Australia Travel Story PART 1 – Welcome to Western Australia
Australia is considered a country of barbecues and I was completely impressed by how intensely this culture is really lived here. Especially in comparison to the USA and South Africa, where barbecues and braai are also very important and are part of the "lifestyle". Here, as there, barbecues also mean preserving and sometimes developing the culinary traditions of the respective indigenous peoples. You come across this connection at every turn in Australia and for me that is part of the fascination of this huge continent. The people here are incredibly open and hospitable and it is easy to make contact and exchange culinary ideas. Especially at barbecues. I have never seen so many barbecues anywhere else - just driving past. Then there are the many public barbecues that are open to everyone and can be used partly free of charge and partly for a small fee. If rumors are to be believed, there are more public barbecue areas than gas stations in the country. And outside, traveling in the outback, where you often don't see anyone for days, you either cook at the campfire or have your portable grill with you.
After a 20-hour flight, my destination is the Western Australian state capital Perth. From here I want to head to the tropical north and the more temperate south. First of all: there is so much to discover here that it is impossible to pack everything I experienced, all the recipes and culinary specialties into one article. In the next episodes of my travel story, Western Australia will therefore be a recurring theme. In the tropical zone of the north, temperatures are humid and hot in summer (wet season from November to April) and evenly warm in winter (dry season from May to October). The south, on the other hand, is considered the temperate zone, which is characterized by hot summers and mild winters. The culinary side is as diverse as the landscapes and climates in this largest state in Australia.
Perth has a population of 1.7 million and is the fourth largest city on the continent. Almost three quarters of Western Australia's population lives and works here (Western Australia has a total population of 2.2 million, while the continent as a whole has 23.49 million). The city is very lively and has a reputation for developing into a world-class food and wine destination. Small bars, cafés and restaurants are opening everywhere.
But I don't stay long in Perth. I want to find out as much as I can over the next few days about "Aussie Barbie", the attitude to life that goes with it and the regional foods (indigenous food) that are used for it. The next flight takes me in two and a half hours to the northwest to Broome in the Kimberley region. The city is located on the Indian Ocean and shows its fascinating side even on approach. The sea merges seamlessly into the horizon and in the other direction you can just make out the bushland in the hinterland. Every now and then you can see a bush fire. Dried-up undergrowth is burned in a controlled manner to facilitate the growth of young plants. Broome was founded at the end of the 19th century. The city's wealth was once based on a huge, natural pearl deposit; at one point 80 percent of the world's mother-of-pearl demand was met by pearl divers mining it on the sea coast. There was a kind of gold rush atmosphere that attracted many thousands of people, especially from Asia. The boom lasted almost three decades, after which pearls were artificially cultivated for mother-of-pearl. Today, tourism is an important source of income. The famous "Cable Beach" is a 22-kilometer-long stretch of beach where the desert meets the ocean. On special days, you can also watch the natural spectacle "Staircase to the Moon" here, when on full moon nights the moon rises over the coast at low tide.
Art and culinary
Broome's past has made it a melting pot of cultures. If you want to get a quick impression of the cultural influences that come together here and how they affect the cuisine, you can try it out at "A Taste Of Broome". This event takes place once a month from May to September. Local artists, craftsmen, musicians and dancers tell anecdotes of their shared history in their own way, accompanied by some street food offerings from Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese and Indonesian cuisine - and of course from traditional Aboriginal cuisine.
In Matso's Brewery
One place you definitely have to visit in Broome is Matso's Broome Brewery. Here you can find really excellent craft beer, whose reputation extends across the entire continent, and a highly recommended restaurant with some Asian-inspired food. A lot of the food comes from the grill, and in addition to steaks and burgers, fish and shellfish are also offered. I get chatting to the head chef Gereon Menten, who was born in Cologne, completed his training as a chef there and originally came to this continent in 2010 just for a holiday. Shortly before his return flight, he was tempted by a job offer and spontaneously stayed here. Since 2014, he has been responsible for the culinary affairs at Matso's as head chef. From his kitchen - which is extremely small for a restaurant of this size, where Gereon's organizational talent is needed to cope with the rush of guests - he serves me a spicy pulled pork burger.
