Original subtitles

I was 19 years old when I first saw Australia.

My dad had just died...

..and I was running away from my old life.

What I found in Australia changed me.

And I can remember saying,

"This is me. I've escaped. This is my life."

Ow!

Today, Australia is so much more than another travel destination to me.

My wife is Australian...

Thank you, Ricky.

- Scrumptious! - Scrumptious, eh?

..and this country has become my second home.

Love them to bits.

So, after a lifetime of food journeys,

I'm finally retracing some of that first trip.

Now I'm ready to go.

I want to discover how Australia and its food is changing.

I remember coming up this coast.

It was so remote. You come back now and it's like this.

Takes me right back.

After exploring the outback,

I'm heading south to see how the flood plains here...

Beautiful.

..have become a food bowl.

What enormous birds.

And I'm bringing my inspiration home to create new recipes.

I will end up with my shirt covered in beef and sauce.

I suspect it's going to be another journey of a lifetime.

BIRDS CAW

I'm making my way through the dusty outback,

and it's all the proof I need that Australia

really is the most arid inhabited continent in the world.

I must say, travelling around here, everywhere is really dry

and the vegetation very, very sparse and scrubby.

I'm heading south to a different part of the country, about 500km away -

the Riverina - named after the waterways that run through it,

the Murrumbidgee River in the north and the Murray to the south.

The plains here have been home to

the First Nations Wiradjuri people for millennia,

but over the last hundred years,

this land has been reshaped by agriculture,

and I'm on my way to a place that's reinventing

what farming in Australia looks like.

I'm going to see somebody who's given up normal agricultural pursuits

and has thrown his lot in with emu farming.

I remember seeing my first emu in the '60s,

and they were running along a fence near where I was hitchhiking,

and I remember thinking, what enormous birds!

It never crossed my mind that you could farm them.

But Ian Marston is the proud owner of more than 750 emus.

Since you can't buy emu eggs or meat in the supermarket,

I want to find out what's drawn him to this strange animal.

EMU GRUMBLES DEEPLY

Good morning. What's that extraordinary noise?

Yeah, that's the female making that drumming noise

from deep in their throat.

- So, are they communicating like that? - Yes. Yeah.

How amazing.

- Yeah. It's... Yeah. - Well, I'm blowed.

- The female makes the drumming noise... - Yeah.

..and the male makes a grunting noise.

While the males, they haven't got a good vocabulary

like the females have here in the emu world, so...

Well, isn't that the same with humans, us humans?

Don't you think women have a better vocabulary than us men?

There is a lot of things about emus that are very close to being human.

All right.

BOTH LAUGH

But I was just reading about emus.

- It's the men that sit on the eggs. - That's correct. Yes, yeah.

So, what happens out in the wild, and this is really intriguing,

sometimes you'll see a group of three, three adults.

- Yeah. - There'll be one female and two males.

The female will go with the alpha male first and mate with him

until she lays a clutch of eggs.

- Right. - And then he'll sit on them,

and then she'll go off with the beta male,

she'll lay a clutch of eggs and he sits on them,

and then she goes out and parties.

It's just like humans.

So, how did it all start, then, emu farming?

I bought in some cattle,

and I bought them in for $250 each in those days,

kept them for nine months and sold them for 180.

I thought, well, I'm not going to make much money out of this.

- Going backwards fast. - Yeah!

So I thought I'd try something else.

Ian's been farming emus now for 30 years.

He tells me there's just a small niche market

for their decorative feathers, meat, leather and eggs.

EMU GRUMBLES

But in the last few years, scientists have discovered that emu oil,

rendered from the fat of the bird, is rich in a vitamin called K2.

The vitamin is believed to boost cardiovascular and dental health,

and demand is booming.

How many kilos do you think I'll get off this bird of fat?

Well, they don't look fatty like geese, so I'd say...

..I don't know, two?

- Two? - Yeah. - OK.

These here, that one there would go around about nine kilos.

- Right. - And the older ones,

you can get between 12 and 15 average kilos of fat off a bird.

They're extraordinary-looking creatures.

I mean, I've seen them just driving through the back of Bourke.

But are they friendly?

- Oh, yeah. You can pat them if they let you. - All right.

But some of them are still flighty.

They're a commercial bird, they're not a pet.

But the chicks, no worries at all.

Ian's taking me to meet some of his younger birds,

which he says are much friendlier.

- So, these are nine months? - Yes. These are the chicks.

