Food (and drink!)

Legal drinking age around the world

Moderate drinking guidelines

Of course, I'm always left wondering why people want to know this. Is it because they're a youngster planning on coming for a holiday and want to know if they go into a pub will they get arrested and deported/banged up in a cell with only a mouldy thin mattress, a toilet with no seat and a new friend called Big Tony/Toni for company?

Or perhaps they live somewhere where the demon drink is out out of reach legally, and they're hoping to emigrate just so they can have a beer in peace?

It doesn't matter. The legal drinking age in Australia is 18. Which is also when you can smoke cigarettes and vote. But I wouldn't recommend doing all three at the same time.

If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot.

• Group of people arrives in pub
• Person 1 asks what everybody wants to drink, compiles order, buys drinks, brings them back. Everybody drinks.
• Person 2 asks what everybody wants to drink, compiles order, buys drinks, brings them back. Everybody drinks.
• Person 3 asks what everybody wants to drink, compiles order, buys drinks, brings them back. Everybody drinks.

I think you can probably work out the pattern here. This is pretty much how it goes, until everybody has bought everybody else a drink (or at least offered) and then you can start again, presuming everybody is still capable of speech. (I only mention this because after all, we don't want to encourage irresponsible conshumption of alcoshol, do we? Nopppppe.)

If someone is getting a round and you haven't finished your drink, then you're obviously some kind of wimp, but you can elect to skip to the next round. But the most critical thing to remember is that it is extremely bad etiquette to happen to leave just before it's your round. If this occurs then the others in your party are quite within their rights to do terrible things to you with a dead chicken, or anything else they might happen to have handy.

The other rule to keep in mind is that if you happen to see me in a pub, you should buy me a drink. This applies even if I am not in your group of people. 

The other way of shouting drinks is to shout the whole bar a drink. This is generally only done by those who are (a) celebrating obtaining a huge amount of money, (b) are too drunk or stupid to know better, or (c) are in an empty bar.

Sanitarium (Australian Marmite manufacturer)

My research didn't go as far as actually buying a jar (what, are you crazy? That's just poor Poms' Vegemite!) or noting the price, but it was definitely there. While undeniably, my local supermarket is not in Sydney, this should tell you that at the very least, some supermarkets carry it.

Coles Online also have it in stock (250 gram jar for $2.46 - though I'd love to know how they work that out to be $1.97 per 100 grams). Woolworths HomeShop has it for $2.45.

The catch? My spies tell me it tastes different to British Marmite. D'oh!

So if you're fussy and have to have the original British brand, that may be a bit trickier. You can generally find a range of imported foods at boutique grocery departments of major department stores (David Jones Foodhall for example). It may be worth trying the local version first, to at least try and avoid the premium price the imported ones invariably attract.

On my first trip to Australia we went to Hungry Jacks for an Australian Burger. I have told many people about this odd combination of burger, fried egg, bacon (ham) and beetroot and, despite their skeptcism, would like to show them how delicious it actually was. Am I forgetting any key ingredients? - Jennifer, Illinois, USA

Hungry Jacks

Of course I feel obligated to point out that a Hungry Jacks (Burger King) burger, while light years ahead of the McDonalds variety, is not in the same league as the "real" burgers obtained from your average suburban fish and chips shop.

What's the fat content of a Cadbury Cherry Ripe? It appears to be a national secret. I eat them thinking they are better than other chockies, but if not I'm going straight for the ones without fruit! - Anonymous, location unknown

Cadbury Australia

Now let's get this straight: It's a chocolate bar. Chocolate bars are not known for their low fat content. Not even the ones with fruit in them I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong, I love Cadbury. I have half a dozen different bars in my fridge. But they're not a diet food.

The new one I love is Viking, the one with guarana in it, which unlike the similarly named guano, is a natural source of caffeine. I don't drink coffee, so I have to look for alternative sources of caffeine sometimes. I love the way they've hidden the small print under the flap of the wrapper. It reads in part: this product is not recommended for children under 15 years, diabetics, pregnant women, nursing mothers of persons sensitive to caffeine... Recommended daily dose (dose!) of up to 3 bars per day.

