Kindness of Strangers

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I’m not sure who’s going to do the honors, but somebody is going to have to roll me out of Australia when we leave tomorrow. Seriously. I think I’ve gained at least five pounds on our culinary tour through the country…maybe more. Today we were strolling through the St. Kilda suburb of Melbourne, a lovely, seaside borough brought to life by an old-fashioned boardwalk and amusement park, shabby chic cafes, and eastern European pastry shops. Australia is a country who, much like the United States, has been shaped by immigration, and the culinary landscape is evidence of that. St. Kilda was the domain of Russian and Polish emigres in the 1940s, and the residue is cake shops whose windows gleam with golden fruit-studded babkas and fluffy white pavlovas. I selected a boozy rum cake robed in chocolate, an all-time favorite of mine that is rarely executed well, but whose perfection was achieved today. We waddled down the road, dipping into the vintage clothing stores that dot the streets. I found Mecca at Ruby Red Dress, an exceptional shop with a great selection of vintage finds. I squeezed myself into a darling floral-print jumper from the ’80s, sucking my stomach in as I studied myself in profile in the mirror. “It will be fine by the time we get home,” I assured myself. All hope hangs on next week’s four-day, 30 kilometer hike on the Milford Track.

I threw caution to the wind four weeks ago and decided to enjoy myself as I ate my way through Australia. The wineries of Western Australia produced outstanding fare, Adelaide’s Central Market was impressive, and Melbourne’s global cuisine is unrivaled. A trip to the city’s Immigration Museum was a lesson in Australian history; Europeans poured into the country at the first part of the 1900s, opening restaurants, cafes, and bakeries that reflected their cultural heritage. We sipped lattes from Melbourne’s first espresso machine at Pellegrini’s, a cozy, Italian neighborhood restaurant whose simple menu perched above the counter. A slice of traditional almond cake, layered with airy chocolate and delicate plums, was something I couldn’t get a home. We tucked into Borscht, Vodka, and Tears one blustery evening, whose menu touted “modern Polish cuisine.” I never knew there was such a thing as modern Polish cuisine. Page upon page of vodka cocktails (I ordered one the color of blush, mixing grapefruit juice and melon vodka, a perfect balance) gave way to dressed-up classics like pierogi and Polish sausage, which we enjoyed as candles flickered all around us. We indulged on chocolate “tapas” at San Churro and real tapas at Basque, offering bite-sized portions of Spanish classics like spicy strips of chorizo and piping hot patatas bravas. I sighed in disappointment when we learned that the Fitzroy neighborhood’s Babka Bakery Cafe was closed, and laughed when I passed by a restaurant called Gluttony It’s a Sin. If that’s true, then I’m a sinner of the highest degree!

Eating my way through Melbourne was a visceral way to experience Australia’s amazing diversity. The country is proud of its multicultural make-up, but there are looming questions as to how to handle immigration into the future. It’s a vast country, comprised of only 21 million people, but most of that land is in the middle and uninhabitable. The cities that ring the country are, at least by Australian standards, packed, although even this is a point of debate. At the Immigration Museum we learned how policy has shaped the country: at one point, one in two immigrants was English. Now, Asians comprise one of the largest immigrant populations, and the city’s famed Asian cuisine is evident in this trend. It is clear that complex questions are inherent in issues of immigration. (In one particularly fun and interactive exhibit we were asked to “interview” and make decisions on different immigration cases throughout history, based on the current immigration policy of the era. The task of making decisions to accept or reject an applicant was surprisingly difficult, even in a simple museum setting. I can only imagine what it’s like to be faced with the task of ruling on people’s fates in a real-life setting.) But it’s clear that the people who have adopted Australia as their home have added a great deal to many aspects of the country, and certainly to its culinary landscape.