The Best of Both Worlds

Thursday 20th September 2007
at 03:12am

Is there anything more Australian than “Shrimps on the Barbie”? Is there anything more American than McDonalds? We certainly didn’t wake-up this morning planning to contemplate the merits of which foods remind us of which country. In going about our day however, we realised just how different our morning was to our afternoon.

To answer the question re: Australian foods, yes there are alot of things more Australian than Shrimps on the Barbie”. First of all, we don’t cook shrimps, we make fun of them. In a non-derogatory way of course. And no, that doesn’t mean we hold little sea-creatures by the tail and tease them till they cry. See, we don’t call them shrimps, we call them prawns. That whole ad campaign 20 years ago with Paul Hogan (aka Crocodile Dundee) was a play-on-words so much that you’d understand what he was talking about. In actual fact, a shrimp is what we would could a short person. For instance, by comparison to Andrew Bogut (very tall) I am a shrimp (very small). I am probably alot of other things by comparison to Andrew Bogut; weak, poor, un-fit, but that’s not worth going into to right now.

Anyway, my point is, Vegemite is easily the most tru-blu, fair dinkum, you beaut Australian tucker you could ever find. You know it’s the most Australian food ever produced ‘cause no-one else in the world is prepared to look at it let alone taste it. It is eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner. As a snack, on bread, on crackers or with cheese. In a sandwich with tomato, lettuce and cucumber or any number of other combinations you could think of (within reason). To drive that point home you may hear us comment that our kids are “happy little vegemites, as bright as bright can be”.

To answer the question re: American foods I must first introduce you to one of my friends, the disclaimer. Now I don’t want to be shouted at from east coast to west coast here so please remember that I’m speaking through the eyes of a transplanted Aussie. Thankyou disclaimer. Now, McDonalds with its American origins is so popular back home that you wouldn’t be corrected for thinking it was our idea in the first place. If there’s one of them there’s probably 30,000 of them. Same with KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Taco Bell, Burger King, Subway, Quizno’s and of course Starbucks. We’ve got them all and had them for ages so coming here to experience the fast food wasn’t too different to being at home eating it. Apart from the cost and the portion size of course. Just so you know, we don’t have supersize options and most people back home couldn’t drink one of your Big Gulps in a week let alone a single sitting.

This means that from our point of view, drum-roll please, Chuck. E Cheese’s was about the most American thing we have encountered so far on this trip. We had heard of it back home back we don’t have it. Our opinion of Chuckie’s was absolutely wonderful. Does that surprise you guys or do you think the same?  It was so clean, so fresh and everybody working there spoke English. They had big TV’s, an over the top character mascot, who coincidentally had a wonderful voice and so many colours that rainbows around the world were turning green with envy. The salad bar – yes we didn’t have to get a burger OR fries was delicious and the coin-operated amusements only took one coin each. One Coin! That’s unheard of these days. By the way, you can tell how surprised I was ‘cause I just used one of these “!”. I hate those things and I can guarantee it is the first time of all the words I have posted one has been used. I feel like a teenager when I use them but, that’s how cool we thought this place was.

We could have stayed there for hours, in fact, I’m pretty sure we did in the end.

Anyway, apart from all the excitement, you’re all probably laughing your heads off at the thought that we thought this was a good thing, we settled back home, to our hotel, to meet up with some friends and take the rest of the day easy. Wild huh?

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