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Her cheesecakes made you weep with happiness. Her pavlovas were so light and fluffy they floated like clouds. But it was my grandmother's sponges, stuffed with Himalayan peaks of whipped cream and bleeding with rivers of home-made jam, that I still dream about.
Nan was a sorceress with sugar. Her Sunday spread was so famous local diabetics would gather at a safe distance to inhale the sweetness wafting from her kitchen window. She only had one firm rule. You had to finish her main meal before scoffing dessert.
And that meant enduring the so-called great Australian dish.
Green beans were simmered until they had turned ashen grey. Potatoes were roasted in so much dripping even toddlers experienced soaring cholesterol levels. And that always-affordable leg of lamb of the 1970s? It emerged from the oven blackened and so perfectly preserved we made pocket money auctioning the leftovers to struggling coal companies and collectors of rare meteorites.
How could a woman who was such a genius with desserts get it so wrong on the fundamentals? She wasn't on her own, either. Australia may lack its own authentic cuisine but the science is irrefutable: we were the first people to discover how to alter the atomic constitution of red meat and turn it into charcoal. No wonder the rest of the world regarded us for centuries as lousy cooks.
"No other country on earth offers more of everything needed to make a good meal, or offers it more cheaply, than Australia," wrote the Frenchman Edmond Marin la Meslee in 1883. "But there is no other country where the cuisine is more elementary, not to say abominable."
Still, why spoil another festive season - and bore the increasing number of vegetarians among us - with an endless debate over how meat should be cooked? Let's just accept we are all different and show a little empathy toward those burdened with childlike palates who demand their meat be prepared using the Chernobyl method.
There's a much bigger question hanging over us as another Christmas approaches. Why do we lack a singular dish that could be called uniquely Australian?
And please, don't even refer to a chicken parmy, a meat pie, a cheese and vegemite sandwich, a chiko roll or a lamington as a "dish". That's like calling a politician a statesman. Or comparing the The Real Housewives of Sydney to a David Attenborough documentary.
I posed the mystery of why we remain one of the few nations without a recognisable cuisine during a recent lunch with friends. As we chowed down on barbecued Korean chicken, a Greek salad, a Thai prawn curry, Italian arancini and Lebanese bread with Turkish dips, I gestured toward our heavily laden table and suggested this might be the closest you get to Australian food.
Perhaps the true Australian cuisine is the sum of all our parts; a multicultural smorgasbord that represents the authentic Australian palate. After all, we're not just home to the world's oldest continuing indigenous culture. Since the end of WWII more than seven million people have migrated here. The 26.5 million of us boast more than 270 separate ancestries.
So why is it that repeated surveys continue serving up roast lamb with vegetables and gravy as Australia's culinary gift to the world? One recent online poll recorded more than 24,000 votes, with lamb edging out the meat pie and the ubiquitous barbecued sausage in bread as our national dish.
That result makes no sense unless we undervalue the role nostalgia plays when it comes to food. Lamb and beef consumption has been falling for decades, with chicken continuing its years-long reign as our most popular form of meat.
There's also no disputing the fact that Australian taste buds have altered greatly in the past half century.
Asian food is everywhere and is no longer regarded as the curiosity it was in the early 1970s when my father would mysteriously disappear for an hour on a rare Saturday evening before returning home with three saucepans filled with exotic Chinese takeaway.
There are suburbs in our major cities where traditional snags are unknown but koftas are everywhere; where steaming bowls of Pho have replaced pea and ham soup, where sushi and sashimi now fill shelves once bulging with ham and cheese sandwiches.
And yet we persist with the myth of lamb as the signature Australian dish? Seriously, I might carry scars from my encounters with my grandmother's roasts. But isn't it time we celebrated the present, rather than romanticising - and overcooking - our checkered gastronomic past?
HAVE YOUR SAY: What dish would you describe as quintessentially Australian? Do you prefer meat well-done or rare? Have your taste buds changed over the years or are you a meat and three-veg fan? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
UPDATE FROM THE BURROW: Echidna readers have worried they've been booted out of the burrow this week because they haven't received daily emails. Never fear dear readers, we are just giving our Echidna writers a well deserved break over these festive weeks. Next week we'll send an Echidna on Friday, and for the three weeks after that it will be sent on Tuesdays and Fridays. We'll be back to full Echidna service once Garry and John are back from the beach in the week beginning January 22.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Anthony Albanese has flagged further cost of living relief measures for lower and middle income earners in the new year. The Prime Minister said he remained "hopeful and optimistic" about Australia's economic conditions in 2024. He pointed to falling inflation, jobs growth and wages increasing.
Bruce Lehrmann is a dishonest, evasive man whose frequent lies about his alleged rape of Brittany Higgins mean his entire account of what happened should be disbelieved, a court has heard. Lawyers for Network Ten have rejected Lehrmann's claims that nothing sexual happened between him and Ms Higgins in Senator Linda Reynolds' office at Parliament House in March 2019. Giving closing submissions in a defamation case brought by Lehrmann, Ten's barrister Matthew Collins KC said the former Liberal staffer was evasive and defensive when giving evidence.
Insurers have been put on notice to pay out genuine claims by Queenslanders left reeling from Tropical Cyclone Jasper. Federal Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt said some insurers were misinforming people that issues with a national scheme could prevent them from paying up.
THEY SAID IT: "Food is a pretty good prism through which to view humanity." - Jonathan Gold, American food critic.
YOU SAID IT: Steve wrote on Tuesday about kindness, grumpiness and the dependence on phones.
Belinda responded: "I usually choose making a phone call over texting and emailing, even in business, as it helps decrease misconceptions and makes communication easier. The younger the person the more likely they are to prefer texting.
Snapchat seems to be one of the worst at having constant contact with minimal substance and seems to be the most likely to cause rudeness during face-to-face time as they just have to reply with a selfie straight away."
Sue had some tough suggestions about where we should ban phones: "There are plenty of other places where phones should not be in use including meetings. It should be mandatory for phones to be turned off, or left in the office, and restaurants and other eating places, which includes the family dining room table, if that is still used for meals. It used to be the subject of cartoons: someone so involved with their phone as they walk down the street that they walk into a light post, but we have all seen that or something similar actually happen.
"It might also be helpful to have a limit on the use of social media sites on phones - one that cannot be by-passed. The 'alone together' problem is only part of the picture. We also have this need for instant communication. If we want to speak to, or contact, someone, we want to do it now. No waiting. Now!"
Lai added: "Alone together ... another stupid phrase. There is a simple way to avoid social media worries, just disconnect yourself from this mindless rubbish."
But Lee chided Steve for picking on mums who text while they breastfeed: "Why, in a commentary on grumpiness, have you chosen to whinge on about mothers? Breastfeeding is actually pretty boring, some babies feed for a lot of hours, and it is hard to do much when it's happening. How is texting a friend any different to gossiping in a village circle of women? Why not find a way that fathers are letting down their children and ruining the world and focus on that?"
Garry Linnell is one of Australia’s most experienced journalists. He has won several awards for his writing, including a Walkley for best feature writing. He writes a weekly column for ACM and the Echidna.
Garry Linnell is one of Australia’s most experienced journalists. He has won several awards for his writing, including a Walkley for best feature writing. He writes a weekly column for ACM and the Echidna.
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