Australia’s cornucopia of food and drink is brimming over and, like the temptations that Alice encountered down
My gourmandising began in Adelaide’s Central Market. This 150-year-old epicurean Elysium is the largest fresh-produce market in the southern hemisphere. At 11 on a Tuesday morning, it thrummed with a blur of humanity that browsed, grazed and noshed like carnival-goers. Aromas rich and strange charged the molten air. Colours leapt to the eye. The rhubarb-rhubarb of excited conversation hovered over the delicious ambient cacophony of hissing espresso machines, seething woks, and ladles clanking against pots.
A formidable place it was, made less overwhelming by Mark Gleeson’s award-winning Central Market Tour. Mark can be found beside a chocolate fountain at Providore, the shop he has run for 24 years, serving up truffles, gateaux and things chocolatey. He placed me in the care of tour guide Cheryl Turner.
The Adelaide Central Market dates back to 1869 and was rebuilt twice—in 1925 and 1983—after fires destroyed it. Today it encompasses about 80 stalls. There are seven bakeries and patisseries, eight cafés, 10 cheese and continental food stores, 19 fruit and vegetable sellers, nine meat and seafood shops, six stores selling nuts, confectionery and coffee, and nine speciality food outlets. Should you tire of eating, a bookstore, a florist and a camera retailer—a curious trio of outsiders—complement your foraging experience.
Adelaide’s multicultural heritage is on flagrant display here. Each stall unravels a tale of immigration and assimilation. South Australian old-timers have fond recollections of Lucia’s Pizza and Spaghetti Bar, the city’s first pizzeria, founded in 1957. It’s still the top address to grab authentically Italian spaghetti bolognaise. At Piroshki Café, a Chinese man invited me to try his delicious golden-brown pastries with meat and vegetable stuffing. As I lent Kingsley an ear, I wondered what the Asian connection was with a Russian pastry. In halting English, he explained that the Soviets introduced piroshki to his ancestors’ homeland in Xinjiang, northwest China, and that he had traced these recipes to his immigrant forbears. At the Latvian Lunchroom, maizites (open-face sandwiches), potato blinis and suchlike exotic Baltic dishes tempted, but my sushi radar pointed me to Sun Mi’s Sushi. If you thought all sushi was Japanese and inimical to vegetarians, rest your fears. Sun Mi Kim is a busy, energetic Korean and her little eatery doles out vegetarian sushi, gluten-free vegetarian cold rolls and joyously cheap mung bean pancakes (AUD2).
A fungal fetish stopped me in my tracks at Mushroom Man’s Mushroom Shop. The celebrity here is not the special Adelaide hills fresh porcini or the nutritious king brown mushroom. It’s the prized seasonal tasmanian truffle (AUD300 per 100 grams). Want something to take home? The truffle and black garlic salt comes highly recommended. A sprinkle can elevate a mediocre meal to manna.
The self-explanatory House of Organics & Sustainably Grown Produce employs a colour-coding system to distinguish between organic and conventionally farmed produce. The family-owned Coco’s Fruit and Vegetables is a veritable pomological world tour, showcasing heaped baskets of mangosteen and dragon fruit, butternut and longan, luscious litchis and fragrant Buddha’s Hand.
Perhaps the most intriguing stall is Something Wild, which stocks your kitchen with the spoils of Australia’s war against invasive and over-populous wild game. On the menu are wild rabbit, venison sausages, crocodile kebabs, buffalo steak, and goat meat cubes, in addition to shanks of kangaroo, emu and wallaby. To complement the meat are indigenous Australian greens and condiments. The South Australian coastal herb karkalla or pig face (Carpobrotus rossii) infuses a sweet-tangy zest to bush tukka, as indigenous Australians know their foraged food. The iron-rich warrigal (Tetragonia tetragonioides), also called Botany Bay Spinach, was eaten by Captain James Cook’s crew as a safeguard against scurvy. Paired with house-cured salmon, it makes splendid Eggs Benedict. The ruddy, succulent sea blite (Suaeda australis) is picked from estuarine salt-marshes on the southern and eastern coasts of Australia. With sour cream, onion, hardboiled egg and vinegar, it makes a refreshing salad. My discovery of the day was finger lime (Microcitrus australasica), which resembles a dwarf gherkin. Cheryl pinched one in half, spilling pinkish caviar-like vesicles that popped in the mouth, detonating a tang of tartness reminiscent of tequila and oysters.