They do look prehistoric, a bit like sort of dinosaurs, really.

- Well, they're very friendly. - Yeah, they are.

CHICK TWEETS

I don't know what they see in my belt,

but there's something about it.

- Bloody hell! - If you've got shoelaces, they can undo shoelaces. - Ow!

IAN LAUGHS

I'm not used to this, Ian.

Hey, just stop it!

Oh, would you get off my belt?

Would you just leave my belt alone, please?

- Well, they are friendly. - Very. - They keep trying to eat my clothes.

I've only got one belt on this trip.

They're extraordinary creatures, though.

I mean, I've never been with animals like this before, I must say.

- There's the... - Argh! Gone for my belt again!

- You've got a friend for life there, Rick. - I know, I know.

He's not leaving.

I've never cooked anything emu before,

but Ian assures me the eggs make good eating

and he's invited me back to the house to try cooking with them.

One emu egg is the equivalent of about eight to ten chicken eggs,

so I think just one is more than enough for an omelette.

Look at that.

Interestingly, emu eggs have a much higher ratio of yolk to white

than hens' eggs - about 10% more, really -

so that makes them very, very rich and very nicely coloured.

Now, I like to keep my omelettes very simple.

Just a bit of seasoning, salt and pepper.

So now pepper.

In this case, I'm going to add a bit of Parmesan as well.

I just love the taste of fresh pepper in an omelette.

So, there we go.

Now just a simple whisk...like that.

Omelettes are so easy to make.

I just prefer myself to make them just with butter.

And some people like to use a bit of oil in the cooking of them as well,

but just butter for me.

So, there we go.

Now for making the omelette.

So, I just need a small amount of butter,

and it's very important not to use a lot of butter.

And now what I'm trying to do is melt the butter

and give it a slightly burnt flavour, but only very slight.

But I just want to give it a little bit of a nuttiness,

so I'm waiting for the butter to slightly go

a tiny bit brown, but not too brown.

That'll do.

And now for my omelette mixture.

Might all go into the pan in one big bloop like that.

Now that's all right.

That'll be about enough.

So, what I'm doing now,

just going to leave that for about half a minute,

just for the bottom to set.

Now, of course, what I've forgotten to do now because I'm Rick

is I've forgotten to grate my Parmesan.

So, I will quickly do that while that's going

because I like a bit of Parmesan in my omelette.

I like a plain omelette,

but I'm just addicted to a bit of cheese,

particularly Parmesan, in the omelette. That'll do.

We're pretty well ready to go there.

I'll just start drawing the fork through to the middle

and piling up the sort of cooked egg, and as I draw it through,

the raw egg will go to the bottom and fill the omelette up.

So, I'm building up a bit of height, a bit of fluffiness.

So, now the Parmesan.

Just all over there.

And that's looking good.

And the secret now is just to cook it up,

but just leave it a little bit...

..a little bit fluffy and soft and slightly liquid in the middle.

That's what the French call baveuse.

So that's looking very nice.

And now it's time to fold the omelette up.

Great.

And turn it over like that.

Still a little bit soft cos, in my opinion,

a slightly undercooked omelette is the best omelette.

So that looks great.

So, now the last bit. I'm just going to turn out on the plate.

And the trick is to angle the pan, slide the omelette onto the plate

and have confidence when you're doing the flip.

And there we have it.

Nice shape. Now all I need to do is add some salad.

An omelette for one.

Fabulous.

- That looks nice. - Yeah, it looks all right.

Yeah.

Very nice setting here, Ian -

eating emu egg omelettes with a vista of distant emus.

If we had a pina colada, it would be like paradise.

Yeah, it would.

What were you saying about emus?

They dig a hole in the ground when they know rain's coming?

Yep, yep. They'll dig a hole out in the middle of nowhere,

and then it rains and it's full, and then they drink out of it.

- So how do they know? - I don't know. I don't know.

- Amazing. - Past my pay group, I think.

BOTH CHUCKLE

- Ah. - Mm. - It's really rich, isn't it?

I mean, not overpoweringly rich.

Lovely yellow colour.

The Parmesan cheese just brings it out, doesn't it?

I think so. I mean, you know, purists would say keep it plain,

but I just like a bit of Parmesan.

A little tang on it. I think I might have more of these.

- All right. - I know where I can get them from.

Ah. Yeah.

- I'll drink to that. - Cheers. - Cheers.

