“The question that I’ve been asked hundreds of times is: what is our national cuisine? All along, the answer was simple and right there in front of us, tugging at our hearts, unacknowledged, wilfully ignored. Although I shouldn’t have to, I’ll say it here for the record: Australian food is the food of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. From saltwater people to freshwater people to the islands of Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait), across the hundreds of nations and language groups, it is the ancient living cooking of this country. It is the real Australian cuisine; it is vibrant, vital, distinctive, ingenious, and as regional as romanticised Italy. It is unimaginably more interconnected and sustainable than any other cooking on our planet. It is our guide to the future.”

Ben Shewry, Uses for Obsession (2024), p 251