Talking of which, a tray of six ocean-fresh smoky bay oysters (AUD8.50) can be had at Cappo’s Seafood. They are served on a bed of sea-salt with a wedge of lime. Tweak meat off shell, squeeze citrus, slide into mouth. The briny aftertaste is the trip. If raw shellfish makes you queasy, enjoy oysters kilpatrick—grilled to a traditional recipe with finely chopped bacon, ground pepper and parsley.
Morning found me in Adelaide Hills, guided by the blithesome Mary Anne Kennedy of A Taste of South Australia. We sampled handmade goat brie and camembert at Udder Delights Cheese Cellar (udderdelights.com.au) in Hahndorf. At the Prancing Pony, a German-style fire-brewery, we met Frank Samson and Corinna Steeb (he’s a physicist and she has a degree in medical science). They brew the award-winning India Red Ale, which pairs beautifully with spicy and pungent food. Raising a pint to every glass in the wine-growing Barossa Valley is Denham D’Silva’s Barossa Valley Brewing, a diminutive craft brewery that turns out a fine range of stouts, pilsners and light floral ales such as Bee Sting with notes of orange blossom honey.
Craving dessert, we made for Haigh’s, the oldest family-owned chocolate confectionery in Australia, started in 1915 by Alfred E. Haigh, who trained at Lindt and Sprüngli in Switzerland. Haigh’s made a strong conservation statement in 1993 when it replaced its Easter bunny with a bilby, a long-eared native Australian marsupial on the verge of extinction.
At noon on cold, squall-swept Kangaroo Island, I warmed myself with shots of gin, listening to Jon Lark wax poetic about native Australian botanicals. At his nondescript distillery Kangaroo Island Spirits—Kis to the impatient—Jon and his wife Sarah make ‘slow spirits’. Their gin, vodka and gourmet liqueurs are distilled using seasonal local ingredients like boobialla, the berry of the Myoporum tree, and Olearia, the coastal daisy bush. A shot of Zinzerino, redolent of ginger and orange, was probably the perfect farewell present as I left South Australia for warmer climes.
In Queensland, my guide Greg Floyd drove me up the rainforest-fringed highway to Mount Tamborine to stoke my appetite. We passed honesty boxes bearing avocadoes, pears, watermelons and pumpkins. Growers leave bagged produce in these open boxes by the road with a slot-box for the money. Passers-by are trusted to pay and take what they need. It works for the most part.
Up on the mountain at Gallery Walk, I fell for fudge. While Granny Macs Fudge Store was more conventional, the quirky Fudge Heaven had an ‘Adults Only’ list of alcohol-laced items named Bailey’s Irish Cream, Kahlua and—scream yes!—Orgasmic.
The Gold Coast is studded with seafood restaurants but I wanted to admire my food in the raw. Off we went to Peter’s Fish Market on Seaworld Drive. We picked out our fish and crustaceans and had them cooked to order. Then, watched over by fearlessly greedy gulls and cormorants (Hitchcock would have loved this), we enjoyed our meal outdoors by the marina.
Famous Yatala Pies, a pit-stop between Gold Coast and Brisbane, has fattened motorists for 130 years. From over 20 gourmet pies, I chose the tradie, a traditional tradesman’s pie of crisp, flaky pastry stuffed with substantial portions of steak, eggs, bacon, tomatoes and cheese.
My urban foraging came full circle in Brisbane. Wednesdays, the Brisbane Farmers Market gathers at Queen Street Mall across the street from Victoria Bridge. It has a very different vibe from the Adelaide Central Market, more like an open-air fairground. Gourmet, organic, gluten-free and vegan are catchwords here, too, and the produce reflects the area’s tropical geography. Brisbane’s urban locavores can also be found at New Farm Powerhouse, where the market gathers on second and fourth Saturdays. From them, I learned the secret to bagging ludicrous bargains: get there just before closing.