought us “cuppa” and “barbie.”

The post What’s a Balmain Bug, and Why Do Australians Love Them? appeared first on Saveur.

Sixteen years ago, photographer Eamon Donnelly was on a nostalgia kick during a visit home to East Geelong, a suburban town an hour outside of Melbourne, Australia. During that trip, he returned to visit Dave & Peggy’s milk bar, the neighborhood sort-of general store where he frequented for mixed candies and ice cream cones as a kid. Donnelly soon discovered that Dave & Peggy’s, along with the four or five other milk bars in East Geelong, had all closed up shop—as had thousands of others across Australia.

Just as New Yorkers have delis and bodegas and Germans have Tante-Emma-Laden, Australians’ milk bars are the instantly recognizable, and beloved, mom-and-pop corner stores of cultural significance. Predominantly run by Greek and Italian migrants for decades, milk bars became the go-to for residents of all ages and backgrounds in need of sundries including newspapers, cigarettes, and the occasional milkshake.

As institutions around the country have increasingly declined in number, unable compete with supermarket chains as well as rising property values, Donnelly has spent close to two decades documenting and archiving images of milk bars as well as interviews for his Milk Bars book, to be published later this year.

In Greek Cafes & Milk Bars of Australia, Macquarie University professors Leonard Janiszewski and Effy Alexakis explain that the Australian milk bar traces back to Joachim Tavlaridis, or “Mick Adams,” a Greek migrant who was in awe of the popular soda parlors he saw when visiting Chicago in the early 20th century. In the 1930s, Tavlaridis put a twist on the concept of the American soda parlor, swapping out milkshakes for soda fountains, and established his own original concept of an Australian communal gathering space, decked out with a marble countertops, big mirrors, and a handful of seated booths.

By the ‘70s, however, the term “milk bar” became tied to general store-esque businesses, predominantly in the suburbs in part due to the creation of flavored milks as well as a need to add more supplies due to a decline in the temperance movement. Today, they’re known by several names across Australia, including delis, corner shops, and mixed business.

RECOMMENDED: The Heat Down Under

“It was family, community, friendly service and the migrant success story,” Donnelly says. “This was the place you discussed the latest news from the street corner to the other side of the world, you bought the weekly food supplies and received life advice from the owners who knew your name.”

The photographer explained that the milk bar was a ubiquitous yet personal experience throughout the lives of Australians of all stripes: some of the photos capture capture upbeat, nostalgic sentiment. Shots of storefronts and interiors are flooded with a hi-def brightness, sharpening the plastered-all-over gothic signage for newspapers or bubbly ice cream brand logos, awash with ‘80s-reminiscent pastel hues of mustard yellow and seafoam green. Inside, neon oranges and pinks scream the childhood delight of sugary drinks and candy. Others recall memories actualized, deliberately washing out the scenery to emphasize many milk bars’ decades-long lives.

In addition to preserving customers’ rose-tinted memories of milk bars, however, Donnelly hopes to shed light on the hardships many families endured running these business, hoping to provide their family members a better life. A chapter of the book, titled “Behind the Counter,” will showcase the proprietors side, many of whom “hated it.”

“You had people working in these milk bars every single day just so they can have a better life,” Donnelly said. “Back in the day, one generation would run it for 20 years. They didn’t really want their children to run milk bars, they wanted their children to go to good schools, get good jobs.”

With many realizing that the boom of convenience stores like 7-Eleven and skyrocketing real estate values have accelerated the decline of milk bars, Donnelly’s project has piqued national interest. Occasionally, he’ll receive images from previous milk bar owners or patrons of stores that have long closed down, or tips on businesses that look like they’re on their last leg. The project, he said, will continue long after the book’s publication.

“I’d like to think if someone has any history or memory or tip off that they’ll contact me and think ‘Ah, that’s that milk bar guy,’” Donnelly said. “It’s something I think I’ll be doing for my entire life.”

This March, Eamon Donnelly will be launching a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of printing his 400-page hardcover book. Register your interest in “MILK BARS: Milkshakes, Memories & Mixed Lollies” here.”

The post Remembering the Milk Bar, Australia’s Vanishing Neighborhood Staple appeared first on Saveur.

