Customer Reviews

The Food of Australia (Periplus World Cookbooks)

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I would highly recommend this book to anybody who likes original and imaginative food. The recipes come from Australia's leading chefs many of whom are world famous. Cheong Liew (his recipes in the book include Four Dances of the Sea; and Veal Cutlets with Shrimps and Green Tea)is perhaps best known for inventing much of Australia's fusion cuisine. His restaurant, The Grange at the Adelaide Hilton certainly bears his name as much as the restaurant name itself. Just reading the recipes in itself is a temptation to visit Adelaide and make a booking at The Grange.

Easy to follow instructions and wonderful color photographs of the dishes certainly make this one of the better cookbooks. For the adventurous cook, try substituting ingredients, if it is not available in your hometown.

If you are intrigued by the name of the dish, Four Dances of the Sea, I'd recommend taking a look at the book.

Leading chefs of australia lend their recipes to this book, and it shows. Many are complex and none of this would be on your average aussie menu, not even at good restaurants would you find the sort of haute cuisine shown in this book.

The recipes in this book are hard to replicate for the normal home cook, things like duck egg pasta, a multitude of dishes with lobster and yabbies (I have never seen these available anywhere but in the outback), buffalo, urchins and pheasant? are requied for many of the recipes. Even the techniques are ridiculous, there are 4 recipes for filled pasta, terrines, a recipe requiring 6 individual shepards pies (as a side!) and the four dances which will take you hours.

The redeeming features are the deserts, some beautifully simple and tasty treats like pavlova, cheesecake, pumpkin scones and pan boiled quinces. All of these turn out wonderfully but are not enough to save this book.

Overall though, this book is just not practical and is nothing like the other books of 'the food of' books, it stands alone as more of a showcase to Australian fusion and leading chefs of the country. I recommend both versions of Australia the beautiful cookbook, one shows more simple fusion and the other is very traditional with things like lamingtons, damper, lamb stews and roasts.