Bloody Delicious!

This is not my opinion about the meal I cooked tonight, though it may well be an expression eligible for permanent entry into my food appreciation lexicon.

Bloody Delicious is the title of a book written by Joan Campbell, former food editor for Vogue publications, and published in 1997. An Australian book, about Australian food written by an Australian; all qualifications indicating it might be compulsory reading for anyone writing a blog in support of food produced by Australian farmers.

I obtained a copy of this book through the Victorian library service and it has been sitting in my yellow library book bin for a couple of weeks. Finally I have found the time to do more in-depth reading and in line with my developing standards to be applied to Australian produced food, I see in the early chapters many ideas and some recipes which might be contenders for the 2014 Menu list.

As I read through Chapter One I also note, with some misgiving, a number of recipes where the ingredients may not be produced in this country. Three weeks have passed since I started serious label reading and already I am aware that it is essential to read the ingredients listed; this applies to something as simple as self-raising flour which may pose problems. The upside to reading carefully through the recipes in Bloody Delicious is being made aware of possible modifications to recipes I have on hand and being reminded of recipes that I might search out from the back of the recipe drawer, or ones hidden somewhere in the depths of the Trash Palace archaeological dig.

I put Chapter One under the magnifying glass and find a handful of recipes which will happily fit into the Ausfood Menu; they are basic and use simple ingredients and although they may not be contenders for MasterChef, they will suit my purposes and will be very welcome at the Trash Palace dining table.

I also find a number of recipes with sticking points when it comes to the Ausfood factor. These sticking points are ingredients to be found in many kitchen cupboards but are they produced in Australia? Here is a selection of ingredients from Chapter One which will require further investigation.

• self raising flour
• vanilla beans
• vanilla extract
• dates
• nutmeg
• cayenne pepper
• mustard powder

The above listed items are all specific recipe ingredients which  might prove difficult to find; I will either have to look for an alternative or simply abandon the recipe idea for the blog.

However, in this first chapter, there are two recipes which will definitely appear at some stage (oh, traitorous thought) on the non-Ausfood days; Glad’s Yum Yum Cake and Mrs Dobell’s Upside Down Pineapple Cake.

This has been a step in the right direction of tried and true Australian recipes, handed down through generations, and I have only one last question regarding this book.

What dirty, lowdown, no-good person ripped pages 29 and 30 out of this book?

As Queen Victoria might have said “We are not amused.”

Bran Cereal Options

Standing in the local Green Supermarket, beside a conveniently positioned flat top trolley piled high with empty bread racks, I take out my trusty notebook and pen, pick down the two boxes of cereal I need to examine and place them under the Ausfood magnifying glass.

This is what I see.

First the box of Vogel Ultra Bran.

It is Australian made; there is a logo, a map of Australia. It’s not the Australian Made logo with kangaroo and no country of origin is to be found. There are many, many words of varying shapes, sizes and colours on every side of this box and I spend some minutes searching. I cannot find any words telling me this product is made from local and imported ingredients.

I look at the ingredients list; it’s lengthy.

Wheat bran (39%)

Wholemeal wheat flour (Vitamins (thiamin & folate)

Wheat flour

Sugar

Hi-maize TM cornstarch

Linola (linseed meal 8% soy (2%) (Soy flour& isoflavone concentrate)

Minerals (tricalcium carbonate, zinc oxide)

Salt

Natural colour (annatto)

Vitamins (E & folate)

Food acid (citric acid)

An exhausting, if not exhaustive list.

I turn to the Kellogg’s All-Bran box; it has the Australian Made logo but once again, no information about the origin of the ingredients. I’m greatly relieved to find this ingredient list is shorter.

Wheat bran (85%)

sugar

barley malt extract

vitamins (riboflavin, folate, thiamin)

As far as being bran cereals options eligible for the Ausfood list, these two have fallen at the first hurdle. No country of origin on the packaging, no eligibility for the list. Simple.

However, among all those listed ingredients there is a couple that attracted my attention and I may, on a day when time is passing very slowly and I have absolutely nothing better to do, investigate them further. Not because I consider they may be products of Australia but I am curious about their real make-up.