Anna-Marie Wallace

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Anna-Marie Wallace keeps a python named Cleopatra in her Made Of Australia ceramics studio. It’s a fairly common backyard resident in the “big scrub” rainforests of northern New South Wales but the 42-year-old potter has a particular fondness for reptiles and insects that shed their outer layers.

“I have a couple really big lace monitor lizards that like to eat my cacti and scare my pond fish to death. They are pretty intimidating, but thankfully prefer the garden to the studio,” says Wallace, who wears outsized glasses and favors her breakfast toast smeared with black sesame EveryMite. “There’s carnivorous antechinus keeping the bugs at bay; they’ve obviously made a deal with the reptiles not to be devoured. The giant skink that lives in the drying area is a bit big for snake food too. I think my python prefers the micro bats that nap in the loft during the day.”

Anna-Marie Wallace

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On a country road in the foothills of Nightcap National Park, a few miles inland from the coast at Byron Bay, Wallace scavenges her 18-acre property for the detritus left behind by native bird and animal species, which she then packs between raw clay forms stacked in tins headed to a dual burner, gas-fired brick kiln she calls Caia Caecilia, after the Roman goddess of fire and the hearth.

A former industrial designer, Wallace specializes in unglazed ceramics, a raw expression of earth and fire, fashioning plates and bowls, sake cups, pitchers, ovoid serving dishes, mortar and pestles, each piece uniquely imprinted by a process with unpredictable results. Her finished work is shaded deep gray, with lighter splotches of ash and stark white, and the occasional brilliant slash of oxidation. Surfaces are defined by the organic remains that she layers with rough Australian clay during the firing process. Depending on her whimsy and an informal network of foragers, that may include hatched crocodile eggshells, pandanus fruit, macadamia nutshells, cockatoo feathers, kelp picked up on the beach, even wombat poo. And Cleopatra’s discarded skin, too.

Anna-Marie Wallace

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“My kiln temperatures near 1800°F,” explains Wallace, who stores foraged scraps in an open shed next to the studio. “This controlled combustion and containment transforms these ingredients from solid to gas, releasing natural minerals and compounds. Unable to escape into the atmosphere, they permeate the clay, creating an unrepeatable transference of color, pattern and texture.”

Anna-Marie Wallace

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While learning her craft five years ago, Wallace turned away from glazing chemicals due to severe allergic reactions, so she experimented with alternative techniques—pit firing, barrel firing, naked raku—and finally fell in love with the saggar method, which dates back thousands of years and employs containers to safeguard ceramics in a kiln. “Saggar resonated with my environmental ethos. No waste. Less toll on the planet. It felt like a bygone method that needed reviving, so I set about modernizing it.”

Made Of Australia ceramics may be a response to her environment, but Wallace also has a high-tech side—she invented a water-based, silicon dioxide sealer that provides a protective barrier on unglazed tableware, making it safe for commercial use. (Apparently, it can even withstand liquid nitrogen.) Commissions from her studio have turned up on the table at Orana in Adelaide and Igni in Geelong, both restaurants known for their use of equally indigenous ingredients. For chefs weary of white plates and bowls, her textured pieces are darkly expressive palettes. Another part of their beauty is a lack of uniformity. It takes her up to four weeks, and 30 steps in the process, to create a single piece.

Anna-Marie Wallace

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And what about Wallace’s occasional muse?

“She’s pregnant right now, it’s spring here, so I expect several mischievous baby snakes any time now, breaking my plates and causing general havoc while they learn to hunt.”

The post Meet the Australian Ceramicist Turning Snake Skin and Crocodile Eggs Into Art appeared first on Saveur.

“We call this warrigal, but it’s also known as Cook’s cabbage,” says Bruce Pascoe. He was harvesting an emerald-green plant with spade-shaped leaves growing under a stand of paperbark trees in Far East Gippsland, a remote coastal region eight hours’ drive north of Melbourne. “When James Cook landed here in Australia, he fed this plant to his crew on the Endeavour. Without it, they would have died of scurvy.”

Pascoe explains that his wife Lyn makes pesto by pairing warrigal, which tastes like spinach brightened with lemon, and macadamia nuts from her orchard. Pascoe, an aboriginal linguist, author, and food advocate, recently launched a crowd-funded initiative called Gurandgi Munjie to encourage the rediscovery of the country’s indigenous food plants and propagating methods. It’s a big challenge, but one Australia is finally embracing.