And I tell you what, the taste may be nothing remarkable, but it certainly gives the system a bit of a kick. Ideal for that mid afternoon lull, when sleep seems as easy as work.

As for answering your question, well I'm afraid that of all the various Cadbury bars in my fridge, a Cherry Ripe isn't among them. However, the Cadbury web site has some nutrition information, and it seems to indicate that in 100 grams of dark chocolate, there's 31 grams of fat, and 2100 kilojoules.

Even accounting for the fact that a standard Cherry Ripe bar is closer to 55 grams, and maybe half of it is actual chocolate, there's still probably a fair whack of fat in it. And if you want to know exactly? Well it turns out that most Cadbury bars in Australia don't have all the information on the packet. You may just have ask them yourself.

Boiled peanuts recipe

Peanuts are available at just about every supermarket in the country. I'm not sure about boiled peanuts; you might have to do this yourself.

Australian Beer web site

Australian Electoral Commission

So for you Australians reading: if the Electoral Commission people object to you being drunk when you turn up to vote, just tell them it's your right as an Australian citizen.

Maccas Australia 

As ghastly as it may sound, yes, I'm afraid there now is a McDonald's on top of Uluru. (Click on picture for enlargement).

You can even get a McOz - the (probably unique) Australian burger with beetroot on it. Also available are the McRooBurger and the McWitchety-Grub.

Nestle gets naughty

But the term is also slang for gibberish, as in spoken, written, or posted onto a web site like this one. Presumably the origin is the word "waffle".

Nestle Violet Crumble

Cadbury Crunchie

Baby Food Action Group

Baby Milk Action.org

Nestle, of course, claim in that "we're a huge multinational but we're really nice, no really, honestly" way of theirs that it never happened. Numerous groups appear to disagree with them.

Fortunately, there is another chocolate and honeycomb product that is just as delicious: Cadbury's Crunchie. And yes, both are very popular in Australia - unlike Foster's Lager.

Skippy Peanut Butter

Dick Smith Peanut Butter

Rest assured, Skippy Peanut Butter is on the supermarket shelves here; I saw it the other day. I notice it's a division of Best Foods. Harumph. Does that mean it's as Australian as that Aussie Mega Shampoo stuff?

Queensland peanuts are certainly used in some brands of peanut butter, for instance Kraft, who have felt the need to place a whacking great label on the lid proclaiming this. But if you really want Australian made and Australian owned peanut butter, look for Dick Smith's.

This article has been updated, with video - see
www.toxiccustard.com/australia/tim-tam-slam/

Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service

In general, you should be fine sending most processed food, though some restrictions apply - the Quarantine Service has details.

But I can't help feeling that you would get much better value for money by just sending him money. Even if you just send a personal cheque (which should cost around $5 to cash at his end) you'd be saving a heap on postage and packing. On the other hand, it would lack the personal touch.

Arnott's

Cadbury Australia

Nestle Australia

Aussie Catalog (US)

Australian Products Company

It's very public spirited of you to re-unite some poor Aussies lost in America with treats from home. Either that or you like to see them grovel.

The most securely guarded part of my home. The place where no visitor is permitted to go: My choccy stash.

Some suggestions in the lolly, sweet or biscuit department for things you could take back are:

• Arnott's Tim Tams - got to be number one on the list, it's quite definitely the food of the Gods. Not just a chocolate, not just a biscuit, but a drink straw as well if you know how to use it! They have various varieties, but the original is still the best. 
• Cadbury Crunchie and/or Nestle Violet Crumble - both more or less the same, though some would prefer the latter. Honeycomb and chocolate, you can't beat it.
• Allen's Jaffas. Round, chocolate and orange. And small enough to share with your friends, if you're not too greedy. What more could you ask for?
• I know I'd miss Big M flavoured milk, but unfortunately you probably won't get it back Stateside still in a drinkable condition (there is a UHT version, but it's pretty revolting). Great flavours including chocolate, strawberry, banana, iced-coffee, and various others from time to time including jaffa, honeycomb. Cue "When The River Runs Dry"...
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate - try this and you'd never want to go back to Hersheys
• Musk flavoured Life Savers - you might get a mixed reaction on these... people either love them or hate them.