These two are Hi-maize TM cornstarch and isoflavone concentrate. They might be considered as red herrings, though I suspect that neither of them will have anything to do with fish, more to do with sugar and spice I’m thinking.

I’ll put them on the back-burner. Oh no!! I‘ve said that word……

I’ll regret that, you can be sure.

Robert and the Aromatics

I’m not talking here about a band from the sixties. I am talking about a recipe book from the sixties.

I’ve scratched around among my collection of recipe books from the past thinking they might hold the answer to dishes with simple ingredients. Food wasn’t so fancy fifty years ago and I think my 2014 Ausfood Challenge might have a chance of getting over the finish line if I keep to a basic recipe plan.

Only those people over a certain age will remember Robert Carrier, who was the last word, in the early sixties, when it came to food and how it should be prepared and served. American–born and raised, he arrived in London via Paris and his cook book recipes are strewn with ingredients more easily found in England or the Continent than out here in the colonies.

I acquired two of Robert Carrier’s books in paperback; Great Dishes of the World and his second book, The Robert Carrier Cookbook many years ago. I found Great Dishes on a shelf, jammed into a row of recipe books and when I opened the book it fell into three sections; the spine is broken and the middle section is completely detached. This dislocation makes the book willful, difficult to manage and prone to dropping open at random pages. Pages with recipes for pheasant in red wine; partridge with lentils; Creole jambalaya and chilled watercress salad. Great dishes of the world in the sixties maybe: but far from basic and not what I am looking for today.

I turn to the front of the book and in section 1 I find the Aromatics: onions, shallots, leeks, chives and garlic. There are suggestions about ways to do simple things, which, according to Robert, will lift a dish out of the ordinary with the use of aromatics. The French lead the charge with their trick of browning finely chopped onions, shallots and garlic in olive oil and butter as a base for a casserole. Leeks, pureed with chicken stock and cream to make up a cream of leek soup, also get the French thumbs-up. More than a page is devoted to garlic and its versatility in both summer and winter dishes; cooks are encouraged to grow chives in their gardens and use them in omelettes, salad dressings and as a garnish for vegetables.

All of these are basic food stuffs and should be Australian grown and available in supermarkets. I foresee Robert and the aromatics getting a workout come winter; I hope the book, with all its frailties, is up to the challenge.

Labelling Laws

I wait in the motel reception this afternoon while the owner takes what turns out to be a long winded telephone call. I’m waiting to finalise my account as I will be leaving very early in the morning; I pick up a motel brochure and commence reading. This brochure is in the room but on reading it again I see I have missed something important. Something of great interest to me. I can hire a tablet for a nominal sum; I get it immediately, along with a few instructions and I find it more user friendly than similiar devices I have used in the past.

After playing around on the tablet for a while I settle down to do some serious research. I decide to look for some labelling information. I look at two sites: www.foodstandards.gov.au and another belonging to the ACCC  and consider them both useful sites for defining words on labels.

However, nothing is ever as simple as you might like it to be. The ACCC is a transition website and this publication here concerning country of origin and Australian Consumer Law is being reviewed. Enough said – especially when I see the publication was last published in 2011. I do look at the current electronic version and make a note of information around the words Made in Australia which might be useful in the future.

The Fsanz site offers a little more about unpackaged foods and country of origin labelling. I read and I am bewildered; each sentence is more bewildering than the last. I move on to the paragraph about exemptions from country of origin labelling and find this:

Are there any exemptions from country of origin labelling?

There are some exemptions for country of origin labelling. For example it is not required when food is sold to the public for immediate consumption, for example food sold in cafes, restaurants and canteens, or where a food is made and packaged on the premises it is sold, such as a bakery where the bread is baked and sold on site.

Now there’s something to think about.

 Bread. Eating out in cafes and restaurants.

 If I am going to take on the challenge of eating Australian only food it will certainly need to be modified to a part time challenge.

It’s after midnight now and I am too tired to read any more. I need a few hours sleep before I leave town on the 6.30 a.m. bus -  when the sun will hardly be above the horizon.