Given its relative isolation in the southern hemisphere, with climate zones ranging from arid desert to tropical rainforest, Australia has a cornucopia that exists nowhere else in the world; the Slow Food Foundation’s Ark of Taste lists 60 rare and protected entries, some harvested for millennia, others only now gaining attention as more of the continent’s chefs connect with botanists and foragers who source ingredients typical of the First Peoples diet. (Aborigines arrived here approximately 50,000 years before European explorers in the 17th century.)

By challenging myths about indigenous foodways, Bruce Pascoe helps Australians rediscover their true culinary heritage

Bush tucker, or wild food, has evolved beyond survivalist rations, serving as the inspiration for Australia’s next-generation cuisine. Aaron Turner of Igni serves deeply rich wallaby broth made from tails roasted over a blazing red gum wood fire—it’s wilder in character than stocks made from lamb or beef. Jock Zonfrillo, whose Orana Foundation is organizing a continent-wide wild foods database, pairs warrigal with octopus and finger lime at his restaurant in Adelaide. Wattleseed, edible pods harvested from desert-loving acacia species, appears with queen garnet plums at Fleet in Byron Bay. Sour quandong, the native stone fruit harvested from a sandalwood cultivar, brightens aged Pekin duck baked in the brick oven at Brae in rural Birregara.

After meeting Pascoe, Ben Shewry of Attica in Melbourne started raising yam daisy in his restaurant’s suburban kitchen garden. “Bruce Pascoe’s legacy will be that he has helped educate Australians about their true ingredients,” said Shewry. “Not the ones that the first settlers brought, but rather the species that have always belonged here.”

Here are 12 essential flavors from the Land Down Under.

Davidson Plum

This bush fruit is native to the rainforests of Queensland and northern New South Wales. While it has a superficial resemblance to a European plum, the tropical variety is unrelated to stone fruit from the northern hemisphere; the two-inch fruits grow in grape-like clusters.

The flesh is deep burgundy, the taste is highly acidic and sour, similar to rhubarb, which makes it an ideal sauce base to accompany indigenous game like magpie goose or kangaroo. Botanical soda makers Bickford and Sons add tiny Davidson plum to its sparkling apple cordial.

Emu

It doesn’t taste like chicken. Australia’s largest bird, a leggy sprinter with grey-brown plumage closely related to the ostrich, forages mostly on insects and acacia scrub, favors woodland savannah habitats, and migrates over great distances. Their massive eggs are dark green, like something Game of Thrones’ Mother of Dragons might nurture.

At Attica in Melbourne, chef Ben Shewry laser-cuts each thick shell on the diagonal, and then fills it with whipped egg and sugarbag (honey) floss. Aborigines historically prized the wild bird for its meat, but emu also has an important place in their Dreamtime stories, or creation theology, which explains the singular worldview of Australia’s First Peoples.

Finger Lime

Cracking open a tangy, acidic finger lime reveals caviar-shaped pulp that bursts in your mouth like citrusy pop rocks. Not a true lime, citrus Australasica may date back 18 million years; the three-inch-long, cylindrical-shaped fruit ranges in color from blood orange to Day-Glo green.

Finger limes are prized as a garnish for oysters as well as cocktails. At Lee Ho Fook in Melbourne, Asian new wave chef Victor Liong pairs them with charred Spanish mackerel and a “Chinese tapenade” of preserved olive vegetable, burnt garlic oil, nori, and Fujian shacha paste.

Marron

Marron is as close to lobster as Australia gets. Originally found wild in the streams and rivers of Western Australia, the hairy variety of this freshwater crayfish species was an important food of the Noongar people for thousands of years, but is now endangered thanks to its invasive, smooth-carapaced cousin, Cherax cainli, also known as yabbies, which are milder and sweeter in flavor than most saltwater shellfish, including those ubiquitous jumbo shrimp that dwell on backyard “barbies.” Grilled marron is paired with young coconut and koji butter at Momofuku Seibo in Sydney.

Magpie Goose

Considered a living fossil, this black-and-white plumed waterfowl dwells in the floodplains of the Mary River near Kakadu in northernmost Australia. The Yolngu people traditionally cook magpie goose (gurrumattji) in a pit oven, smothered in wet leaves, a technique similar to the Maori hangi or Hawaiian imu.