Craft beer is also a big topic in Australia and a number of microbreweries have established themselves here. Matso's Broome Brewery has some award-winning and seasonal beers on the menu that are among the best beers in Australia. My favourites are the fruity Mango Beer (the mangos needed for this grow here in the Kimberley region) and the Ginger Beer.
Due to the high demand, since 2007 the beer has not only been brewed here in this historic building, but part of the production has been outsourced to a brewery in Perth. The brewery building has a very eventful history. It was originally built as the first bank in Broome. It stood in the middle of the red-light district of Chinatown, surrounded by opium dens and brothels. At the end of the 1940s the entire district burned down - only this building remained and has since changed locations and its purpose several times. Before it became the "shell" of the brewery, it housed a general store owned by the Matsumoto family - the brewery's name is a reminder of this.
Recipe: Matso's Pearler's Burger
Ingredients (for about 4-5 burgers)
- 1 kg boneless pork shoulder
- 400 g root vegetables (e.g. onions, celery, carrots)
- 700 ml Matso's Pearler's Pale Ale
- Salt pepper
- Leaves of red cabbage and iceberg lettuce
- Tomato slices
- Burger bun
For the sauce:
- 10 g red chilli, finely chopped
- 10 g garlic, finely chopped
- 30 ml white wine vinegar
- 70 g sugar
- 5 g salt
- 60 g honey
- 5 g Szechuan peppercorns
- 20 ml lemon juice
- 1 pinch red Indian food coloring (if available)
- Corn starch for binding
Preparation:
For the sauce, bring all the ingredients except the cornstarch to the boil in a saucepan and then thicken with the cornstarch (mix some starch with cold water) until the sauce becomes syrupy. To test how cold the sauce is, simply place a plate in the freezer at the beginning and as soon as the sauce is cooked, drizzle a tablespoon of the sauce onto the ice-cold plate. The sauce will cool and you will see how much it has thickened.
Salt and pepper the meat, brown it on all sides in a roasting pan, add the vegetables and brown them too. Pour the pale ale over it and braise it in the grill with the lid closed at 160°C for around 5 hours until the meat falls apart and you can pull it apart.
To serve, mix with the sauce and arrange on the burger buns together with the lettuce leaves and tomato slices.
Cape Leveque – On the trail of the Aborigines
From Broome, we take a small plane from Kimberley Aviation to Cape Leveque on the Dampier Peninsula, 220 kilometers away. A bird's eye view is probably the best way to take in this scenic beauty. This area is Aboriginal land and the local indigenous people have shaped the land for thousands of years. Their culture is probably the oldest culture still in existence on earth. Some tribes have opened up to tourism in order to show strangers their natural way of life. This includes the Saltwater People of the Bardi tribe. One of their descendants is Brian Lee, a tribal elder, who picks me up in his off-road vehicle for fishing and a barbecue afterwards.
It's a wild ride to the beach, and along the way Brian turns out to be a great and humorous storyteller, even if I sometimes have trouble understanding all the punchlines. When he notices it, a big smile comes across his face. He's a real character who feels in balance with his ancestors and nature here in the birthplace of his grandparents and parents. You can feel that even as an outsider. First of all, Brian shows me how to make a spear, which he uses when fishing.
While I try to find something suitable for hunting, Brian catches a few bait fish from the ocean in the shallow waters of the shore with his net. With the help of the bait fish on his line, he pulls our lunch in the form of two larger fish from the deeper waters onto land. Brian lights a campfire out of dry grass and mangrove wood. We grill the fish in the embers, and then we simply peel back the burnt skin to eat them. They taste delicious as they are. Spices, salt or pepper are superfluous here. The tide has now gone out. When it starts, the water becomes murky and staying in it is not entirely safe. It is now the perfect camouflage for saltwater crocodiles, and you don't want to encounter them like this. The water has now receded so far that an impermeable thicket of mangrove roots and a rocky landscape remain on the shore. Wild oysters can be found on the underside of rocks and boulders, some of which we immediately try. After about an hour we have collected a 20 kg bag and make our way back to camp at dusk, which comes early in winter.
Your Elmar Fetscher
SEQUEL FOLLOWS…