Ice-cream, you-scream, we-all-scream

Earlier this morning I was not quite screaming but very close to it. This screaming near-miss came about when I discovered I had been sold a ticket at Melbourne’s Southern Cross station for a bus service not operating in Rutherglen though the school holidays. As a result I was left to amuse myself for another day in lovely downtown Rutherglen. I threw myself on the kindness of strangers and spent most of the day in the cool of the library, only venturing out a couple of times into the blistering heat.

It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good somewhere. My extended stay allowed me to sample the pies for which this town is well-known, to drink some more of the best coffee in town and to carry out some serious taste and labelling research on Gundowring ice-cream.

Back at the tourist information centre in the afternoon I buy a small cardboard cup of the flavour of the day – Toasted Honey and Walnut ice-cream. I look at that wording and decide I would alter the words to read Toasted Walnut and Honey; maybe I’m being even more pedantic than usual today , as a spin–off from the bus debacle, but the idea of toasted honey seems rather odd. I toss around possibilities such as clever marketing, the actual process of toasting honey and walnuts, either separately or together, while I walk outside to sit at an outdoor table.

  Sitting at a table, under the shade of an enormous old peppercorn tree, I peel off the lid. This ice-cream is made in the Kiewa Valley in north-eastern Victoria, using a combination of farm fresh milk, cream, sucrose, walnuts, stringy bark honey, skim milk powder, wheat glucose, egg yolk, natural stabiliser 412, 415,410,407.

  All those numbers. What can they mean? They will be there for a very good reason, from the maker’s point of view, but are they (apart from the natural stabiliser 412) natural or chemical and where is their country of origin? There’s another item to add to the to-do list: investigate the numbers game, or maybe if a number appears on the ingredient part of the label simply place the product in the too-hard basket.




I’m not big fan of ice-cream at the best of times but I was keen to try this local product. I’ve tried it now and for me it lacks the wow factor. It is expensive, and while prospective buyers might be expected to place quality above price, for me in this case, the price is too high.

Overwhelmed by labels

I spend a lot of time this afternoon at the Tourist Information Centre which, apart from providing tourist information, provides a café with excellent coffee, a small gallery with a range of local handcrafts and a shop with a wide range of regional produce, packaged in and many shapes and forms.

I spend a lot of time in this regional produce area, to the point that I suspect the staff and volunteers think I am a prospective shop lifter. The only things I am lifting are the various bottles and jars of produce; onion jam, chutneys, fruit jams, vinegars, olive oils. The result of all this lifting and label reading makes me tired; my arms ache, my shoulders droop and together with my shoulders, my spirits droop.

There are so many variations in label details; although the labels list ingredients, there are few that adopt the ‘grown in Australia’ label or ‘produce of Australia’. Mostly, it is simply ‘Made in Australia’ – nothing wrong with that I can assure you, but it doesn’t tell me what I want to know about Australian ingredients.

This label reading caper is getting the better of me today. I am quitting it right now. Totally dispirited, I take my aching arms and drooping shoulders over to the café, where I revive my drooping spirits with another cup of the best coffee in town.

Time for a lunch break

There are a number of cafes to choose from in the main street of Rutherglen and I spent a pleasant half hour in one of them this morning, sitting in the courtyard in the shade enjoying a coffee, a predictable cake and the passing parade.

When lunch time came around I chose a café that also opens some evenings; it was not going to be open in the evenings of the two days I was staying in Rutherglen, so lunch was my only option. I was curious to see how much Australian produce is offered on the menu.

A blackboard on the wall informed me that the fish were from Lakes Entrance and the oysters were from St Helens in Tasmania. A good start. I ordered the fish and chips and the owner/chef told me the fish that day was gummy shark; the oysters were from Coffin Bay and not St Helen’s. This alteration comes about as the menu items are selected daily on whatever is best available from the markets on that day.

In the days of long ago and far way no right thinking person would countenance ordering fish when eating out in an inland town. Too far away from the sea – who knows what might turn up on the plate and how it might taste. Times have changed – now ordering is done on the same day the order will arrive at the café and it is the best of what is available from the current catch. How good is that?

The plate of fish and chips arrives; the fish is battered and while the chips can be counted on the fingers of one hand this meal is about quality over quantity. There is salad with mayo, a side of tartare and 1/8 lemon. If this is a Taste of Rutherglen I’m all for more of it and I give this meal an A without hesitation. This is my new 2013 meal rating system and an A is not given out lightly. Great meal.