The breast meat is darker and gamier than duck; Adelaide purveyor Something Wild collaborates with indigenous communities to source “open range” meats like magpie, so eventually this rarer bird may edge more domesticated geese as the centerpiece for Christmas dinner.

Muntries

One of the oldest bush foods, muntries is a key component in the traditional diet of the Narrindjeri people of the Coorong in South Australia. The pea-sized, purple berries have a flavor evocative of spiced apples, and were typically pounded into a paste, then baked into cakes or dried for longer storage.

Also known as emu apples or native cranberries, they are often used in pies, chutneys, jams and sauces. At Brae, chef Dan Hunter pairs ripe muntries with calamari, wild cabbage and fermented daikon during the short season.

Quandong

High in vitamin C, quandong (Santalum acuminatum) is a stone fruit that flourishes in Central Australia’s semi-arid desert. The astringent flesh clings to a large kernel, and tastes like a cross between apricot and peach. This climbing shrub clings to a host, or as Aborigines say, a “brother” tree, when young.

Foote Side Farm produces tart preserves that will boost a pavlova topping or soy-chili dipping sauce. At Charcoal Lane, a “social enterprise” restaurant in Melbourne that offers kitchen internships to at-risk aboriginal youth, quandong is a bitters ingredient used in the bar’s whiskey cocktail.

Saltbush

Drought-tolerant Old Man saltbush (Atriplex nummularia) thrives throughout arid inland Australia. The grayish-blue shrub produces flowering seeds that Aborigines used to grind and roast for “damper,” a rustic soda bread baked in the ashes of a cook fire. The leaves are highly salty, rich with minerals and proteins, and are most often used as a seasoning. At Igni restaurant in Geelong, chef Aaron Turner turns the dried leaves into a tasty riff on salt-and-vinegar chips.

Wallaby

Australians nicknamed them “Skippy” for a reason. Smaller than a kangaroo, but a close cousin, these marsupials are herbivores, and have been part of the indigenous Australian diet for millennia. Although they’ve only been sold commercially in the last 20 years; before that the meat typically wound up in pet food. The taste is gamey and slightly grassy; tender filets take only minutes to sear on a grill. At Igni, Aaron Turner turns wallaby rump into tartare.

Warrigal

Warrigal is also known as Cook’s cabbage or Botany Bay greens, which grows wild in sandy coastal regions. It was one of the first native Australian plants to be adapted by European settlers. After blanching, the taste is similar to spinach. Chef Kylie Kwong serves steamed vegetable and warrigal dumplings at her Australian-Chinese restaurant Billy Kwong in Sydney.

Wattleseed

Wattleseed belongs to the acacia family. This hardy shrub’s seed husk is extremely dense, and only tends to germinate after a bushfire—early aboriginal “fire stick farming” was the most common means of propagation. Roasted and ground, the seeds have an aroma similar to coffee. Saltbush Kitchen makes a versatile spice blend with silver wattle (Acacia Victoriae), Tasmanian pepperberry, and lemon myrtle.

Yam Daisy

Pulled straight from the ground, murnong, also known as the yam daisy, has a tuft of stalks topped with a buttery yellow bloom and a tuberous root system that resembles a baby parsnip. Aborigines first domesticated this perennial herb in southern Australia; however, the introduction of livestock by European settlers led to its near extinction as pastures became over-grazed.

Traditionally, the yam daisy was either roasted or pit-baked. At Attica in Melbourne, the tubers are first simmered in salt water, then fried until caramelized. The flavor is mildly sweet, almost like a white yam.

The post An Introduction to Australia’s Indigenous Ingredients appeared first on Saveur.

Bruce Pascoe waded through the shallows at the mouth of Mallacoota Inlet, an estuary in southeastern Australia, on the Tasman Sea. He had a slight frown on his weathered face and a plastic bucket in hand as he lifted tree snags caught on sandbars.

“Not a one mussel left,” he said, climbing back onboard his runabout. “I can’t understand it. There were plenty last week.” Pascoe gunned the boat’s engine and headed for another bed. A lean man in his late 60s, he found more success after digging around with his bare toes, the tip of his long white beard damp as he bent in deeper water to grab up a dozen clams. He passed me the bucket and hauled up the anchor. I looked at the unfamiliar contents—like Pascoe, they were bearded and crusted in mud. “Blood cockles,” Pascoe said. “My people ate them when they were starving.”