Reader suggestions have included:

• Cadbury's Cherry Ripe (also known by people in Melbourne as "Richmond Station") - a mix of cherries, coconut and dark chocolate. Rumoured to be used as a form of currency among some expatriate Australians
• Peppermint Crisp
• Aero (spearmint or chocolate) - it's the bubbles of nothing that make it really something...
• Milo and/or Milo bar
• Iced vo-vo's - the classic Aussie biscuit - who could beat that pink icing with coconut and jam?
• Fruit tingles
• Samboy chips - salt'n'vinegar, barbecue, chicken, cheese and onion flavours etc
• Caramello Koala - your only chance to bite the head off a koala
• Schweppes Lemonade - some would say the best tasting lemonade around
• Nutella - may not be Australian but you've gotta love it. On sandwiches or just eating it straight out of the jar with a spoon, it's so versatile!
• Alpen Blend drinking chocolate - possibly the most divine rich chocolate drink around
• Twisties - chicken or cheese flavoured. Delicious but messy on the hands, and thoroughly unhealthy
• Fantales - read the trivia while you eat it
• Nestle Pollywaffle or a Cadbury Picnic - a whole mishmash of tastes and textures in one chocolate bar
• Chocolate Royals
• Allen's Minties
• Bullets - chocolate and liquorice - what a combination!
• Burger Rings
• Arnott's Mint Slice
• Liquorice from Darrell Lea's (or anything else from Darrell Lea's come to think of it)
• Allen's Kool Mints
• Cheezels - a cheesy flavoured round snack
• Clinkers
• Shapes - flavoured snack biscuits - BBQ or Pizza flavour
• and of course, who could forget Wagon Wheels. In France, they eat snails, because they don't have Wagon Wheels... Honest truth: My ex-wife once missed a train just so she could get Wagon Wheels from the vending machine at Newport Station.

Some of the above are available outside Australia: at some Sainsbury's and Tesco supermarkets in the UK, at the Australia Shop in London, and from Aussie Catalog in the US.

Arnotts

Aussies and Kiwis in Cambridge FAQ

Aussie Catalog (US)

Why a Tim Tam is better than a man

To be quite honest, life without Tim Tams just doesn't bear thinking about. Okay, so maybe you don't want to eat them every day, but it's important to know that you can run down to the shops and get them when you want them.

The Aussies And Kiwis In Cambridge FAQ says that McVities Penguin Biscuits are a poor substitute for Tim Tams, but they might be worth a try, if only to prove to yourself how superior genuine Tim Tams are.

Increasingly in Australia, you can find imported foods from all over the planet in the bigger department stores and specialist shops. Perhaps your best bet is to look around for shops like this in your area. Or plead with your mum to send you some!

(Can anyone in the UK give Sarah any help on this? If so, please let me know.)

• Frank Randall reports that Tim Tams are available at Tesco Supermarket in Colney Hatch Lane, North London
• Rebecca Brockett reports that you "can buy all the items listed, and more, at the Blue Bird supermarket at the bottom of the Kings Rd in Chelsea"
• Tracey reports "Tim Tams in the UK! Many of the Sainsbury's supermarkets sell them but unfortunately not the double dipped ones. The Australia Shop in Covent Garden (Henrietta Street) sells Tim Tams (all varieties), violet crumbles, twisties, BBQ shapes etc. Prepare to gorge!"
• Allison Bean reports that many Australian beers are available in London at Beershop, 14B Pitfield Street, London N1. "Besides the cliche Aussie brands, Carlton Cold, VB, Fosters and XXXX you can buy Coopers Pale Ale and Coopers Sparkling Ale (the best South Aussie beer)"
• Those of you in North America might try http://www.aussiecatalog.com/ 

Melbourne Water

Note that drinking water in other cities is of varying quality. The water in Adelaide in particular has a reputation for being pretty dire. Somehow I doubt that gets bottled and sold elsewhere.