I’m note-taking while eating and this draws the attention of the chef who comes over to ask if everything is alright with my meal. I take the opportunity to praise his local food approach and skate over the idea of all Australian food making an appearance on the menu. We discuss the pros and cons and not unexpectedly he says that is a difficult thing to achieve for many reasons and estimates that 98% of their food would be Australian anyway.  I accept the argument, people running a cafe are running a business and business is business. 

Revived after a excellent meal, I leave the café, turn left and walk down to the tourist information centre where I will browse through the labels in their stock of locally produced food and have another cup of the best coffee in town.

In the Heat of the Afternoon

In the heat of the afternoon, when every right thinking person in town is indoors, away from the furnace like heat, I am wandering down the main street of Rutherglen in northern Victoria, searching for something to eat. I am lucky enough to discover a café where a young lad is outside stacking the pavement chairs and tables prior to closing; I slip in the door and place the last order of the day.
 
While I am waiting for my lunch order to arrive I take a drink from the fridge and return to the counter. Sitting at eye level on the counter in front of me is a display of some attractively presented bottles of fruit juice. I pick one up and examine it. There is a lot of printed detail on the bottle and after glancing at the front labelling which tells me I am holding a bottle of Noah’s Creative Juices, which in this case is an orange, apple, guava, banana, pineapple and paw paw juice Smoothie, I turn the bottle around and read the back.

In the list of ingredients the words Australia and Australian appear six times. I think I’m onto something here. When I ask the woman behind the counter where this juice is made she only knows that the people who own this café have another in Wodonga and the stock comes over to Rutherglen and they put it into the fridge. I walk across to the fridge, replace my first choice of drink and take a bottle of Noah’s Creative Juices.

Taking my lunch order, the drink and a straw I walk back out into the blazing sun. This not only allows the woman to finally close up the café, it allows me time to peruse the label at my leisure. Nearby, in an area set back a little from the street, I find a seat and a small patch of shade. There’s plenty to peruse on the label; so much in fact, that I wonder whether anyone ever reads all of it. I read all of it; every word, even the figures in the nutrition information block. I am impressed with the detail set out in the ingredients list; each ingredient is listed as either Australian or imported and the percentage of each ingredient is also listed. I discover there is Australian Valencia orange juice; Australian crushed apple juice; imported guava puree and imported banana puree; Australian carrot juice and Australian paw paw puree. And last but not least Vitamin C and flavour.

While this may not be the bottled fruit juice of my dreams, when it comes to all Australian content it is far ahead of those labels where the description simply reads ‘made from local and imported ingredients’. On this label you can identify the amount of local and the amount of imported ingredients. Well done in that regard Noah; I’m not too sure who Noah might be, as the company identified on the label is Baca Pty Ltd and the address is in Hawthorn Road Caulfield Victoria.

I eventually peel the label back, as is suggested on the bottle, and drink the juice. I like it, but then again, in temperatures like today, I’d probably like any drinks, whether they were juices or not. The 260 ml is about as much juice as I can drink in one sitting and I have only one minor quibble; it is about the peel off lid. Once you remove the lid you are not easily able, without the prospect of mishap, to stow the partly finished bottle in your handbag and drink the balance later.

According to the display pack on the counter in the café, there were two or three varieties and I will be on the lookout to see if I can find this brand somewhere when I return to Melbourne. Maybe they have a line that has fewer mixes of the juices and I might find one that has 100% Australian content.

I can always live in hope.

The Return of the Plans

It’s been very hot today. I’m tired. I drop into the backburner chair and close my eyes. What direction should I take now?

I don’t have to wait long. The Plans are waiting for me. And they are not waiting patiently. Impatience is writ large all over them and they all speak at once.

“Where have you been? You said you would be back in a week. Don’t mess us about!”

“I’ve been busy. My life doesn’t revolve around you lot you know.”

“Ah, what a load of rubbish. We know….”

“Quiet!” It’s the Master Plan, and he’s furious. I’ve never heard him yell like this before.

There are muttered responses, jostling and shuffling and eventually quiet, apart from a brief whispered aside and a smothered laugh from two of the Plans.