Pascoe is descended from the Bunurong people of the Kulin nation, an alliance of indigenous groups that occupied south-central Victoria for some 40,000 years before European settlement in the early 19th century. A writer whose work is based on that legacy, Pascoe has lately turned to the subject of indigenous food. Australia has only recently come to recognize the debt owed to its First Peoples, after nearly two and a half centuries of abuses and land seizures. To Pascoe, food and agriculture are tied to acknowledging sovereignty, and may also create a pathway to reparation for an ages-old culture that thinks of land in metaphysical terms, not as mere real estate.

We cruised farther inland, where the waterway narrowed and turned brackish, cheerfully waving to fishermen casting for bream at the verge of a dense melaleuca forest. “That’s where we get clay for our initiation ceremonies,” he said, pointing to a curve on the riverbank where the soil turned from ochre to rust in hue. For aboriginal people of both sexes, this rite of passage occurs as they approach adulthood, when elders decide it’s time to pass on the mystical aspect of their language group and country. (Intricate body painting with clay is part of this tradition.) Pascoe told me he had helped initiate his own son Jack—a rare honor for both, because another elder belonging to the same clan usually takes on this responsibility rather than a parent.

A sea eagle circled overhead, hunting prey.

Pascoe was born in Richmond, a working-class suburb of Melbourne. As a younger man, he built farm fences, dove for abalone, worked as a bartender and rural schoolteacher. He crewed on a salmon fishing boat in Alaska and was a dog wrangler for a veterinary clinic in the Northern Territory. Now he is a professor in the educational support program for aboriginal students at the University of Technology Sydney. His 30-some books include novels, historical fiction, children’s stories, and a work on aboriginal language. Dark Emu, one of Pascoe’s most recent, refutes the widely accepted idea that precolonial inhabitants were primitive hunter-gatherers wandering the continent in search of sustenance. Rather than being haphazard foragers of witchetty grubs and such, aboriginal people, Pascoe argues, formed a highly sophisticated agricultural society with an ingrained, near-spiritual stewardship of the land. After the publication of Dark Emu, Pascoe took on yet another mission: building awareness of lost foodways through the rediscovery of native ingredients and an appreciation of the continent’s first caretakers. “Our whole culture is about sharing,” he said. “I know how important it’s going to be for the country and for aboriginal people to be involved in the resurgence of old crops, but you can’t eat our food if you can’t swallow our history.”

Pascoe now lives with his wife, Lyn Harwood, in Far East Gippsland, a rural corner of Victoria at the convergence of the Genoa and Wallagaraugh rivers, where cellphones are practically useless and the community newspaper, the Mallacoota Mouth, is stapled together by high school volunteers. It is one of Australia’s untamed landscapes, filled with alpine ranges, old-growth rain forests, coastal heathland, rare orchids, bushfire-scorched stands of eucalyptus that smell alkaline and resinous, and a vast network of rivers and lakes that empty into the Tasman Sea.

A pelican squatting on Pascoe’s dock ruffled its feathers in alarm at our arrival. “Don’t worry, brother,” Pascoe said. “We’ll be out of your way in no time.”

He transferred the cockles to a mesh bag and dunked them in the water to rinse them free of sand. As we headed toward his house, he pointed to lime-green succulents fringing the shoreline. I picked a handful. “That’s samphire,” he said. “It’s salt tolerant.” It tasted like juicer, saltier raw asparagus. In a shaded area next to his steep driveway, Pascoe stopped again, then kneeled to gather dense groundcover atop a compost pile. “We call this warrigal, but it’s also known as Cook’s cabbage,” he explained, offering me a cluster of spade-shaped leaves. “When James Cook landed in Australia, he fed this plant to his crew on the Endeavour. Without it, they would have died of scurvy.” Harwood uses the plant to make pesto with macadamia nuts from the orchard.

In Dark Emu, Pascoe describes the cultural practices of Australia’s indigenous population as a kind of “jigsaw mutual­ism.” Individuals served as temporal custodians of trees, rivers, pastures, and mountain ranges. Their conservancy of each piece of country was inevitably connected to those in the care of their neighbors. Astonishingly, this communal responsibility extended great distances, with an abiding trust that those elsewhere, in parts unknown, even with different dialects and totems, were upholding the same law of the land.

