Australia on my plate

It is perhaps a tad unfair to pit countries against one another. But to compare India and Australia is to throw up a host of telling differences. Indians are quick to take offence. The Australians like to laugh at themselves. We have too much history, they err on the side of too little history. In India, at work, at school, in the playground, you can never be too keen, too eager; in Australia, on the other hand, to be the ‘tallest poppy’ is a slur. The tallest poppy is the first to lose its head to a hungry pair of shears. So the idea is to not stand out, to step back and to mingle, to be one with the troops.

As someone who prescribes to the ‘bheed ke beyond’ school of thought, I found Australia a rather good match. Like the US, it tends to be all sparkly and punctual; unlike the US it is happy to kick off its shoes and walk in the sand — on a weekday afternoon that too. When space is not a premium, when invasion is never a threat (only the Aboriginals had to fear that) one can afford to be a poppy in a field of flowers, carousing with the sunshine.

While my summer trip took me only to Adelaide, Kangaroo Island and Melbourne, I returned to India, not only bowled over by the generosity and efficiency of the Australian people, but also with a newfound interest in their food. I must confess here that I was fortunate to partake of meals prepared by some of Australia’s finest chefs such as Guy Grossi, Tony Panetta and Shannon Bennett. But looking beyond the celebrity tables with their 62-degree eggs, emu jerky and marshmallow desserts, I will still vouch for the superiority and freshness of their cuisine as a whole.

Guy Grossi, author of five cookbooks, told me, “In Australia, the food philosophy is ingredient-driven. In other places, you start with a recipe and then start cooking. Here you look for the freshest and best ingredients and that is where you start.”

My first introduction to this was at a table laid out on the white sands of Kangaroo Island, one of the few islands where you can walk up to sea-lions grooming, grunting and basking on the sands. Our lunch that afternoon at KI — 150km and a splendid chopper ride away from Adelaide — consisted of King George whiting drizzled with white wine, grilled halloumi, baked potatoes, a salad of olives, feta, cherry tomatoes and lettuce and a platter of strawberries, melons and kiwi. The whiting had been caught the day before and the local dairy farmer provided the halloumi and feta. All the ingredients had been sourced from this island of 5,000 people in South Australia. Halloumi, an Australian version of a Cyprite cheese, was born from compulsion but grew through innovation. A severe wool crisis 20 years ago forced the local sheep farmers to innovate. They needed to come up with uses for sheep milk, thus halloumi was born.

At the end of the sit-down meal for our group of 13 — complete with crystalware and hot wet towels — Craig and Janet Wickham, who hosted the lunch, packed and cleaned away every proof of our presence; finally, only footsteps littered the sand. If only we could be half as respectful to our environment.

Later that day we went quad biking to spot loping kangaroos and koalas canoodling. Andrew, a burly Australian nursing a nasty sunburn, who described himself as a quad biker, beekeeper and kangaroo culler, said he would never leave this island — where peak hour is three cars on the road — as here he feeds magpies by hand, eats honey straight from the comb and spends afternoons fishing. Though he loves this life, he confesses it gets lonely at times. On his quad biking expeditions, no one sits behind him other than sullen pre-teens, he lamented; a curious journalist was a first.

On the way back from KI we stopped at a micro-distillery run by Sarah and Jon Lark. Here again one noticed the attention, neigh obsession, with detail. The couple make their own gins from a secret recipe of juniper, coriander, angelica, caraway, mace, cassia, pepper and ginger-citrus rind. They serve them in long-stemmed wine glasses, believing that this prevents the essences from escaping.

Not quite a liquor connoisseur, but familiar with Bombay Sapphire, Beefeater and Gordon’s, I found this gin… quite simply sublime. It tasted like a mountain stream, clean, sparkling and infused with a bouquet of magical herbs, which one could only imagine. Between husband and wife and with just one helper, Kangaroo Island Spirits churns out 3,000 bottles a year, from their traditional copper gin still. The inspiration, Jon told me, is slow spirits. Slow food was a fad and is now a fact, but he believes now is the time for slow spirits to abandon their still and shine forth on tables.

In an ingredient-rich food culture, one must tap the source. And we soon made our way to a farmer’s market in the Barossa Valley, where piles of zucchini, tomatoes, lettuce; bunches of fennel, dill, coriander; shelves brimming with yabbies, eggs, meats and oils gleamed in the sun. Started 10 years ago, and held every Saturday, the Barossa market, like other weekend markets held across the country, is a great combination of economics, community and food. Here is where money and friends are made.

Children lick ice cream cones, the adults sip on iced coffee, they pick up homemade egg noodles, dark-hued olive oils, and dukkah to eat with bread. From the market we went to the legendary Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop, where her daughter Saskia cooked a meal for us in front of us. Once again we saw plebeian ingredients shine forth. For appetiser, we had a salad of red and yellow tomatoes garnished with fresh dill and parsley. The simple tomato exploded in one’s mouth like citrus-sweet candy. It had never tasted so good.

Like all Indians, I harbour deep suspicions for all things raw, leafy and uncooked. My grandmother washed grapes in potassium permanganate. I know of relatives who boiled ice cream. At Saskia’s kitchen, I marvelled as she flicked ingredients bought from the market straight into the pan, without as much as a baptism by water.

A few days later, I shared my consternation with Kate Lamont, owner of multiple restaurants in Australia. She explained that Australians don’t really need to wash their groceries before using them. They are so certain of their quality. She said, “I also work in operations, let me tell you that no farmer or businessperson would spend a cent more than they need to on anything like that (pesticides). And we have really stringent quarantine laws so the issues around plant disease are really not that significant as in other places. So much food here is from the natural environment. The chefs understand the cycle of growing food, they don’t give their supplier one week’s time, they give them three months’ notice, so they can grow the desired plants. Grow to order — in Australia that is not unique.”

In the food of Australia, I tasted the country. Like its cuisine, which is ingredient-driven, and believes in slow spirits, and grow to order, Australians also choose reality over whimsy, they believe that time is not something to be conquered but to be savoured in teaspoons — and preferably on the beach.

The writer was in Australia on the invitation of Dreamtime 2013 and Tourism Australia

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