“Challenge Plan, if you have something to say, say it. And Team Plan, just shut up. You’ll get your turn but it won’t be today.”

Master Plan turns back to face me.
“I’ll let Challenge Plan tell you what we have come up with.”

Challenge Plan is well named; a term in use a while back, to describe some-one who was short in stature was “vertically challenged”. This description fits Challenge Plan perfectly. However, what Challenge Plan lacks in height is more than made up for in self importance. There is much shuffling of a sheaf of papers, throat clearing and finally a start is made.

A fleeting passing thought, and one that makes me sigh inwardly, is the idea that this plan might be convoluted, time consuming and difficult to follow.

“Ms Blog Author, you need a specific aim. You need to set a target; give yourself a challenge to meet. Don’t make it too difficult or you will give up. Look at this year as a research and training year. A warm-up year if you like and next year you will be ready to face the real challenge. Here’s a brief outline of what I have in mind.”

Challenge Plan pauses, shuffles through the papers, takes a deep breath and starts reading.

“Let’s look at next year first. In order not to over reach yourself, consider one third of the year, or 120 days, as your target for eating only 100% Australian food. When I say 100% Australian food, this means as close as you can possibly get to that target from reading the label on the packaging. If you spread these days evenly over twelve months, it‘s only ten days per month and that should be achievable. The real work here is how you will deal with the detail of each of these days in a blog post. It will need to be as simple, informative but very importantly, verifiable. Anyone can claim to spend ten days each month eating only Australian food. Talk is cheap. Proof is something else. Now I realise you can’t have the Food Police at your shoulder you while you shop, cook and eat, but there are other ways of approaching this situation. “

At this point Challenge Plan stops reading, looks at me and raises an eyebrow.

“Are you following me so far?”

I nod. I’m really waiting to hear what is in store for me in the first half of this year. I’m more interested in the now, not some time a year distant. I’m sure I will hear about this when the reading starts again.

After another brief rearrangement of the papers, the reading continues.

“Now, this is what should happen this year. It is almost the end of January. You should see January as a starting point but from here on you will need to apply yourself to the Challenge. Master Plan and the rest of the team are pleased to see you have already made a start on one day of  eating only Australian food .  To meet the Challenge you will need to increase you Australian food days – we are going to call it Ausfood from today - by one day per month and by October you will have reached your ten day target. What do you think about that for a plan? “

“Sounds good to me.”

“You need to remember” Challenge Plan continues “the 120 day Challenge is only part of the deal and the tricky part is to set up the ingredient verification chart. Now this is where Food Plan will help you out with ideas about setting up the chart. I’ll just see if Food Plan is about anywhere and you can both talk about it now.”

I am galvanized into action. Talk about it now? No way. Challenge Plan expresses disapproval but I am not about to be browbeaten. I am off to Rutherglen later this week to take in some country air and see what the town has to offer in the way of Ausfood.

I suggest that Challenge Plan pass on my busy schedule to Food Plan and they can get back to me when I return from the North-East.

Loose Leaf Piling System

I’ve just spent a few minutes sorting through a small clutch of recipes I keep in my filed in my loose leaf piling system. You will all be familiar with this system I’m sure. I am also sure that you would never stoop so low in kitchen carelessness as to actually use this system.

However it works well enough for me and there the recipes sit; ready and waiting to offer advice about what to shop for next and how to put everything together once the shopping is done. They are a motley collection of scraps cut out of papers and magazines, written out by hand while waiting in the doctor’s surgery and happily copied from books borrowed from the library.

They are the good old standbys, not the sort of recipe you might find on MasterChef, but reliable and easy to put together. As I looked through them I could see there might be any obstacles ahead.

One of my favourites is a recipe for curried sausages. Sausages. There’s a minefield; how would you know the ingredients in a sausage and where they might come from?  And curry!!  There's more chance of finding a hen with teeth.  All too hard I decide. Even banana cake is not without its problems. And what about spaghetti bolognaise? I’m not sure it is easy to find tomato paste made from Australian tomatoes.

The more I look the more discouraged I become. I can see that I will have to arm myself with the magnifying glass and the recipe ingredients, grit my teeth and trudge around the supermarket shelves and see what I can dig up.