That balance changed drastically when colonial pastoralists introduced livestock to croplands that had been carefully tended for millennia. Yam daisy pastures in Victoria disappeared within a few years. Vast plains of kangaroo grass, once so abundant that those who harvested it were called the Grass People, turned to dust.

Later in the afternoon, Pascoe and his neighbor Denise Parker tackled his overgrown vegetable garden, patching fences and yanking out end-of-season tomato plants. “Did you hear about the fellow who was poaching mussels?” Parker asked, as she gathered unripe tomatoes in a burlap sack. “Caught trying to sell them up in Pambula, almost 50 pounds’ worth.”

“No wonder I couldn’t find any,” Pascoe said.

The pair were working to make space for native millet, Panicum decompositum, a staple grain of the aboriginal diet that is milled and baked in ashes into a cake. The seeds were delicate, tawny, attached to feathery pappi that aid wild dispersal by wind. Pascoe uprooted one of his yam daisies—the star-shaped dandelion-yellow flower and stalks were attached to a stubby tuber the size and color of a baby parsnip. “I’ll get a decent crop of these next year if I can keep the bush rats out,” he said.

One of Pascoe’s current outreach projects involves a prison work scheme for young offenders willing to participate in the next harvest cycle. It’s hard work, and he could use the extra helping hands. I asked him if he regretted the detour from literature and history into food advocacy and he sighed, trowel in hand. “I resent the time,” he admitted. “But I really can’t let this opportunity go, because I can see so many possibilities for young people, of whatever color, to get involved in looking after the ground.”

Dark Emu was a bestseller and recipient of several prestigious literary awards, but it resonated most with Australia’s leading chefs, including Ben Shewry of Melbourne’s Attica and Dan Hunter of Brae, in Victoria. Thanks to Pascoe’s writing and garden experiments, the yam daisy is about to join other native ingredients—wattleseed, saltbush, finger limes, quandong, lemon myrtle, muntries berries—finally finding their way into the mainstream Australian pantry. Shewry, who became a fishing buddy after reading Dark Emu, raised a test crop at his Ripponlea Estate kitchen garden this year on Pascoe’s urging. He served me a yam daisy for lunch one day in Melbourne. Simmered in salted water, then fried until caramelized, the tiny tuber tasted sweet, almost like a white yam.

“Bruce’s legacy will be that he helped educate Australians on what their true ingredients are,” Shewry says. “Not the ones that the first settlers brought here. I’m talking the plants that belong here, the endemic species that have been here for more than 50,000 years and that aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have always known about, cared for, grown, and use as one of the most integral parts of their culture.”

Pascoe’s two blue heelers, Wangarabell and Yambulla, greeted us with joyful barking when we returned to his house. Harwood was proofing bread dough in the kitchen. She paints watercolors of songbirds and drives the Mallacoota fire truck, a red behemoth that barely fits on the narrow road into town. Both she and Pascoe are Country Fire Authority rural wardens. When we sat down to dinner, Harwood cut me generous slices of her spelt and kangaroo grass bread, still warm from the oven. It had a pleasant, herbaceous aroma.

Prehistoric grinding stones excavated at a dig in New South Wales have led Australian archeologists to propose that native grasses were ground into flour almost 38,000 years ago. It’s the oldest evidence of bread baking in the world. Harwood used a simple tabletop hand-crank grain mill to grind the kangaroo grass that Pascoe discovered growing wild in an unfertilized field next to the local airstrip. She showed me how they snapped the stems from the reddish brown seeds, smaller and thinner than grains of wild rice. The amount of labor required—harvesting, winnowing, grinding—for a single cup of flour was daunting.

Reviving these lost traditions has not been easy. “Even if it means separating the seed by hand, we’ve just got to keep going until we can make a loaf of bread,” Pascoe said.

He cracked open a blood cockle and blanched it in a pan with a red wine vinegar reduction. Thanks to the high level of hemoglobin that gives this muscular bivalve its name, the blood cockle is about as unlovely to look at as it sounds. But I slurped, then chewed, and was surprised by the mild briny taste and a texture that reminded me of abalone. Harwood’s warrigal pesto on grilled chicken took less effort to appreciate. The puréed leaves were close in flavor to spinach. Cook’s crew apparently put up a fight when forced to eat this alien superfood. (Not every sailor is a natural Popeye.)