It was very tasty, really rich, and I feel quite proud

that I have made an omelette from an emu egg.

The Riverina was once harsh plains,

but in the last century it's been developed into

some of the most productive farmland in the country.

This extraordinary transformation began with one of

Australia's first nation-building projects,

the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme.

Started in 1907, it involved

an elaborate series of dams,

canals and holding ponds that took water from

the Murrumbidgee River

to create 1.6 million acres of farmland.

And I'm stopping at Scenic Hill,

a lookout on the outskirts of the town of Griffith,

to see how this landscape has changed.

The first European to reach the area was the explorer John Oxley,

who passed through in 1817.

And here's a quote which I really like.

"There is a uniformity of barren desolation of this country,

"which wearies one more than I'm able to express."

How wrong was he?

To me, that looks like a vision of great farming.

Lots of lovely, neat fields,

great greenness everywhere. For a country town -

and I've been in a lot of country towns in New South Wales -

it's a big one.

The abundance I'm seeing is the result of the irrigation scheme,

which was completed after World War I.

It brought an influx of new settlers and would-be farmers to the region.

Many were migrants from Europe

who came looking for work and a place to call home.

This is really interesting. The Hermit of Scenic Hill.

Hermit's Cave heritage and archaeological site

is a rare example of a hermit's dwelling.

It's a lasting reminder of Valerio Ricetti,

the young Italian migrant who lived here

as a recluse between the late 1920s and 1952.

Ricetti, a stonemason from the Italian Alps,

arrived broke and looking for a life of solitude.

He found this cave and used his skills

as a stonemason to build his own utopia.

So that's presumably where he lived.

This looks like the kitchen because we've got a fire here.

It's probably... his sort of barbecue.

It seems this is a place

where people can reinvent themselves into whoever they want.

Valerio Ricetti was part of a wave of Italian migrants

who were drawn to the newly fertile farmlands here.

As well as growing food, they also planted grapes to make

the wines they loved from the old country.

They were among the first table wines made in Australia,

as Aussies at the time favoured fortified wines

like English-style sherry and port -

something I remember well.

When I first came to Australia in the '60s,

I remember there was no, like, table wine.

I remember there were sort of half-gallon glass jars of wine.

Yeah, it was a bit like you bought wine to get inebriated.

Since then, Australian wine has come a long way,

and the country is now one of the world's biggest wine producers.

Today, wine sales bring in more than $40 billion,

or £20 billion, to the nation's coffers each year.

There are thousands of boutique winemakers,

as well as a handful of large,

well-known companies like the one I'm visiting today.

Well, I'm off to the De Bortoli winery,

and I'm very keen to hear about their family history.

I know them because of their popular dessert

or sticky wine called Noble One.

And I'm going to meet the man who created it,

third-generation winemaker Darren De Bortoli.

- Hey, Rick. - Hello.

It's funny, actually, Darren,

I remember somebody saying to me about,

I don't know, the late '50s, early '60s,

going to a pub in the back of beyond

and coming from Europe and saying, "I'd like a glass of red, please."

And the landlord said, "We got port or sherry. Which do you want?"

Yeah, the first time Australians started drinking more

table wine than fortified wine was 1972.

- Seriously? - My grandfather's background being Italian,

so, he started making a table wine.

Did they start growing grapes then, or was it just part of what the...?

Well, it was part of what they were doing at that stage.

So 1928 came along and the beginning

of the depression years, he couldn't sell the grapes,

so he decided he would make wines.

And a lot of the early Italians actually

would come fruit pickers and go up to Queensland

and cane cutters and whatever.

The very early markets were up in Queensland.

I guess that's one of the great things about

agricultural parts of Australia.

It's like reinvention.

One minute you're doing something and you think,

"Well, hang on, this doesn't work any more."

So how did you get into the stickies, your Noble One, then?

Well, it all started when I was studying winemaking.

They were doing a bit of work with noble rot.

Noble rot, or Botrytis cinerea,

is a type of fungus that grows on grapes.

It sucks the moisture out of the grapes,

which are then harvested for winemaking.

The concentrated juice makes for a complex and sweet dessert wine.

- I absolutely loved the wine. - Did you?

And that created an interest in the style.

When I came home in the early '80s

I said, I'd like to make a noble rot wine.

Cos at that stage, the prevailing wisdom was Australia

was too hot and dry.

Well, that's what I would have thought,

but I guess in the autumn you get temperatures

- that are a bit lower and slightly... - Perfect.

