Country of origin party

Living away from Australia has made us appreciate the things about our country that make us stand out from a lot of other countries. The biggest thing that we miss and have always taken for granted is Australian food! We regularly discuss what foods we are currently craving from home, and how we can try and re-create them here in Oxford.

We decided to host a Country of Origin party, to celebrate with our friends all of our cultural foods that we may be missing. The American's brought Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, chilli fries, spinach and artichoke dip and a bucket of KFC (pure genius!!). The Canadians brought Putine (chips with gravy and cheese). The Mexican's brought a coconut flan and a pinata (which was a lot of fun and hard work to destroy!). The New Zealanders brought an onion dip and Lollicake (recipe to be in the MBA cookbook). The South Africans brought a Vuvuzela (a loud monotone horn that the neighbours would have been thrilled with) and Amarulla (to be poured over ice cream served with chocolate fingers). The token Brit brought along Cornish pasties, and the Norweigen brought along whale meat (expired I might add, we did not consume this), Arctic crowberry drink and Linnie Aquavit. The story behind this particular poison is that the bottle is put on a ship which sails from Norway to Australia. During the voyage the aquavit is exposed to shifting temperatures, humidity and the constant rolling of waves. It is this process that plays a significant role in the maturation of the Linnie. Our particular bottle took over 4 months to make the voyage to Australia and back. And my word did each month contribute to the burn at back of your throat!.

When deciding which Australian treats to produce, I came up with a fairly stereotypical list, but all of which we dearly miss and wanted to share! Some were a massive hit (the mini pavlova's) whilst others stood the test of time as being very much an aquired taste (Cheesymite scrolls). I didn't manage to photograph everything before it went out, but here are a few of the things I managed to make from scratch for the party.

 Homemade meat pies, made with the very best steak that I could find. I didn't have any red wine in the house, so happily substituted in some Brasenose College port that we had on hand.    

I experimented with these cheesymite scrolls, based on my previous recipe for cinnamon buns, but putting less sugar in the dough, and adding vegemite and cheese as the filling. We loved them, as did the other Aussies and Kiwi's, but I'm afraid we were unable to convince the rest!! Bakers delight, look out!!

I also made some humble ANZAC biscuits, milo shots, tiny pavlova's with berry cream, itty bitty frittys (crustless mini quiches basically) and had a sausage sizzle on standby ready to go! 

It was a really fun night drinking Fosters, Bud and Norwegian rocket fuel and sharing all of our favourite things from home! Thanks to all of our amazing friends for going to so much effort, we had a blast!