Harwood cleared the dishes while Pascoe tuned into National Indigenous Television to watch the Marngrook Footy Show. The dogs jumped up next to me for couch time, so I scratched Wangarabell’s dappled head as indigenous commentators rehashed the weekly Australian rules football matches. “My neighbors up here to the west, their totem is the blue wren, and the other totem is the emu wren, slightly smaller. And my friends put them on their football jumpers. How cute is that?” Pascoe said. “These big bold men running around in footy jumpers with tiny birds on them and feeling no shame because these creatures represent the power of the earth.”

I asked Pascoe to tell me what the “dark emu” represents. He beckoned me outside to look at the night sky, where we located the Southern Cross. As the constellation defined by dark nebulae came into focus, the distinct outline of a bird resting its head under the cross became clear in the negative space. He explained the myth of an emu totem spirit that left earth to reside in the Milky Way. The story varies in interpretation from group to group, but Pascoe said the bird is linked with the wide grasslands of Australia, because Aborigines used the seasonal movement of constellations to know when to harvest.

“Our people would always choose to sleep outside with a view of the sky if they could,” he said. “We were such great astronomers, because we knew the sky so well. Europeans stare at the stars, but aboriginal people also see the spaces between, where the dark emu resides.” Perhaps that’s how Pascoe knows to look at an overgrown field on the edge of an airstrip and see a loaf of bread in Australia’s past—and another in its future.

The post The Steward of Australia’s Original Food appeared first on Saveur.

Australian and New Zealand cuisine fuses indigenous flora and fauna, as well as native cooking methods, with the later additions of colonial settlers. With most of the countries’ populations residing in coastal areas, seafood—from snapper to prawns and lobster—are major ingredients, but forms of barbecue are also traditional to the Wild West of the Pacific. Bookmark our collection of best recipes from Australian and New Zealand restaurants, as well as new takes on traditional desserts such as the Tim Tam and Lolly Cake of New Zealand.

Prawns with Edamame Slaw and Carrot Miso Sauce

Carrot juice and white miso make a sweet umami dressing for jumbo prawns and a spicy slaw of radish and edamame in this recipe adapted from chef Ryan Edwards of Appellation restaurant in Barossa, Australia. Get the recipe for Prawns with Edamame Slaw and Carrot Miso Sauce »

Seared Snapper with Nettle Sauce

To get the fish skin extra crispy for this recipe from Franklin’s chef David Moyle, pat it dry with paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Get the recipe for Seared Snapper with Nettle Sauce »

Sautéed Quail with Black Barley, Beets, and Fig Sauce

Mustard-and-herb-marinated quail gets a quick sauté for this earthy dish and is served with poached beets and a sweet-tart fig and ruby port sauce. Adapted from a recipe by chef Stuart Bell of Ten Minutes by Tractor in Mornington Peninsula, Australia, the dish has black barley, a variety with the bran still attached to the wheat kernel. Get the recipe for Sautéed Quail with Black Barley, Beets, and Fig Sauce »

Grilled Lobster with Chipotle Garlic Seaweed Butter

Don’t be afraid of the yellow-green tomalley: Rodney Dunn of Agrarian Kitchen adds the muddy-looking lobster liver sauce to drawn butter for extra lobster flavor. Get the recipe for Grilled Lobster with Chipotle Garlic Seaweed Butter »

Apple Crumble with Hot Custard

We enjoyed this warm and comforting dessert while visiting a sheep farm in New Zealand. Get the recipe for Apple Crumble with Hot Custard »

Grilled Octopus with Green Lentils and Romesco

Smoky romesco sauce brightens burnished, crispy octopus, which is marinated in an herb-packed vinaigrette, in this recipe adapted from chef Dan Moss of Terroir Auburn restaurant in Clare Valley, Australia. Get the recipe for Grilled Octopus with Green Lentils and Romesco »

Seared Octopus with Fennel Pollen and Smoked Paprika

When making this elegant seafood appetizer from Franklin restaurant, make sure you wash the octopus thoroughly to remove any grit. Get the recipe for Seared Octopus with Fennel Pollen and Paprika »

Grilled Lamb Chops and Squash with Herb Salad and Sunchokes

Blanching the squash pieces in this dish, adapted from a recipe by chef Dan Moss of Terroir Auburn in Clare Valley, Australia, helps to tenderize their skins and flesh so they’re not undercooked when the outside is grilled to perfection. A creamy sunchoke purée and tart herb salad round out the grilled squash and lamb chops. Get the recipe for Grilled Lamb Chops and Squash with Herb Salad and Sunchokes »

