Fruit
There are many species of Australian native fruits, such as Quandong (native peach), Wattleseed, Muntries / Munthari berry, Illawarra plums, Riberry, Native Raspberries and Lilli pillies. These usually fall under the category of "bush tucker", (bush foods), which are used more commonly in restaurants and used in commercial preserves and pickles but are not generally well known to Australians due to low availability. Australia also has large fruit growing regions in most states for tropical fruits in the north, stone fruits and temperate fruits in the south which has a mediterranean or temperate climate. The Granny Smith variety of apples first originated in Sydney, Australia in 1868. Another well known Australian apple variety is the Cripps Pink, known locally and internationally as "Pink Lady" apples, which was first cultivated in 1973.
Fruit is widely used in Australian cuisine however is consumed mostly in its fresh, rather than cooked form with the successful "2 fruit and 5 veg" campaign for healthy portions per day. In terms of cooked fruit dishes, fruits are often eaten poached in sugar syrup (often with spices such as vanilla, cloves or citrus peel) and eaten as a breakfast or dessert, which is more common amongst older Australians, or baked in dishes such as apple crumble, pies, pastries and cakes. Fresh fruit is often consumed simply without any adulteration at any time of day, or combined in fruit salad, which is a popular summer dessert nationally.
Popular and commonly available fruits produced in Australia are typically: apples, banana, kiwi fruit, oranges and other citrus, mangoes (seasonally), pears, nectarines, plums, apricots, grapes, melons, pawpaw, papaya, pineapple, passionfruit and berry fruits (such as strawberries, raspberries etc.). Other fruits tend not to be widely cultivated due to the plant requiring climate or soil conditions that are not cost effective or the plant species is not well known to the general market.
As these fruits tend to be available in most supermarkets across the nation (seasonally) with large chain supermarkets often providing free recipe cards and recipes online, there are few areas with a distinctly local manner of preparing, cooking & serving fruit dishes that are not found in other Australian states.
Read more about this topic: Australian Cuisine
Famous quotes containing the word fruit:
“But we still remember ... above all, the cool, free aspect of the wild apple trees, generously proffering their fruit to us, though still green and crude,—the hard, round, glossy fruit, which, if not ripe, still was not poison, but New English too, brought hither, its ancestors, by ours once. These gentler trees imparted a half-civilized and twilight aspect to the otherwise barbarian land.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Let those who go home tell the same story of you:
Of action with a common purpose, action
None the less fruitful if neither you nor we
Know, until the moment after death
What is the fruit of action.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)