Knocking Down the Cereal Hurdles

I’ve finished the cereal search; finished the prancing around the supermarkets and while there hasn’t exactly been gnashing of teeth there certainly has been some muttering. And a lot of walking back and forth along the aisles trying to second-guess where the supermarkets might shelve some of the items on my search-list.
Anything that is not boxed and branded with any of those well known breakfast cereals names are the poor cousins of the cereal section of the supermarket. Gathered together, almost as an afterthought, the smaller, less interesting, plainly packaged and doubtless least profitable items are either found at the end of the cereal shelf row or laying in obscurity on the very bottom shelf.

However, by dint of application I have found almost all of the four products on my cereal for muesli list. Not all in the one supermarket of course – that would be too much to hope for wouldn’t it? Spread out over the four supermarkets within walking distance of the Trash Palace, I have found the following:

Local Green Supermarket

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats           100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                    100% Natural Oat Bran                      Product of Australia
Homebrand Wholegrain Oats              100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Homebrand Natural Oats                      100% Oat Bran                                  Product of Australia
Homebrand Processed Bran                See list below                                   Product of Australia
Ingredients listed on packet: Wheat bran, wheat flour, sugar, salt, emulsifier (471)
Rice Bran                                               Not Available

Local Red Supermarket

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats           100% Wholegrain Oats                       Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                    100% Natural Oat Bran                        Product of Australia
Bran Cereal                                           Not Available
Rice Bran                                              Not Available

Eastern IGA

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats             100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                      100% Natural Oat Bran                       Product of Australia
Bran Cereal - Only Options:
Kellogg’s All bran
Vogel’s Soy & Linseed
Rice Bran                                                Not Available

Northern IGA

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats                  100% Wholegrain Oats                   Product of Australia

Lowan Oat Bran                                            100% Natural Oat Bran                     Product of Australia

Bran Cereal                                                   Only Option:                                      Kellogg’s All bran

Rice Bran                                                      Only Option:                              Energy Fields Rice Bran Cereal

So there you have it.

Lowan Rolled Oats and Oat Bran have all the bases covered: they will definately make it onto the ingredients list. The Local Green Supermarket offers some acceptable items priced to suit the budget conscious, while the bran cereal options mentioned in the above tables need all round closer examination along with the Northern IGA rice bran cereal. Rice bran, not unexpectedly, might prove to be difficult to track down.

I'm about halfway through in the breakfast muesli stakes. I might need to broaden my horizons and extend my search into the neighbouring suburbs.

Cereal hurdles

Making a start on the Ausfood front has given me an insight into some of the difficulties ahead.

Let's look at the muesli  I make up, on a regular basis, for breakfast each morning.  I've been using this recipe for years now and although it may not be the most exciting muesli on the face of the earth it suits me. It is based on a recipe from Sandra Cabot's book "The X Syndrome" and in theory it is designed to help with a weight problem.  No doubt it would, if only I kept to the rest of the program.

However I digress.

The breakfast muesli is made up of the following ingredients:

• rolled oats
• processed bran
• oat bran
• rice bran
• natural sultanas
• dried apricots
• chopped almonds
• pepitas
• sunflower seeds

Due to the irritation factor when chopping up the dried apricots, which stick to the knife and the equally irritating almonds that jump all over the place when I chop them, these two items only make the cut on that rare occasion when all the planets are in the right alignment.

First I will deal with cereal component of the muesli - the rest I will deal with at a later time. This search will take place within walking distance of the Trash Palace. I will be looking in the local Red and Green supermarkets and the two local second-tier supermarkets.

This promises to be time consuming. I am confident about walking straight to the areas where I will find rolled oats and oat bran in all the afore-mentioned supermarkets but I am not so confident about finding the bran cereal or the rice bran cereal.

All this could lead to a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing, flouncing about and gnashing of teeth.

Dipping a toe in the water

Today was my first shot at an all Ausfood day.

As this is the first cab off the rank in the Ausfood search, you will find certain refinements being made along the way. For example the product verification (proof the product/ingredient used is an Australian product) will be re-shaped into a format that will hopefully not bore the socks off the reader but will still provide accurate verification I am using genuine Ausfood items.

