The bandicoot bandits causing a truffle kerfuffle
The native marsupials are sniffing out and gorging themselves on thousands of dollars of black, or French, truffles a night, causing a headache for farmers in the emerging Australian truffle industry. The omnivorous foraging creatures normally move quickly around the landscape nibbling insects and a range of native mushrooms and truffles. But the unlikely gourmands have taken a particular liking to black truffles of the French variety, large underground edible fungi that sell for $2500 to $3000 a kilogram.
Modern recipes with a traditional twist: Dianella Secondary College’s bush tucker workshops full of friendships and culture
Class is in session for a group of Indigenous students at Dianella Secondary College in Perth’s north, but they’re swapping out schoolbooks for kitchen utensils. These students are taking part in the unique Dookerniny Garbala cooking class, learning how to harness traditional ingredients and bush tucker to make meals with a twist. Twelve-year-old Savannah Hughes-D’Aeth was one of more than a dozen children taking part and said her favourite aspects were making new friends and discovering new recipes.
In Sydney’s Little India, Raj has to close his food cart by 7pm – or face council’s wrath
At his Chill ‘N’ Grill restaurant in Harris Park’s Little India precinct, just south of Parramatta, Raj Sagwal has a problem. Like other businesses on Wigram Street, the Indian-Australian has catered to the area’s growing number of night-time visitors seeking a takeaway meal by serving cheap panipuri and steamed momos from a mobile food van in the small garden at the front of his restaurant. But after the City of Parramatta began cracking down on vendors in the area who operated past 7pm – contravening zoning rules – Sagwal has decided his only option is to shut up the cart.
White rice with side dishes isn’t really ‘traditional’ Japanese food. So where did we get this idea?
At first glance, Netflix’s popular Japanese animation Delicious in Dungeon is a strangely food-obsessed dungeon-crawler fantasy tale. Upon a closer look, however, it reveals itself as a striking parody of the popular “gourmet genre”. The series invites us to think critically about how food traditions are created and conformed to. It also reminds us that food is highly political and that the “culinary nationalism” we see around the world – and particularly in Japan – is more complicated than most people realise.
Australia’s health star rating system exploited by companies making ultra-processed foods, experts say
The food industry in Australia is allowed to use labelling and marketing tactics to distract from the harmful ingredients in ultra-processed foods due its outsize political power, health experts say. As state, territory and federal health and food ministers meet on Thursday, experts are concerned the current voluntary food labelling regimes are failing to meet international standards for warning consumers against industrial techniques used in food processing.
Migrant workers have long been too scared to report employer misconduct. A new visa could change this
Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a two-year pilot of innovative visa reforms that could bring these workers out of the shadows. A new short-term “workplace justice visa” will allow migrant workers to stay and work in Australia for six months while they pursue a labour claim.
Radical new approach to treating food allergies rolled out across Australia
Australia has become the first country in the world to implement a national program to treat babies with peanut allergies by giving them a daily dose of peanut powder in the hope of overcoming the potentially life-threatening condition. The new treatment, which will be offered for free to children under 12 months old through 10 public paediatric hospitals in Victoria, NSW, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia, will involve eligible babies eating carefully planned doses of the powder at home to build up a tolerance to the allergen.
