Sorry, Sylvie, took me a while to read my mail!! I was a bit tongue in cheek asking the question, of course, you realise? I know that not all Americans eat only fried food, but it struck me at the time how many fried recipes there were in those books!! In Australia, unfortunately, lots of people eat fried food as well. When I arrived here in 1969, although everyone boasted that Australia was country number One for seafood (probably true), there was one one way of eating it if you didn't have it at home: fried, with coating!! Maybe a few very expensive restaurants did it another way, but I wouldn't know, I didn't have enough money to eat there :-) It's a terrible thing to say, but the basis of Australian traditional (white) cooking is English. Not even topnotch Englsih, which may be better, but most of our first settlers came from poor backgrounds, and didn't know much about cooking. The fact that it was very difficult to grow Western food in Australia at the beginning didn't help.What we call "The First Fleet", which is the first arrival of Englsih settlers in Australia, all convicts except for the Army, came with some things to plant and some animals to breed. Unfortunately, the Government forgot to send skilled farmers as well, and most convicts came from city backgrounds and didn't have a clue how to grow anything. Which means that they were all nearly starved by the time the Second Fleet arrived, also full of convicts who didn't have a clue, and hardly any food on board because the English thought that by then the agriculture would be well established!!! How stupid can you get? It took quite a few years before they started growing anything worth eating, and of course, the main crop were potatoes (of course as well, a lot of the drop was immediately used to make alcohol :-)Read "The potato Factory" by Bryce Courtenay for an account of those times. Great book, not so good film) So, anyway, the traditional food became very British, and stayed that way until probably the mid 1970's. Yes, 1970's. There were a few exceptions, since the Chinese had arrived in Australia early on, and one could eat at "The Chinese", and after WW2, there were also Greek and Italian restaurants in some places, but they caught on very quickly to the fact that things should be battered and fried, and became champion fish&chips shop owners!! Fortunately for Australia, since the 1970's, the push for real multiculturalism, and the arrival of so many different nationalities who didn't feel they had to merge into the background completely, we now have an infinity of cuisines, and, best of all, a new Australian cuisine which blends styles and foods from East and West with exquisite excellency!!! If you live in a big city, at least the State Capitals, you can dine at a different restaurant each day of the week and probably can taste a different country's food for at least six moonths of the year!!! I love it!!
However, if you eat at Coles cafeteria, or at the local "restaurant" in small places, you'll probably still get your fish fried and your steak overdone :-) But the chips are usually yummy! YOurs in good food and lace, Helene, the froggy from Melbourne, who is looking forward to 2 months of her mother's cooking. Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 03:58:00 -0700 (PDT) From: Sylvie Nguyen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [lace-chat] fried food Hello Helene, While there are some Americans who fry a great deal of their food, others do not. Having eaten among friends, I have seen both. American dinners are quite often baked in ovens. As for myself, I only fry eggrolls, which I make a few times per year. Because they are more work to make than other foods and I know that all the oil is not healthy, we just don't eat them more often. Having been raised in a very health conscious manner, I have continued to run my kitchen in the same way. In fact my sons say, "Mom is has her leaves again," when they notice all of the salad greens and large variety of herbs..... What are some of the most common ways that food is prepared in Australia? Sylvie Cherry Valley, Illinois, USA Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