Flounder with Lemon Caper Sauce

This version of classic fish à la meunière, adapted from a recipe by chef Stuart Deller of Port Phillip Estate restaurant in Mornington Peninsula, Australia, adds crisp croutons and briny capers to the tangy lemon, parsley, and brown butter sauce. Get the recipe for Flounder with Lemon Caper Sauce »

Lolly Cake

A mix of crushed malt biscuits, sweetened condensed milk, and butter, these New Zealand treats from test kitchen director Farideh Sadeghin have a soft texture akin to cookie dough. Traditionally, Eskimo Lollies (a multicolored, marshmallow-like candy) are used, but colorful marshmallows make a great substitute. Get the recipe for Lolly Cake »

Brown Rice Salad with Avocado

The staff at Huka Lodge in New Zealand used to serve this simple dish for lunch when I worked there as a chef in 2011; I fell in love with it immediately and it’s been a regular part of my dinner repertoire since. The combination of crunchy peanuts, creamy avocados, and the sweet bite of ginger make for a dish that’s full of complex flavors, yet easy to execute. Serve it on its own or with tofu for a vegetarian meal, or add grilled chicken, fish, or shrimp. —Farideh Sadeghin, test kitchen director Get the recipe for Brown Rice Salad with Avocado »

Fermented Bloody Mary

Luke Burgess modernizes the classic brunch cocktail with kimchi brine and sesame oil at his restaurant Garagistes. Get the recipe for Fermented Bloody Mary »

Afghans

Folding cornflakes into the dough before baking gives simple chocolate cookies an addictive crunch. Get the recipe for Afghans »

Grilled Lamb Chops with Ginger Sauce

A fragrant mix of oyster sauce, cilantro, and ginger pulls double duty here as both a marinade and dipping sauce for lamb rib chops. Get the recipe for Grilled Lamb Chops with Ginger Sauce »

Summer Bolognese

This recipe for summer bolognese has the classic comfort of bolognese, but without the heaviness of a red sauce, instead embracing the summer’s bounty of gorgeous tomatoes and fresh basil. Get the recipe for Summer Bolognese »

Open-Faced Rye, Poached Red Snapper, Pickled Radish, and Salsa Verde Sandwich

For this open-faced sandwich at Betsey Cafe, chef David Moyle uses the fish bones to make a flavorful stock, which is then used for poaching the fillets. Get the recipe for Open-Faced Rye, Poached Red Snapper, Pickled Radish, and Salsa Verde Sandwich »

Tim Tam Pavlova

The thing that differentiates this classic kiwi dessert from a meringue is the addition of vinegar: it helps give the outside a lovely crunchy shell, while the inside remains soft. Get the recipe for Tim Tam Pavlova »

Venison Loins with Shallot Sauce and Stewed Quince

Similar to applesauce served with pork, this recipe, adapted from chef Stuart Bell of Ten Minutes by Tractor restaurant in Mornington Peninsula, Australia, uses sweet, spiced quince to balance faintly gamy venison loin served atop a creamy shallot sauce. Get the recipe for Venison Loins with Shallot Sauce and Stewed Quince »

Ham and Caramelized Onion Pizza

Caramelized onions, sweet ham, mozzarella, and fragrant rosemary combine in this flavorful pizza. Get the recipe for Ham and Caramelized Onion Pizza »

Lamingtons

Likely named for a 19th-century governor of Queensland, the Lamington is now an Australian favorite. It’s a cube of butter cake dipped in chocolate, then rolled in coconut flakes. Though some versions are filled with cream or jam, we purists believe the original is impossible to improve upon. —Fouad Kassab, author of thefoodblog.com.au Get the recipe for Lamingtons »

Bacon and Egg Pie

This New Zealand combination of flaky pastry, canary-yellow yolks, and salty bacon has cross-cultural appeal. Get the recipe for Bacon and Egg Pie »

Hundreds and Thousands

Australia’s Hundreds and Thousands sandwich, made with butter and sprinkles on toasted white bread, is a simple and unexpected dessert. Get the recipe for Hundreds and Thousands »

The post Our Very Best Australian and New Zealand Recipes appeared first on Saveur.