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Melbourne's Tucker: An Epicurean's Delight
| Article
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14154 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1988 |
2,210 Words |
| Author
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Adrianne Marcus
Adrianne Marcus has published in Food & Wine, Menus, Travel &
Leisure, Good Food, Cooking Light, and other magazines. |
It's Crocodile Dundee and "Put another shrimp on the Barbie, mate." It's the year of the continent down under--Australia--where Americans are heading in droves. If Sydney is the most visually exciting of Australia's cities and Perth was the place to be for the America's cup, Melbourne is the great Australian secret: a city of exciting food and great restaurants. The natives spend entire evenings devoted to their glorious food and wine. And when you book a table in a restaurant, it's yours for the whole evening, whether you dine at 6 p.m. or at 9:30 P.M. Melbourne prides itself on having the most sophisticated restaurants in Australia. Its leading chefs apply both classical techniques and their own innovative touches to the enormous range of available food. Moreso, chefs praise each other, saying, "You should also try the food at so-and-so's place." The natives are friendly. Y'see, mate, they want you to try a taste of everything in their city.
Given the veritable banquet of fruits and vegetables and an almost embarrassing largesse from the oceans, seas and land, it's hard for the visitor to resist.
About five minutes by cab from downtown Melbourne is the huge indoor-outdoor Victoria Market, where you can spend an entire day shopping. Summer and winter fruits and vegetables are available year-round. During the winter months of July through September in southern cities such as Melbourne it's still hot up north. So tropical fruits and vegetables such as soursop, custard apples, lychees, and peaches are shipped south and lie juxtaposed with pomegranates and quinces in the marketplace.
As for fish, it's a seafood lover's paradise. There are red snappers the size of small people, and John Dory fish, whose delectable sweet flesh is to fish what fresh Beluga caviar is to roe. Shellfish are in abundance: fresh prawns, scampi, and lobsters. What the Aussies call lobsters are really crayfish the size of small suckling pigs--weighing from two to twenty pounds. Some days, if you are really lucky, the Moreton Bay or Balmain "bug" is available. This bizarre little creature has the body of a crab and the tail of a lobster; officially, it is called a shovel-nosed lobster. The tail is as sweet as the tastiest lobster meat. And for crab lovers there are a host of varieties: blue swimmer crabs, mud crabs, and sand crabs.
Then there's the inevitable Australian lamb. And mutton. And beef.
Lucky Melbourne
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