Several popular brands of baby formula are available in supermarkets here, though I can't really give you any more details at present because (a) my kids were both breastfed, and (b) I freely admit that I've done absolutely no research into this question. All I remember is seeing the big tins on the shelf when I was looking for nappies and wipes and the like.

Outback Steakhouse

Salt, yes, vinegar, yes, pepper - no.

Heck, we don't even call them fries, except at McDonalds and Hungry Jacks (the local version of Burger King). Everywhere else they're chips.

A more traditional damper recipe

A version with beer

The following damper recipe breaks away a little from the traditional version, which was pretty much confined to being flour, water and salt. But what you lose in the tradition, you gain on the taste.

3 cups self-raising flour
1-2 teaspoons of salt
90 grams (3.2 oz) of butter, melted
half a cup of water
half a cup of milk
more milk, for glazing
more flour, for dusting
extra butter for serving
golden syrup (or honey if you prefer)

Rev up the oven to 210°C (for you imperial people that's 410°F). Brush an oven tray with melted butter or oil (cooking oil that is, not Castrol GTX). Sift flour and salt into a large mixing bowl, and make a well in the middle. If you've got time, pause for a quick singalong of "Jack And Jill".

Stir up the butter, water and milk, and add to the flour. Stir it with a knife until just combined.

Throw it out of the bowl onto a floured surface and knead it for 20 seconds (that's 20.5 seconds imperial) or until it's smooth. Then plonk it into a tray and use your sculpture skills to make into a round shape about 20 centimetres (about 7.874 inches, stop me if I'm getting too precise) across.

Using a sharp pointed knife (Stanley knife not recommended) score it into 8 sections (8), about 1 centimetre deep (0.39 inches). Brush it with milk and dust it with flour, then throw it in the oven for 10 minutes.

Reduce the heat to 180°C (356°F) and continue to bake for about 15 minutes or until it's golden and sounds hollow when tapped. Serve with loads of butter and/or syrup and/or honey. Even cream and jam is nice too.

Outback Steakhouse

XXXX (Lion Nathan)

Coors (not much there)

I certainly remember seeing it at the Outback Steakhouse in Phoenix, Arizona in 1996. But they don't appear to list XXXX on the list of prestigious beers served on their web site (I don't mean they serve beers on their web site, I mean the list is on their web site).

If you asked the server (and when I read this at first, I thought you meant web server, not waiter/waitress) for a XXXX, and they thought you meant condoms, I'm surprised they didn't slap you and get you kicked out!

A little digging has found that a Coors USA subsidiary by the name of Unibev, based in Colorado brews, or at least, used to brew XXXX under licence. It may also go under the name Castlemaine XXXX Export Lager. I'd try asking around your local bottle shops (or whatever they're called in your area), or call Coors if you don't have any luck.

Otherwise, start saving for a plane ticket!

But to answer all of the parts (however many there might be): Yes, wine is very popular, and Australian vineyards in South Australia and Victoria do a roaring trade in the grape-squishing industry, and as well as keeping the locals' thirst quenched, export wine to many parts of the world.

As far as coffee goes, I'm not a fan myself, but (at least in Melbourne) all kinds of variations on the coffee theme are extremely popular. In virtually any town or suburb you can find a semi-decent cup of coffee, and if you look around a bit you'll certainly find quite a few places where you can obtain a truly superb coffee, done just about any way you'd care to mention, with the possible exception of coffee fried on toast with slices of elephant.

