Tannic Teeth

It may just be a taste hangover from the previous rabbit post, but again I’m in the game, for game. And good wine.

Aside from the standard European table-fare of game (rabbit, boar, pheasant, grouse, etc), we decided to have a crack at Kangaroo, Emu and Possum.

Yes, I know eating all of our national coat of arms would probably make the rest of the world recoil in horror, but I must tell you, when paired with good wine, it’s a  combination worthy of the deserved political atrocity.

Kangaroo is now a common meat available at most retail supermarkets, but keep hush-hush about it. I’d like to see it at $13.67 per kg for a long time still.

Emu is less common. With a dark meat, and similar pH, texture and taste to beef, you’d be hard pressed to convince a Beefeater it was a giant bird from Australia.

Last was Possom. Confit(ted), it tasted like duck with a slight ripple of porkyness. The texture was akin to chicken thigh that had a run-in with a forceful kitchen-hand. New Zealand has an issue with possums; they should eat them crumbed with sweet chilli. “Sweet Chilli Possum Wrap at KFP” — Perhaps it’ll take a while for the market to warm.

The wine that we decided to pick-a-part on the night was Forest Hill Vineyard “Boobook” Shiraz Viognier 2007 [Great Southern]

From first inspection it’s easy to tell there is much going on below the surface. Good splatterings of ripe berries and decorous oak which swayed between vanillian and cedar. On the tannin-front the wine presents a powdery texture, as if you copped it in the mouth in a baby-parlour. Purposefully  balanced, with Viognier’s heart sent on complimenting Shiraz and not providing too much to dwell on; Florally lifted, tumultuous fruit. As easy going as you’d expect from  Great Southern for the price. 17.6 points

Spend Summer with the Locals. Flora and Fauna.

For those of us who have grown up under the southern sun with parents who were immigrants will know what I mean when I say culture clash. There is something perturbing and possibly deeply traumatic about upping sticks and settling down in a foreign country. Especially when English is not the spoken language ‘back home’.

Alice Pung’s account of her parents struggle to adapt to Australian way of life from South East Asia is particularly poignant. Well for me anyways as my parents are from that landmass but further east, that is, Burma. It deals with the expectations put upon the generation of children by their parents to become doctors, lawyers and engineers. The auspiciousness and prestige when they can say their child is a doctor, thus increase the auspiciousness and prestige marrying you off. Say nothing of the arts or farming. For they are the realms of the esoteric and serfdom.

It’s a huge theme and complimentary to that, the questioning of what is means to be ‘Australian’. Flag-wavers love to throw around the word ‘UnAustralian’. What does that mean? Do you discard your (Asian or whatever) culture, and assimilate into Australian society? How far can this envelope be pushed before it becomes something it’s not? Before something breaks?  The word assimilate itself has an undercurrent of a forced existence. Force against force negates itself. Cronulla riots of 2005 was case in point.

An interesting read. Funny at times, plyably frustrating at others, and in my view I’d call it  NuAustralian.