Fuchsia Dunlop

This excellent breakfast, enjoyed at the Big Table café in Adelaide’s Central Market, might look like a run-of-the-mill fry-up, but it’s not. I’d been browsing the market in search of local specialities, and had inevitably spent a while at the famous kangaroo shop, and another stall called Something Wild where they sell kangaroo, crocodile, goat, buffalo and camel meat. It was my last day in Adelaide, and I was dying to try some of these unusual ingredients, but none of the local cafes appeared to serve them (I think I’d only had crocodile once before, actually in a Cantonese restaurant in West London). But the incredibly kind staff at the Big Table, where I’d eaten breakfast a few days before, agreed to cook a couple of speciality sausages for me as a substitute for the bacon and eggs in their ‘Big Brekkie’. So here they are: a kangaroo country sausage from the kangaroo shop, and a crocodile sausage from Something Wild. And I’m happy to report that they were both absolutely delicious, and not disturbing in any way. The kangaroo banger was dark, juicy and peppered with fragrant herbs (it didn’t taste gamey at all), while the crocsausage was gorgeously juicy and tender, a little like chicken but lighter in texture. Both were wild, sustainable, free-range meats – and in the case of the crocodile, I’d say it’s better to eat it before it eats you. Continue reading…

Afghan mantu

I’ve long been fascinated by the connection between Turkish mantı dumplings – and all their relatives across central and eastern Asia – and Chinese mantou (my paper on the subject from a Chinese angle will be published this summer in the Proceedings of the Oxford Food Symposium, along with a paper from the Turkish/Central Asian point of view by the Turkish food expert Aylin Oney Tan). So I was completely thrilled to come across these Afghan mantu in a gorgeous Afghan restaurant in Adelaide – the Parwana Afghan Restaurant. It’s a family business just outside the city centre where the warmth of the welcome and the charm of the ambience match the deliciousness of the food (I only came across it because the daughter of the owners was a volunteer at the Adelaide Writers’ Week and came to talk to me after one of my events, but it turns out to be highly rated by the local restaurant website, urbanspoon.com). Continue reading…

There’s a piece by me in the Financial Times today, about the way Chinese and Asian food has been localised in Sydney…