And today's a good example. It's been a very dry year

but these sort of days with high humidity,

rain or whatever, the botrytis loves it.

Well, I'd quite like to taste some.

Oh, let's try the Noble One.

Love to. Gosh.

It's over 40 years now. It's amazing.

Oh, this is nice.

Welcome to our cellar door.

And we're going to try the 1982 Noble One.

- 1982? - Where it all started from.

Wow. I've never tried '82.

This dessert wine was originally called a Sauternes

after a region in France famous for this style of wine.

But in the 1990s, Australian winemakers

were prohibited from using French names.

I've been selling your wine since it was called Sauternes.

Can I ask who came up with the name Noble One?

Me, of course!

- I think Noble One's a better name, actually. - Couple of glasses, Rick.

Here we go.

- That's a serious glass for a sticky! - Yes.

- And this is... - Oh, look at the colour in that. - ..the 1982.

Yeah.

And as you can see, these colours, it's darkened considerably.

It has, considerably.

- It smells really good, though. - Yeah, it's the flavour.

It's still alive. A lot of people make the mistake,

- they think the colour is so deep that the wine is off. - Oxidised.

As you see, this is still alive.

- Amazing, eh? - It's so nice.

It's just got that...

I mean, the delicious sweetness, you know,

it's sort of sweet, but you don't sort of think,

"Oh, that's sickly sweet."

It's just so full of fruit still,

but it just incredibly concentrates the flavour, doesn't it?

I think the other great thing about really old wines like this

is just the joy of opening a bottle that's so old.

Stood the test of time.

It's still got acidity, still got plenty of fruit.

It will probably outlive me! That's the scary thing.

- Probably will outlive me. - Yeah.

- Oh, well, let's drink to that. - Cheers!

Cheers!

Oh, I've just noticed this.

I was here in '66, '67.

And we've got here,

hot claret by the gallon,

a dollar a gallon, 1.20 a gallon.

Actually, the deposit on these gallon jars was 50 cents.

So half of the price

was the jar itself.

I mean, there we've got lots of sweet sherry, brown sherry.

That's what it was like in those days.

Today, the De Bortoli winery produces a whopping 30,000,000 litres

of wine every year.

The vats here hold gallons of different red,

white and dessert wines,

which are then bottled and exported to more than 75 countries.

And the next generation of family winemakers,

like Darren's niece Kate,

are now creating their own vintages.

- This is fantastic. - Yeah, it's beautiful.

And it is fortified wine, isn't it?

Fortified, yes.

I love these barrels.

Yeah, they're actually very old.

They're over 100 years old

and they're still used as bulk storage vessels.

- So they use them still? - Yes, they are.

It's something quite special, I think, to be able to still use that.

Kate's passion isn't dessert wine.

It's cool-climate Pinots.

And last year, she and her team won a double gold medal

at the San Francisco International Wine Competition.

Being part of the family, you're so familiar with winemaking?

I think so, I think it's one of those things that's always,

always learning and always going.

It's just like with my sons, cos I've got restaurants

and I realised that as they were growing up,

they didn't say much, but they took it all on board.

So when they started making decisions about how things tasted...

- You just absorb it naturally. - You do. - Yeah, definitely.

- What have we got here? - We've got some Pinot Noir.

Oh, great. Your wine?

Yes. I had a big part in making this one.

- Nice colour. - Yes.

- Oh, that smells good. - Cheers. - Of course!

That's really nice.

It's very sort of lively and fresh,

but I guess also with different generations,

the market changes,

and probably the previous generation don't get it.

I think I'm pretty lucky that I work with...

..I work with my dad and he's quite innovative.

Both of my parents are.

So, you know, you have a few heated arguments and because it is family,

you can throw a lot more out there than you would with other people.

But at the end of the day, we all sit down together

and we all love each other

and we all respect each other's ideas.

I guess I'm looking at the younger generations of my family

just to be in tune with the next lot of consumers, really.

- Definitely. - And that's where you come in. - Yes.

Brilliant. Cheers.

Cheers.

GLASSES CLINK

Over four generations, the De Bortolis have emerged

as one of the most well-known Australian-Italian families here.

But they're certainly not alone.

Today, Griffith has one of the highest proportions

of Italian ancestry of any part of Australia.

Nearly one in four people here are of Italian descent.

I've come into town to see if that heritage is alive and well.

