cover image The Down Under Cookbook: An Authentic Guide to Australian Cooking and Eating Traditions

The Down Under Cookbook: An Authentic Guide to Australian Cooking and Eating Traditions

Graeme Newman. Hippocrene Books, $9.94 (168pp) ISBN 978-0-911577-11-2

This survey of Australian cuisine by an emigre criminologist now living in Albany, N.Y., is faithful to the country's rather disappointing cooking heritage. As Newman notes, Australia is one of the most sparsely populated yet urbanized nations in the world, and Aussie cooking is a mixture of English imports and the few native foods that can be scratched from a land that's mostly desert. Thus there are many recipes for meat pies and sausage rolls, instructions on making tea sandwiches, a section on steaks and chops and their accompanying fruity sauces, and many sweets, including the highly popular dish Pavlovaa species of baked Alaska. Newman seems proud of these traditional favorites, and when he describes more distinctive fare, such as salad rolls or native ""witchety grubs,'' his vague writing is a hindrance. (July)