This year’s Australia Day lamb ad from the folks at Meat and Livestock Australia pushed up a lot of people’s blood pressure.
Some were indignant that it tells us to eat lamb on Australia Day, without mentioning the words “Australia Day”, while others objected to the comparison between newly arrived boat people and the First Fleet settlers who killed many Aboriginal Australians.
First Australians have never welcomed Australia Day on January 26, and the vegans probably don’t like the cheeky dig. Though, I reckon it’s safe to say the Indians, Serbians and gays are ok with it.
Personally, I love it, especially the Haddaway ‘What Is Love’ backing track. But I don’t want to go there, today.
I love food as much (and probably more, judging by the scales) than the next person. The national debate sparked by the lamb floggers has got me thinking: what is Australian food? Do we have a national dish?
For those from India, there’s no shortage of distinctive food from their culture. I’m addicted to dosa at the moment.
Chinese – where do we begin? I’d begin and end with dumplings.
Japanese ramen; Yorkshire pudding comes to mind for the English; and the mere mention of Vietnamese pho and pork rolls instantly make me salivate.
Veteran food critic and author, John Newton, says Vegemite comes closest – and in incredible timing, it’s back in Australian hands after Bega bought it from the Americans.
For him it’s not “the Pavlova, whose provenance is hotly contested… not Peach Melba which, although named after an Australian, is not Australian. None of these justly celebrated desserts/cakes – with the possible exception of the lamington – came from Australian domestic kitchens. And none are associated with one place.”
Other favourites such as damper, lamb, steak and eggs, and pies aren’t uniquely Australian, he laments.
Newton says, just maybe, the Adelaide pie floater – “meat pie island in a pea soup sea” – qualifies. While people have served peas with pies, the “floater” is an original idea fresh from pie carts in Adelaide.
Food and drink are key ingredients of any celebration. So on Australia Day, what should we eat?
And this year, Lunar New Year is just two days after Australia Day. The Year of the Rooster falls on Saturday, January 28. With around one million Australians from Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean backgrounds, and the New Year falling on the weekend, the shindig will be huge.
But there’s no confusion when it comes to what food will be on the party table. If you want good luck, eat these lucky Lunar New Year dishes:
Spring rolls and dumplings: is all about wealth. In addition to being delicious, their shapes resemble ancient Chinese gold ingots.
Fish: for prosperity. As it sounds like “abundance” in Chinese, eat whole fish for wealth all year round.
Noodles: if you want long life, choose dishes with long strands of noodles. Cut them and you risk cutting short your life!
Tangerines and oranges: believed to bring wealth. In Chinese tangerine sounds like “luck”, while orange sounds like “gold”.
Mut (candied fruit): according to the Vietnamese, sweetness brings a sweet life and candied seeds such as lotus bring family happiness through having more children.
Watermelon: Vietnamese believe good luck comes to the household if a watermelon is cut during New Year. The inside is red and the darker the red, the greater the prosperity.
Lettuce: sounds like “growing wealth” in Chinese. That’s why lettuce is always ripped and thrown to the crowd at the conclusion of lion dances.
Whole chicken: including head and feet is symbolic of family reunion, togetherness and happiness. Make sure the chicken is as “whole” as possible, including head and feet.
Don’t ask me if I’ll be celebrating Australia Day or Lunar New Year this year. Why the either, or? I’ll be feasting on both.
In 2028, Lunar New Year falls on January 26. If we haven’t sorted out a national dish by then, it might be dumplings and noodles all round, mate!
Thang Ngo served as a local councillor in Fairfield for nine years (1999-2008). He is managing director of IDENTITY Communications, a multicultural marketing agency that is part of the global IPG Mediabrands network. He also publishes the noodlies food, travel and lifestyle blog.
Originally published by SBS, header image courtesy of SBS.
This article by Thang Ngo was first published on SBS World News.
Major Western companies – from the big banks and supermarket chains, to department stores and luxury cosmetic brands – are splashing out on Lunar New Year campaigns. And the budgets are only going to get bigger.
When Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world’s most powerful media owners, releases a Lunar New Year greeting video, you know this Asian cultural celebration is now a ‘mainstream’ event in the West.
