Aussie Food and Drink Trivia Quiz

Answer: Repulsion

We have a weird sense of humour in this country. Many of us take a fiendish delight in offering overseas visitors a slice of toast and Vegemite, with the Vegemite spread far more thickly than would normally be the case. This results in the victims tearing to the sink and gulping down several glasses of water as quickly as possible as they try to remove the assault on their taste buds.

It should never be introduced to anyone spread like a layer of cement in this way, but with just a light smear over hot buttered toast.

The taste really is pleasant, savoury and moreish. It's been around in our land since 1922, and the humble little Vegemite sandwich was quite often the only food left to feed hungry children during the depression years. Perhaps that's why it holds such a special place in our hearts and on our tables. That, and its value as a great leg-pull for visitors. Cheesybite is the newest addition to the Vegemite family.

It has a far milder flavour, quite pleasant, but when you're used to the real thing, it's just a bit bland for some of us.

Answer: Bush Tucker

Hunting for big game such as kangaroo, wallaby, or emu was done by the men in hunting parties. They were exceptionally skilled at tracking and reading all the signs in the bush as to which animals were present and where they were. However, like all hunting parties, a catch wasn't bought home every day, and so it was left up to the women to keep the tribe fed on a regular basis.

This they did by gathering bush berries, fruits, nuts, yams, bogong moths, witchetty grubs in some areas, small animals trapped up trees such as possums, and many other food sources.

It was a drought stricken Garden of Eden really. Bush tucker, alas, is a dying art in this country, and unless it is taught regularly at schools, or in field excursions, most of us today would starve to death if lost in the bush. Yet, the indigenous Australians survived happily and comfortably on it for over 50,000 years.

Answer: Pavlova

Oh yum, my very favourite dessert. I do believe I'd kill for some right now. Hang the diet. The pavlova is somewhat of a bone of contention between Australia and New Zealand with both countries claiming ownership. That's never going to be sorted out to anyone's satisfaction, so, as we're both part of the great ANZAC tradition, we don't mind sharing.

It was created and named after the great Russian ballet dancer, Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), during one of her tours to both our countries early in the 20th century.

The beaten meringue is cooked in an oven until a light outer crust has been formed surrounding a sweet softer inner part of the dessert. It is then decorated with cream and any fruit that takes your fancy. These could include, for example, bananas, strawberries, peaches or kiwi fruit. Yes, they can claim that last one, as long as the Chinese don't object. Kiwi fruit came from there originally. All horribly fattening of course when added to the cream and pavlova base, but pooh-pooh to all that.

Answer: Melbourne

This beer was first produced some time in the early 1900s in Melbourne, which is the capital city of the state of Victoria. It wasn't until the 1960s, however, thanks to an intensive advertising campaign, that it began to make its mark on the rest of Australia.

It comes in cans, or 250ml, 375ml and 750ml size bottles. Australians have a strange habit of giving just about everything they're fond of the odd nickname or two, and this beer is no exception. The cans are known as tinnies or lunch greens.

The 250ml bottles are called twisties or grenades. The next size up, the 375ml bottle is known as a stubbie. Finally, the larger sized bottles are known as long necks, king browns or tallies. There'd be some obscure logic behind all these names, but who knows what that would be. We do have a very poisonous snake known as a king brown, so that could be one connection.

The rest is anyone's guess. If you asked drinkers in ten different pubs, you'd get a thousand different yarns about those origins.

Answer: Kangaroo

Not only that, it is said to help in reducing overweight and arterosclerosis as well. Indigenous Australians of course ate the animal for thousands of years, but peculiarly so, government legislation said it couldn't be eaten by the rest of us until the 1980s.

Not that I'd eat it under any circumstances anyhow. I don't look my best jumping round a restaurant. The benefits of slaughtering one of our national symbols are that because kangaroos are native to the country, they don't wreck the soil and grassland as cattle and sheep do, they can survive in all our temperamental weather conditions, and they look after themselves. You do need to tie them down on the plate however when eating them.

Otherwise you end up chasing them all over the eating establishment with your knife and fork. Am I pulling your leg? Would an Australian do that?