I started late in the day which gave me the sneaky advantage of only having to fit in two meals; breakfast and another meal late in the day to prevent a total collapse from starvation.

The breakfast menu was the usual muesli with some modification (interpret modification as a scramble to find any ingredients that met the Ausfood criteria) Wandin strawberries, Elgaar Dairy milk and Schulz yoghurt. Hurrah for the summertime and berry products readily available.

All this washed down with a cup of Nerada tea/Elgaar milk.

The Other Meal:

• chicken from the local butcher, marinated in the juice of a Woori Yallock lemon.
• Cobram olive oil for pan frying the chicken
• Victorian potatoes
•  Australian green beans

Another cup of Nerada tea with Elgaar milk

I managed the meals around a late start, time at the library and later a tram trip down to the beach at Albert Park.  I also managed to walk past cafes and the ice-cream shop to beat all ice-cream shops in Albert Park and not stray inside any of the doors.This is the down side to the Ausfood eating challenge - eating out is off limits due to the unknown ingredient factor.

At the end of the day I was still a little peckish; however I managed to resist all temptations in the kitchen cupboard and the fridge.  At this rate, by the end of next year I'll scarcely throw a shadow if I stand sideways.


In my dreams......

This is more like it.......

 Meandering around in the Local Green Supermarket, picking items up, reading the label and putting them back on the shelf, I came to a sudden stop while I was looking along the juice shelf.

I'm looking at a bottle of apple juice and this is what I see first.

 We're off to a flying start here with those stand-out words 100% Australian apples.  It doesn't come much better than that as far as I am concerned, although maybe I should qualify that as it is early days and I may become more difficult to please as time passes and I gather more variations on the theme.
I pick the bottle up and examine it closely. There is a short paragraph about the quantity of apples in the bottle but more importantly there is an additional line that informs the buyer that the contents are made in Australia from local juice.


 I put the bottle in my shopping basket immediately.

 While I am in What-Can-I-Drink? mode I move along to the tea section of the supermarket and here I have to look very carefully at labels.  It takes a little while but eventually I find this:

Nerada Australian tea,  grown in Queensland.   Here is another product to add to the list of Ausfoods. The packet of teabags joins the bottle of apple juice in the basket. There is much more to be said on the subject of tea and what is available in the Red and Green supermarkets. You can be sure I will have more to say about the matter of tea.



I am so impressed with the Nudie nothing but 5 apples labelling and I send off an email praising their efforts in the interests of clear labelling and Australian produce.  A reply states they try their best but some fruit, such as cranberries, have to come from other places.  Even Valencia oranges from time to time.

The lesson for me at this point, is to look for juice that contains only one type of fruit.  Today's juice drinkers seem to require many varieties of fruit and sometimes even vegetables, to be fitted into the one bottle.  In these cases it is highly likely the label will state Imported and local ingredients.

Look out for the dissertation on tea coming up before the end of January.

The survey kicks off

I set off bright and early this morning for the city, to meet two long standing friends who had no inkling they were to be the first two people to be interviewed for my grand Ausfood survey. I have restricted it to seven main questions which may be adjusted in the future according to the reactions of the participants.  I really want to use the word surveyees ( in the same vein as the words employer and employee might be used) however the website offering answers to questions from linguists, etymologists and serious English language enthusiasts hold out for the use of participants.  Boring.  To my chagrin it appears the word surveyees does not exist. Until now.

While waiting for the tram, an older couple asked me for information about the trams stopping at this tramstop and their destinations.   I asked if they would be interested in taking part in a small survey. Quid pro quo. They agreed and we didn't get beyond the first question before a domestic breaks out in the form of who does the most supermarket shopping.  Is it Frank or is it Marie?  This is an unforeseen situation and I mentally file away a plan for dealing with questioning couples, allow them a couple of minutes to argue and then guide them on to the next question. Happily they are both strongly in favour of supporting Australian farmers but my survey is rudely interrupted by the arrival of the tram.  End of the first two surveys. At least I made it to the end of the two qualifying questions.

