>Ha, good luck to her. We've now got a couple of Aussie restaurants
>in NYC, where you can get emu carpaccio or 'roo bangers & mash. But
>most of the customers are Australians, who seem desperate for each
>other's company in this strange land. Americans don't have much
>interest. Which is sad, because the stuff is really good.
You probably think its pathetic to spend all that money getting to NY only to avoid the local tucker and eat Australian food. Not at all, Australians would rarely eat wallaby (and never Emu) at home (unless they are from the bush and even then bush tucker eaters would be in a minority.)
I remember a few years ago having a few people around for a meal from an organisation I was involved in. I served up a spaghetti bolognaise sauce based on wallaby mince. When I told them what it was half of them refused to eat it. Obviously this hurt my feelings a bit, since I'd personally gone to the trouble of going out with a spotlight to shoot the damn thing for them. (Not to mention skinning, butchering and mincing to wallaby with an old hand mincer.)
So this is probably the first experience of eating native Australian food for these Australians. A classic example of the Australian cultural cringe, you see they only believe its worth eating once they see it served up at a restaurant in New York. Back home wallaby is only good for pet food.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas