Carli Ratcliff reports in A National Cuisine on Rene Redzepi's visit to Australia for Crave Sydney International Food Festival and the publication of NOMA (the book).
Besides the star treatment Rene Redzepi received at events, he took the time to practice his favorite sport, foraging.
These food explorations, Carli writes, took Rene to "Sydney’s Middle Head with Mike Eggert, chef at Billy Kwong and some time scrumper, and visited the Iga Warta settlement in the Northern Flinders Ranges north of Adelaide to learn from Aboriginal bush food experts."
He was not there just to please the crowd. He took the time to ask pointed questions. Carli notes that "during an interview with SBS Food and at his Sydney Opera House presentation in front of a 1300-strong audience, he lamented the lack of indigenous and local ingredients on restaurant menus and questioned whether Australia has a national cuisine."
This debate is not new for Australians (and others I am sure). Carli points for example to "Adelaide-based food historian Michael Symons, in his book One Continuous Picnic: A gastronomic history of Australia, recognises that we have no definable national cuisine: “We have almost no coherent style, except perhaps a proud preponderance of beef and lamb,” he says. “The only even modestly famous dish has been the pavlova, an invention we adopted from New Zealand. Otherwise it’s lamingtons, Anzac biscuits and lamentably little else”…Is it too harsh a statement, I am not familiar enough with Australia's food traditions to judge.
On the other hand, the article later points "Chef Alex Herbert of Bird Cow Fish in Sydney says: “If we chefs all strive for the same style of cuisine using the same indigenous ingredients you would then end up with a problem of ‘sameness’ and criticism of it. When people ask why don’t we use these ingredients more, it’s partly because customers don’t want them, people have tried and done a great job of it like Jennice and Raymond Kersh [of Edna’s Table], but ultimately the customer base hasn’t supported it" echoing reservations Peter Gordon and others have about a purely Locavore scene.
Carli highlights another 'real life' problem with foraging for restaurants in Australia, "it is considered illegal in most states and territories. Even if chefs wanted to fill their menus with sea grasses and roadkill, prosecution is a very definite possibility."
A reasonable outcome to this debate could be cooking and restaurants that use local ingredients including wild ones along those from other shores while keeping seasons and sustainability in mind.
For US readers, Michael Symons also wrote A history of cooks and cooking (published by University of Illinois Press).
Experience many aspects of Adnyamathanha culture at Iga Warta including a Plant Tour where visitors can learn about 30 local plants and foods (one of them pictured above).