“Last night at Facebook, we hosted our annual Lunar New Year celebrations…we have the honour of hosting famous chefs from China… for everyone at Facebook to experience,” announced a beaming Zuckerberg, together with wife and new baby daughter, via his Facebook page. They also took the opportunity to reveal their daughter’s Chinese name – Chen Mingyu.
Closer to home, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull used the occasion to link the New Lunar Year to his government’s key values of optimism, agility and innovation. In his Chinese New Year greeting message, the Australian PM said: “The Year of the Monkey highlights the value of agility, confidence, inventiveness and leadership”.
For nine years (1999-2008), I served as an elected local government councillor in Fairfield, one of the most diverse in the country – home to the largest Vietnamese community in Australia and also a large number of Chinese migrants. We tried with limited success to put Lunar New Year on the map. While the festival was celebrated with great colour and pride within the local community, it was largely ignored by the rest of Sydney.
Today, there are over 14 Lunar New Year festivals organised by councils and community groups all across Sydney, from Hurstville, Bankstown, and City of Sydney, to Chatswood and The Hills Shire.
What’s changed?
China has now cemented its place as a world economic superpower and consumer. It accounts for around 29 per cent of global sales for Volkswagen and General Motors and around one in five cars sold by Nissan and Hyundai. From a global production perspective, it also produces three in four mobile phones, 87 per cent of personal computers and 52 per cent of colour televisions.
Locally, Mandarin overtook Italian for the first time as the most spoken language (other than English) in Australia, according to the 2011 Australian Census. China already accounts for the highest number of international students studying in Australia with 170,015 enrolments year to date to November 2015.
Annual Chinese tourist numbers exceeded 1 million for the first time in November 2015, an increase of more than 21 per cent. Chinese tourists are the biggest spenders in Australia, dropping $7.7 billion in the 12 months to September 2015, up 43 per cent. Federal Tourism Minister, Richard Colbeck recently floated the idea of translating road signs into Chinese to encourage more tourists to take road trips.
Money Talks
The exponentially growing interest in Lunar New Year reflects the spending power of the Chinese population on all fronts – local migrants, international students and very lucrative tourists.
Both Coles and Woolworths are offering special Lunar New Year product lines. In Cabramatta, Woolworths cater for the local Vietnamese community with pallets of watermelon. A Vietnamese New Year tradition involves slicing a whole watermelon on the first day of the year. If the inside is deep red, it symbolises good luck.
This year, Kit Kat joined in the celebrations, releasing four special Chinese New Year flavours – taro black sesame, red bean toasted coconut, tangerine crème brulee and almond cookie.
David Jones and Lancome have partnered on a Chinese New Year campaign promoted with Chinese language billboards at Sydney’s Central train station.
The Sydney Morning Herald Lunar Markets by the Star is an attempt by these brands to cash in on the festivities. The markets will be serving up a range of Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean and Japanese dishes and drinks to eager punters.
In addition to advertising special retail offers, most of the major banks sponsor Lunar New Year festivals, give out free branded red packets to account holders, and hold lavish banquets for their premium customers.
Both Qantas and Cathay Pacific run special Chinese New Year fare specials. While Westfield has a series of New Year entertainment across their shopping centres worldwide.
All this activity is a boon for the local Chinese media. The front pages of most newspapers have been bought out by advertisers. The home page of Australia’s most popular Chinese language website is plastered with Lunar New Year retail advertising by major brands – Commonwealth Bank, Vodafone, ANZ, Philips and Qantas.
Mainstream publishers are getting into the act, too. Bauer Media has launched Chinese language editions of Australian Gourmet Traveller and Harper’s Bazaar for 2016 Lunar New Year.
While efforts to promote Lunar New Year as a cultural celebration may have had limited success a decade ago, the commercial opportunities are proving devastatingly successful.
My prediction is that Lunar New Year advertising budget will double in 2017, the Year of the Roster. After all, money talks.
Thang Ngo is managing director of IDENTITY Communications, part of IPG Mediabrands. He served nine years (1999-2008) as a councillor in Fairfield, and publishes the food blog, noodlies.com.
