Olympic visitors to Sydney will be faced with a dazzling variety of cuisines and restaurants in the glorious harbour city - some of which they might even be able to afford. The hedonism which has made Australia such an attractive place in the past 50 years is expressed clearly in the love of adventurous and varied food and wines.
"Asian fusion" is one of the buzz-terms the so-called experts are so fond of right now, describing the merging of traditional European and Anglo-Celtic recipes with the geographically nearer cooking of Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. But even that is only one aspect of the rich array of fare available to Australians every day. Top international journalist Philip Knightley makes the point well in his new book about Australia, Biography of a Nation.
Describing a woman shopping for a dinner party at a Sydney butcher shop, he lists the choices she has in addition to the traditional chops and roasts, in the poultry section alone: "Thai chicken cutlets, satay chicken kebabs, barbecue chicken, marinated chicken wings, tandoori chicken cutlets, chicken schnitzel, garlic chicken steaks, chicken pastry wheels, sundried tomato chicken breast . . . " and on it goes, before diversifying into lamb coconut curry, steak diane, and a dozen other prepared cuts. Choice is the key word in Australian cuisine. There is such a variety of everything, whether it be muffins or mussels. What is particularly amazing about this cornucopia is how rapidly it has developed. Twentyfive years - 35 at the most - has seen the steak and potatoes of common consumption joined by a myriad dishes from which the traditional Aussie "battler" would have run a mile.
Just consider this tale of two meals: the first takes place in a country town, end of 1980. Not quite Deliverance territory, but not far off. A dog scratches itself in an otherwise empty main street. The only lights showing come from a solitary hotel. Inside, in the spartan dining room, two diners are looking at a menu impressive in its brevity. Eventually, they ask for ham salads. "With the lot?" asks the waiter. The lot will include onion and beetroot. "No beetroot for me," says one of the diners firmly. "I hate the stuff. Definitely no beetroot for me."
Ten minutes later, in come the salads. Each plate contains a couple of large thin slices of ham, some plain Iceberg lettuce, sliced tomato, grated carrot, sliced onion - and, spilling everywhere, lots and lots of beetroot slices, straight from the tin.
Fast-forward two decades, to what is arguably also a country town, but happens to be the country's shiny, purpose-built capital, Canberra. Two couples are dining in the Captain and Yip, an oh-so-chic restaurant in the old centre of the town, dating back to the 1930s. One of the women (yes, me) gradually falls into a trance of famished bemusement as one of the men (native Australian foodie) and the waiter discuss for what seems to be an hour the provenance of the sea trout, the exact components of the salad dressing, the way the lemongrass has been shredded, and the number of holes in a crumpet - or so it seems. But when the food comes it is absolutely sensational. Whitebait with sea salt and the most subtle and piquant sauce. Monkfish unrecognisable but mouth-watering. Salads with leaves never before seen on earth. The juiciest, happiest steak to grace a plate. And not a beetroot in sight.
This transformation from the plainest of the plain, where the only sauce in town was tomato, had its roots in the multi-layered migration from around the world, as well as a heightened and continuing health-consciousness which underpins the style of food proudly labelled "Modern Australian". This, as served in Sydney restaurants such as Darling Mills in Glebe and Darley's at Lilianfels, relies on fresh produce, local if possible.
(There is also a craze for Bush Tucker restaurants, serving up kangaroo and witchetty grubs, beloved of the indigenous Australians and supposed to taste like chicken - as is everything the world over you wouldn't imagine eating.)
As to the multicultural cuisine, one of the earliest waves, in the early 1960s, was from Italy. The Italians, who had grown up with the sort of goodies now available in restaurants everywhere, must have been horrified to come to a place where butter and salt on the potatoes was considered the height of culinary daring. They started to make tentative inroads with spaghetti and pizza. Next came the Greeks: those big meaty shaslicks and souvlaki were an early winner. Vietnamese and Thai cooks took a little longer to become accepted, but now, along with Spanish, Moroccan, Malaysian, Ethiopian and just about anything else you can think of, they are commonplace to the big-city Australian nosher.
Should any readers be about to embark on the magic ride to the Sydney Olympics, they can salivate in advance on internet sites such as www.lin.com.au, and learn about famous eateries such as the Black Stump Chargrill "famous for there steaks" (but not their spelling). Others with good recommendations include Doyle's of Rose Bay - the Sydney dream restaurant and where I spent this New Year. It is right on the beach. Waves lap in as you sip your chilled white wine and a waiter staggers over with a platter of fresh seafood.
But best of all for seafood is the magnificent fish market in Pyrmont. There are dozens of stalls selling delicious fish and crustaceans, raw and cooked, and the most superb sushi. But get there early, especially during a festival time.
If you are bringing kids or are less adventurous, you might prefer the trendy Blackbird restaurant at Darling Bay. Every- body has been seen here. It is big, roomy and noisy, overlooking the water (as does anything decent in Sydney). There are good pizzas, seared tuna, etc. Darling Harbour, meanwhile, boasts the attractively-named Wockpool where you can sample the aforementioned "Asian fusion".
Food-courts are big all across Australia, and the New South Wales government has asked Sydney's to stay open during the Olympics, past their normal mid-afternoon closing time, to cope with the demand for food in the evenings. The main ones are in the basement of the Queen Victoria Building and in Martin Place.
Balmain and Manly are two famous areas with loads of good eating. Liz Morgan, formerly of The Irish Times and a formidable cook in her own right, introduced me to the line of fantastic restaurants, mostly Asian, in Balmain last (Oz) summer. Sea Treasure in Crow's Nest is recommended as the best yum cha in the city, but you need to book at weekends. Liz also enthuses over Newtown Beach in the eponymous suburb, which she claims is seafood-lover's heaven.
No trip to Australia would be complete without sampling the true national dish, toast and Vegemite. Best eaten at breakfast, this is to Marmite what Bollinger is to Summer Peach Fizz - no comparison, in other words. The connoisseur's spread, the health food of a nation ...
Liz Morgan suggests that, if one is to attempt to eat a meat pie (and possibly one made from an indigenous animal) the place to try is Bill's pie stall in Woolloomooloo which advertises itself thus: "Bill's pies - the best in town. 50 million blowflies can't be wrong." Otherwise, there should be loads of stalls at the main Olympic venue at Homebush which do burgers and sausages (aka snags) made from emu, kangaroo, crocodile, water buffalo, topped with bush tomato relish.
We haven't even talked about the wine . . . Speaking of which, nearly all restaurants are BYO (bring-your-own), so make sure you drop in to the bottle shop on the way there. And don't be scared about the prices; in fact, these are generally more reasonable than comparable Dublin restaurants, allowing for the approximately 2:1 that is conversion to the Aussie dollar.