Great Australian Street Food Trivia Quiz

Answer: Meat Pie

The meat pie is as Australian as the hot dog is American. Ubiquitous in Australia, it is fair to say it is a staple food at football matches (and just about anytime food is required on the fly). Whilst each Australian state has standards about how much meat is required for a pie to be called a meat pie, it does not state what part of the animal the meat must come from.

This air of mystery is intensified by the thick gravy that coats the meat. The ideal pie is one smothered in tomato sauce (not ketchup), the gravy thick enough so it does not spill when bitten into, and the pastry thick enough to be able to maintain the pie shape as it must be able to be eaten with one hand as the other, no doubt, will be wrapped around a can of beer as one cheers for their favourite footy team.

Answer: Fish

Fish with the essential accompaniment, chips (not thin stringy French fries) is Australia's iconic takeaway food. The fish can be of several species with regional variations (South Australia's Mulloway is a personal favourite). The fish will be either battered or crumbed by default (depending on which state you live in) but the other option is usually available on request. Either way it is deep fried. Most fish and chip shops offer grilled fish as an healthier alternative.

The fish will be salted after it is cooked with either table or chicken salt and lemon or vinegar offered as well. Australians also like Tartare (Tartar elsewhere) sauce on their fish.

This is a mayonnaise based sauces with capers and pickles. Popular fish types, Australia-wide, include Barramundi, Snapper, Flake (shark), Whiting and Cod.

Answer: Chico Roll

The Chico Roll is an Australian cultural icon. It is a thick cylindrical tube made of egg and flour pastry filled with a pulped mixture of cabbage and barley with some onion, celery, green beans and beef tallow added. The tube is then deep fried. The Chico Roll was invented in 1951 as an Australian adaptation of a Chop Suey roll.

The inventor, Frank McEncroe, thought these type of rolls were too flimsy to be eaten at the football or cricket, so went about making a larger and more durable product that could be eaten in one hand without utensils.

They were originally called chicken rolls despite not containing any chicken. At their sales peak in the 1960s and 1970s, forty million chico rolls were sold annually. That is 3-4 per person per year.

Answer: Hamburger

Hamburgers in Australia (and New Zealand for that matter), are different to those found anywhere else in the world. Being given a meat patty, on a bread roll, usually toasted, accompanied with grilled onions, tomato sauce (BBQ sauce available on request), is not that different to anywhere else, but usually lettuce and sliced tomato will be added as well as the unique item - sliced beetroot.
You can option up your hamburger by adding bacon, egg, cheese or pineapple. If you add all four, this is called a hamburger with the lot.

Answer: Chips

Chips are deep fried sliced potatoes where the chips are as fat as a finger, not as skinny as the French fries foisted upon us by fast food restaurants of American heritage. The chip should be cooked twice to achieve a crisp golden exterior and a fluffy soft interior. Condiment of choice is a good squirt of tomato sauce but there is also a nod to the Mother Country with some preferring vinegar. European influences are also present as mayonnaise is increasingly used. The chip as we know it, originated in Belgium but with the massive increase in the trawled fish industry in Britain in the 1800s probably cemented the concurrent rise in chips and fish consumption in the UK which in turn, with Australia's wealth of seafood availability, meant chips also became popular in Australia.

It wasn't a Brit, though, that introduced chips into Australia but a Greek, Athanasias Comino, who opened the first "chipperie" in Melbourne in 1879.

Answer: Sausage Roll

The humble sausage roll can be traced back to England around the time of Cromwell where pastry was wrapped around a sausage. Because of our origins as Australians, it became inevitably available here in Australia as one of our first snack foods. We adopted the British tradition of using puff or shortcrust pastry but instead of inserting a sausage into the pastry shell, Australians tend to spoon in sausage mince without casings.

This means that in time the sausage roll has grown from a small half a sausage size to being as large as a meat pie.

The sausage roll is of course accompanied by the ubiquitous tomato sauce. Sausage rolls are unknown in the United States. The closest item that comes close are "pigs in blankets", a smaller, less satisfying result.

Answer: Sausage Sizzle

This is a fairly recent innovation. Fund-raising groups at outdoor events will cook sausages on a grill, place the cooked sausage in a slice of white bread, sometimes add onions plus offer sauces, usually, tomato, BBQ and mustard. It would be difficult to visit a large hardware store on the weekend without passing one of these hastily set up gazebos with essential barbecue grill and folding table used as a servery.

They will also be seen at fetes and will often be at schools and community centres on election day.

Answer: Doner Kebab

In Australia, a Doner Kebab is often called simply a "kebab" although a shish kebab (skewered meat) is also called a "kebab". Of Turkish origin, Doner Kebab means "rotating roast". In Adelaide they are called Yiros which is probably a corruption of the Greek Gyro (pronounced "YEE-ro") which is a similar product but likely to be made from pork with a yogurt based sauce if it follows the authentic recipe. Regardless of whether it is called a (Doner) Kebab, Gyro or Yiro, this Aussie favourite will consist of flatbread (Often called Lebanese bread), sliced grilled meat, onions, tomato and lettuce and a sauce (traditionally, tahini, yogurt or garlic based but can be tomato, BBQ or chili).

Other fillings are added as standard or optional. These include cheese, mushroom, pineapple, tabbouleh and hummus. Falafel is avaiable as a vegetarian option

Answer: Battered Sav

The saveloy is a specialised sausage, based on pork, heavily seasoned and bright red in colour. They are used in hot dogs (usually the sausage is boiled not grilled) in Australia. Americans do not think much of Australian hot dogs as the traditional Frankfurter sausage is rarely used. In fish and chips shops, the sausages are dipped in the same batter as the fish then deep fried.

The propensity for Australians to shorten most names to a single syllable means "Saveloy" becomes "Sav". Savs are thought to have originated in Sydney in the 1920s, though their definitive origins are sketchy. Certainly they precede the American corn dog, the closest American equivalent) which was a product of the 1940s.

In Australia, corn dogs are known as Dagwood dogs or Pluto pups.

They are different from battered savs in that the sausage is coated with a thick pastry, not batter, and in the latter a stick is inserted for easy eating. In South Australia, battered savs are known as dippy dogs. Regardless of naming conventions all products listed here, in Australia at least, are served with liberal quantities of tomato sauce.

Answer: Potato Scallop / Cake / Fritter

Given Australia's remarkable ability to have a lack of regional accents despite its vast size, you get to know where some one is from from the words they use rather than how they say them. In Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT, you say potato scallop.

In Victoria and Tasmania you say potato cake and in South Australia and Western Australia you say potato fritter. Another nod to our English ancestry, these thick round potato slices are dipped in batter and deep fried. Eaten as an "accessory" to fish and chips, they are served with salt and vinegar or tomato sauce. (A rare treat when I was a small boy was if I had a few cents, I would go to the fish and chip shop and buy a single potato scallop as they were the cheapest item on the menu. If the owner's wife was there she would give me two and charge me for one).