Answer: Billy can or billy

This was usually just an old makeshift tin in which salt cured beef, known as bully beef, had once been stored. Once emptied, with a hole bored on either side, linked by a handle of a bit of wire, it proved ideal for boiling water on a campfire. A few tea leaves and maybe a gum tree leaf tossed for some extra flavour, and a cup of tea, perhaps enhanced with some powdered milk and sugar if the funds stretched that far, was the result.

The poor old fellows, if they couldn't find shelter under a bridge somewhere, or in some sympathetic farmer's hayshed, spent most of their lives, sleeping out alone under the stars, with nothing to keep them warm but an old army blanket and army coat if lucky.

It was a dreadful existence and nothing like the idyllic lifestyle that romantics like to portray.

These poor old swaggies or swagmen - so named because they carried their swag of pitiful worldly goods slung over one shoulder - lived alone, travelled alone, slept alone, and ate alone, unable to cope with society and largely forgotten by the government of the country they had served. And many of course died alone, out there on those long dusty bush roads people seldom travelled.

It was heartbreaking.

Answer: Damper

Originally created by travelling workers known as stockmen, who toiled out in the bush for weeks and months at a time, far away from civilisation and the availability of shops, the damper cooked in the coals of a campfire doesn't sound too appetising at all.

It was, and is, in fact, delicious. Today of course we can roll it in alfoil or cook it in home ovens or camp ovens and dish it up any way we like, but to be honest, there's nothing quite like the taste of that freshly cooked damper straight out from underneath of the coals of an old campfire. Just dust the ashes off, open it up, dob in a great big smear of delicious butter and a bit of golden syrup - and you have a feast fit for a king.

This tasty delight, along with the cup of brewed bush tea, was known in Australia as cocky's joy, cocky being a nickname for a farmer or station owner.

Indigenous Australians, long before we came to this beautiful country, also cooked a form of this, made from the flour of ground up bush nuts and berries. If given a choice between a slice of my favourite dessert, the pavlova, or home made freshly cooked damper, I'd go for damper every single time.

Answer: Tim Tams

We don't actually refer to our biscuits as cookies in this country, but that's neither here nor there. Tim Tams are still considered to be delicious by many people in either country. They consist of two wafers of biscuits made with a malt flavour which are then covered in chocolate. Stuck together with a layer of chocolate flavoured cream, this combination is then covered once more with another layer of chocolate.

They're impossibly sweet as far as my Vegemite hardened taste buds go, but most people love them.

The Arnott's company has been around in this country since 1865 when it was set up in Newcastle, a large city just north of Sydney, New South Wales, by a Scottish emigrant to Australia. The company has created an astonishing range of uniquely Australian biscuits since that time. Tim Tams are just one of them. By 2013, these were being sold here of course, but also in New Zealand, New Caledonia, Indonesia, the Arab States, Israel, Canada, France, Japan, Sweden and the United States of America.

Answer: Moreton Bay Bug

The Thenus orientalis is a type of lobster found in various areas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Near Moreton Bay, an area of the Australian state of Queensland, where it is found, it is known commonly as the Moreton Bay Bug. Over the wider ocean regions, however, it is known as the Flathead Lobster, in Australia its official name is the Bay lobster, and just to make it even more confusing, in Singapore it is known as a crayfish. I'm not a seafood eater, but apparently this gruesome looking creature tastes delicious.

Answer: Lamington

To be honest though, we tend to eat this delicious treat with morning or afternoon tea rather than a straight dessert following dinner. There's no particular rules though. If you want to dig into ones of these instead of a pudding of some sort, go for it. The true lamington consists of small squares of sponge cake, dipped thoroughly in chocolate sauce, and then all six sides rolled gently in piles of grated coconut. It's very simple to make - and rather messy - but well worth the effort. It can be topped off with a dob of cream if you wish, or sliced in half with some cream added in between the two pieces, but true lamington purists eat it in the original form in which it was first created way back in the late 19th century in the Australian state of Queensland. Tip: If you're making these yourself, use sponge cake that is a couple of days old. When the cake is too fresh, it tends to crumble up when soaked in the chocolate sauce.

As noted in a newspaper article by James Shrimpton in The New Zealand Herald on 6 October, 2007, Lord Lamington, the governor of Queensland from 1896 until 1901, after whom the lamington is said to be named, actually detested these when they were dished up to him, the ungrateful so and so. He referred to them as "those bloody poofy woolly biscuits".