Safeway/Woolworths: Meat recipes

The recipe for a Sausage Sizzle is so simple even I could manage it, and the result - a "sausage" - is surprisingly delicious. Here's what you do:

1. Get a packet of sausages, and a loaf of bread. (White seems to taste better). You'll also need a bottle of tomato sauce or ketchup. Optional are mustard and onions.
2. Barbecue the sausages. Or grill them. Or fry them. Or whatever you do with them. Just cook them. Make sure they're well done, so you can see some BLACK! Also slice and cook the onions.
3. Fold each piece of bread diagonally, and place a sausage in each. Cover in sauce, mustard, onions, whatever you want!
4. Eat it. Or charge other people a dollar to eat it. Easy.

VicRoads

But drinking and driving is definitely not on. Carefully performed scientific studies over the last few decades have determined that it's a bloody stupid thing to do. If you want to get sloshed, you just need to make sure you're either (a) at home, (b) somewhere other than home where you can collapse and sober up afterwards or (c) you can get to either (a) or (b) without driving a motor vehicle.

I'll describe the drink/driving laws in Victoria, but the other states are pretty similar. The maximum legal BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) for most drivers is 0.05. The limit for P-plate drivers, of which I am one, is zero. P-plates apply for the first three years that you hold a driver's licence. P stands for Probationary, not for Porsche, Probably going to crash, or Police should pull me over.

As for the punishment for drink driving, if you get caught, you are in very deep shit. It starts off with everybody being able to legally call you "a bloody idiot". Your driving licence will be suspended for at least 6 months, or cancelled immediately. You can also be jailed or fined up to $1200.

I also believe that if you're over 0.15, they're allowed to shoot you on the spot. Or was that for rabies?

For thousands of years the Aborigines have managed to survive in Australia by eating native animals, including grubs and other such beasties that most whites would balk at eating. The most famous example of this were the explorers Burke and Wills, who set off to cross Australia last century and perished in the desert somewhere, after rejecting help from the local Aborigines, apparently because that help, although healthy, nutritious and life-saving, consisted of grubs.

Nowadays, it's unlikely that you'd have to eat such things if you didn't want to. You can go to McDonalds instead.

I don't know why Toohey's hasn't made it over there, but if you visit your local Outback Steakhouse, they do have a few other Australian beers (XXXX springs to mind). Just don't believe that any of the food is Australian, and try not to snigger too loudly if the waitress says "G'day mate" in an American accent.

Perhaps someone should organise to export Aussie beer to the Americans so they can discover how piss-weak their local brews are! (Chilli beer excepted)

• because it´s so damn hot all day long
• australian beer consists mainly of water (like american beer)
• penal colony syndrome

- flecki, Austria

I've heard it on good authority from people who have tried both American and Australian beer that most American beer is pretty weak stuff in comparison.

I'll have to look up "penal colony syndrome" in my medical encyclopedia when I get the time. And when I get a medical encyclopedia.

Actually the real reason there's so many beer-related questions here is that so many people keep asking them! We're almost at the stage where we need a separate section for beer.

The biscuit jar is an office tradition. The company pays for the biscuit jar, and occasionally for the jar to be filled with biscuits. The biscuits come in two varieties - horrible ones which nobody likes, which means the jar stays full, or really nice ones that everybody likes which means the jar empties fast and someone in management decides in future to get horrible biscuits instead to save money.

No, we don’t have Dunkin’ Doughnuts here. We do have some doughnut shops around the place, but not in the plague-like proportions I have observed in the United States. The cops eat a lot of McDonalds instead, where they get everything for half-price.

Well, a metric to imperial converter would be handy...

I could whinge on about the vagaries of a measuring system that's based around such arcane things as the length of somebody's foot and includes such measurements as rods, perches and furlongs and ask when you guys are going to catch up with the rest of the world and go metric, but that wouldn't be answering the question at hand, would it?

