Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Dishing Up Diversity
Take 140 cultures, mix and let simmer for a few decades. While the recipe might not be
quite that simple, Victoria's culinary habits are truly multicultural. Many Melburnians have
grown up with at least one other culinary heritage besides the rather grim Anglo-Australian
fare of the mid-20th century - plus they're generally also inveterate travellers, which
makes for a city of adventurous, if often highly critical, palates.
'Mod Oz' cooking is a loose term that describes a mix of British, European, Asian and
Middle Eastern techniques and ingredients, with a seasonal, fresh-produce-driven philo-
sophy similar to Californian cuisine. There's a base of borrowed traditions, yes, but its style
and attitude is unique. The Melbourne manifestation (and the state's culinary offerings in
general) tends more towards European and Mediterranean tastes, rather than Sydney's
firmly Pacific Rim take on the cuisine. This is both a product of the city's very untropical
climate - with four distinct seasons and strongly demarked seasonal crops - and also due to
the strong impact that Melbourne's Italian, Greek, Eastern European and Middle Eastern
communities had on the city from the 1950s onwards. But that's not to say that you won't
find wonderful Asian cooking and a host of varied Asian influences as the city continues to
absorb and reinvent these traditions, too.
Melbourne has long been a diverse city, but apart from the long- standing influence of
the Chinese community via numerous restaurants and importing business, tastes didn't
really begin to shift from the Anglo-Celtic basics until the postwar period. As well as im-
porting the goods they couldn't do without (such as olive oil), the city's southern and east-
ern European migrants set to producing coffee, bread, cheeses and smallgoods, which
gradually found their way from specialist delis into mainstream supermarkets. These com-
munities also helped shape the agricultural traditions of the state, bringing new crops and
production methods to a land that often resembled the parts of the Mediterranean they had
left behind. The Vietnamese, Lebanese and Turkish migrants that followed in the 1970s
also had a lasting impact on the way Victorians eat. Many of the state's culinary leading
lights and rising stars are the children or grandchildren of these first-generation migrants
(or are migrants themselves): Guy Grossi, Greg Malouf, Karen Martini, Con Christopoulos,
George Calombaris, Rita Macali, Joseph Abboud, Shane Delia, Rosa Mitchell and Pietro
Porcu, to name just a few.
While Victoria's eating habits have absorbed and incorporated a range of cuisines, creat-
ing something new in the process, many of the original inspirations are represented in kit-
chens across the city, and are constantly joined by those catering to its newest arrivals.