Later in the city over a cup of coffee I put the complete survey to my friends. This leads to another altercation, this one between the surveyor and one of the surveyees.  She lives in Canada but claims that holding an Australian passport and having currently lived the last three months in Australia makes her well qualified to take part in the survey.  I acquiesce. Peace at any price is my motto at this stage of the debate. I am  lectured by the Canadian about becoming a public nuisance - going around asking questions of complete strangers.  She may have a very valid point there but one which will not hold me back one bit.

I am well pleased with the reaction to my survey.  Even complete strangers, in the form of Frank and Marie, have an opinion on supporting Australian farmers by buying Australian produce. And frank and fearless criticism from friends can only be a good thing and make me sharpen up my ideas.  Everyone I ask will be sure to add another dimension to the overall scheme regarding this project.

It's been good fun today and there's always room for a bit of fun amongst the daily routine I say.

Shopping around

The Ausfood search will be conducted at all levels, from the major supermarkets (sometimes known as the duopoly), through the second tier supermarkets, the Queen Vic market and other suburban markets, down to the farmer’s markets and those stores who see themselves as specialising in fine foods.

In this age of many shops attempting to be all things to all people, there will be greengrocers and fruiterers, butchers, cafes and home wares stores; all of these are fertile grounds for finding new products. And let us not forget the micro Australian farms; community gardens, home vegetable gardens which, if you are lucky enough, might include a couple of fruit trees and for those apartment dwellers, balconies and window ledges.

And of course there are on-line stores. At this point in time we will be concentrating on vendors where we can pick up and examine the labels and easily verify whether they are Australian grown products or not. However as time passes the search will no doubt extend to those on line vendors where it is clear they provide Australian grown products and where we cannot easily obtain a particular product elsewhere.

My very own Ausfood search will be mostly conducted within walking distance of the Trash Palace and its kitchen cupboard. This takes in the duopoly, who will henceforth be referred to on this blog as the Green Supermarket and the Red Supermarket; any one else who features will be referred to by name as it takes my fancy. I also have two second tier supermarkets, two butchers and a deli, all within walking distance.

Plenty of work ahead of me, searching through all those shelves for Ausfood products.

Making a Start

I spend some time this evening wandering in an idle fashion along the aisles of one of the Big Two supermarkets.   

I have a few minutes to spare and decide to start the label investigation right now. I walk by a cabinet stocked with many packets of ready-to-eat-now food. You know the sort, convenience food for the time-poor. Pick up a packet, drop it in your shopping basket and a couple of minutes in the microwave at home and there you are with a ready to eat meal.

How good is that?  Not so good when you start reading the country of origin details.

 I pick up another item, examine the label and look to see the country of origin; I turn the item around and look for more information.  What are the ingredients listed?  What other details are there regarding the origins of this product? It's random selection; mostly the common items that might be found in any kitchen cupboard.  It occurs to me that this project may not be as simple as I first thought; this is my first foray into label reading and it's very confusing.

As I walk home from the supermarket I give some thought to what lies ahead of me if I pursue this idea. By sticking to the basics for a main meal it is fairly safe bet that a plate with meat and three veg. will meet the criteria I am going to set.  It sounds ominously like a return to the dreary blandness of the fifties. I foresee my standard breakfast fare of cereal,  toast and a cuppa are not without their difficulties as well.  I stop thinking about  what might happen between breakfast and dinner – it all seems too hard.

Like a bolt from the blue I realise that I will be forced to pass up my regular Tuesday afternoon cup of coffee at my favourite local café.  Australian coffee beans available there?  I don’t think so.  Are  there any Australian coffee beans available full stop?   With this thought comes the realisation that eating out will be restricted; not just eating out in cafes but eating out at the meal table in people’s homes.  Cafes provide a menu   and you can take it or leave it;  they will not be remotely interested in considering 100% Australian produce – maybe I exaggerate a little here.  Maybe it would be possible to find a café juicing Australian oranges. As for questioning the origins of food served up in the homes of friends,   I might be better off risking assault and battery in a dark lane in the CBD  in the early hours of Saturday morning.

 I walk in the front door, put the shopping away and flop onto my favourite chair.    I need to give this project some deep thought.  I need do some rational thinking.  Heaven forbid!! I might even have to resort to making some constructive plans. Maybe, just maybe, buried deep in the hidden recesses of the back burner of my mind I might find some answers.