So to answer the question... First so it makes sense, I need to convert it to metric so I know how huge the cans you're talking about are. Okay, so there are 4 fl oz in a gill, 4 gills in a pint, and 2 pints in a quart. And 1 litre is 1.057 quarts. So your 25.5 oz cans are about 750mls.

So can we buy Foster's in 6 packs of 750ml cans? No. Those ones only come individually. Because that's the small size of can. They're like those miniature bottles of wine you buy - nobody buys them for serious drinking, except maybe to put in the kids' lunchboxes. Your standard Australian can of beer is 10 litres. Honest. Really.

• Potato Chips. Generally referred to as "a packet of chips", or by their brand name, "Samboys", etc. as in the phrase "I can't be bothered getting some proper lunch, I'll just have a packet of chips". Smiths are the only ones to seriously refer to them as "crisps", and it's probably a trademark and/or heritage thing.
• Hot Chips. Also often referred to as "a bucket of chips" as in the phrase "hamburger and a bucket of chips thanks". Can usually be abbreviated to just "chips" when ordering because no shop in their right minds puts potato chips behind the counter so you'd have to ask for them.
  In a Fish And Chips Shop situation, these are often ordered as "minimum chips" when the amount of chips is determined by how much you want to pay and the minimum (say $1.50) is marked on the price board.
  Once I asked for $1.50 of chips and the man in the shop, obviously still trying to work out how to use the cash register, entered too many zeroes. He couldn't work out how to clear them off, and ended up putting a sale through for $15,000 worth of chips.
• French Fries. Really just like Hot Chips but cut thinner. Even in places that sell what would technically be French Fries, you'd normally refer to them as chips, except in McDonald's and Hungry Jacks (aka Burger King), where it's just "fries". The only people that use the full name "French Fries" are the same people that order a "Filet'O'Fish" and pronounce it "fill-ay of fish".

And yes, Australia does have flavoured potato chips. You can generally find all the usual flavours like chicken, salt and vinegar, barbecue, cheese and onion, beer and witchetty grub, etc.

Electronic spam, the spread of unsolicited junk email, is by far the more annoying type of spam. I find it really irritating that I get continual offers of goods and services I'm not interested in, quoted in prices in other currencies and with phone numbers that I can't phone. (It is very difficult to dial a United States 1-800 number from outside the United States.)

Most email spam mailing lists come from robots picking up addresses off Usenet news postings, and I've seen a clever method for combating it involving adding some random characters to your email address when you post, and explaining to all the humans reading that if they want to email you, the real address is xxx...

The edible (at least, in theory) type of Spam is reasonably plentiful in Australia. You can always see it on the supermarket shelves, and presumably that's not because nobody buys it. They also advertise - this morning I saw an ad extolling the virtues of a Spamburger. I haven't yet decided whether this would be a good thing or not.

I've had Spam from time to time, and perhaps surprisingly I actually almost like it. Fried Spam with mashed potato... very nice.

I hasten to add, however, that anybody who attempts or suggests that Spam can be eaten raw is plainly either insane, criminal, crazy, or both. Raw Spam would have to be one of the most revolting things imaginable. It looks like dog food, and I rather suspect it tastes like it too.

Nowadays, Vegemite is used as a test to see how much visiting tourists will stand in their quest to immerse themselves in the local culture. If a tourist can get through a slice of toast with the Vegemite caked on top, all the Australians in the room will applaud and give that person all their money. Of course, this has never actually happened.

Australians do eat Vegemite. And although the tourism promotion people will be after me for this, I will reveal the secret of proper Vegemite consumption: we eat it in very, very, very, very, very small doses. The gram ratio of Vegemite to other food being consumed should be in the order of one to several billion. It should be barely noticeable. When consumed properly, one jar of Vegemite can last several generations.

I generally prefer a Coldie (Carlton Cold), Toohey's Blue, XXXX, even a VB in an emergency. Anything but a Foster's, please. But each to his own. My wife prefers the fine flavour of Invalid Stout.