Wandering around the main street in Griffith,

there's so many Italian cafes, Italian businesses.

It's really unusual.

I haven't been in another Australian town

with so much Italian influence, and that's great.

Look at that.

Bertoldo's panetteria.

I've got to go in there.

Oh, wow.

From a quick look at what's on offer here,

I can see traditional Italian biscotti and gelato...

This is really special, I must say.

..next to staple Aussie favourites like pies and lamingtons.

But I've seen what I want - it's cannoli.

I'm curious to see how it compares

with the cannoli I've eaten in Sicily,

the island this delicious pastry comes from.

- Hello. I'm Rick. - Hi.

Well, I'd quite like to order something,

and I just like the look of those cannolis.

We've got lemon and ricotta,

we've got the traditional custard, or we've got the custard

with chocolate on one side and vanilla the other.

- It's got to be the lemon ricotta. - Lemon ricotta it is.

Thank you. They look really nice.

Just love ricotta.

- Back in Sicily! - Oh, thank you.

Don't forget the cannolis.

They're lemony.

I love ricotta cos it's got that sort of graininess about it.

Yeah, it's got a texture.

It's less rich than cream

and less rich than pastry cream,

which is the vanilla ones.

- Coffee? - Coffee, let's go.

Well, I'm sitting here...

..sipping what I would say

was a perfect flat white

and eating what I would say

was a perfect ricotta cannoli.

So what I'm asking myself, really, is,

will the Italian influence live on as strong as it is now?

And I think it probably will.

I mean, I guess inevitably it'll disperse a bit

as more people come into the town,

but it's such a strong part of the whole psyche of Griffith,

I think it'll last forever.

And one of the families who are committed

to keeping this heritage alive are the Piccolo family.

Piccolo's have brought the concept of agritourism to the Riverina.

Agritourism started in Italy as a way of getting tourists

to visit local farms with farm shops,

farm tours and farm-based dining and hospitality.

It's a great way for farmers

to bring in a little more income.

- Good morning. - Hello, Rick. - Peter, isn't it?

It is, it is. Peter Piccolo.

- Peter Piccolo. - Piccolo Family Farm.

It's a lovely farm.

It's really, well...

I mean, I've been on farms that don't look anything like

as tidy as this. It's a delight to the eye.

- I'll take that as a compliment. - It really is.

I've been intrigued about this sort of agritourism idea

because I know it from Italy,

but you must be a bit of a pioneer of the idea here

in the Riverina, then.

It's interesting, Rick,

the agritourism idea came about necessity.

Farming has changed.

It's big, large-scale, and the expenses are huge.

So for a small lot like this,

it's no longer viable.

So in order to keep the farm, keep it flowing,

keep it in the family, we had to think outside the square.

And agritourism was the answer.

That's amazing.

The Piccolos attract visitors to their farm

through agricultural education

and hospitality in the form

of their famous long lunches

using home-grown produce.

What are these? I've never seen these before.

OK, so this is San Marzano.

Oh, these are the San Marzanos.

Yes, perfect for pizza.

- Mm, beautiful. - Yeah.

Really full-flavoured, aren't they?

That has a beautiful, sweet flavour to it.

Yeah. Delicious.

Not too hot at all but it's nice that it is a bit hot.

So this is radicchio?

Yeah. We call it "radeekio", or radicchi.

- Oh, yeah, it's quite bitter, isn't it? - Yeah.

Nice, though.

And all the produce Peter grows here

is put to good use by his eldest son.

Luke Piccolo has built a reputation

as one of regional Australia's most exciting young chefs.

Today, he's offered to cook me one of his signature dishes

based on his experience of growing up Italian in Griffith.

Hello, welcome.

- Very, very nice to meet you, Luke. - You too, Rick.

This looks exciting.

We're going to cook a beautiful dish using local quail

and some of the amazing produce from our farm as well.

So, we're actually going to use the whole bird.

The quails will go in the oven, but the heads, wings and legs

will be used to create the sauce.

And one quail for one person?

We generally cook two.

My father, Peter, who you've met, he'd eat about six!

THEY LAUGH

The quail bits are sauteed in butter

and then deglazed with wine.

Water is then added,

along with fresh figs from the garden, and left to simmer.

The sauce is still nice and runny,

but what the figs will do is they're just going

to thicken that up nicely

and give the sweetness, obviously, to that as well.

The quails are stuffed with lemon,

topped off with sage and thyme from the garden

and given a healthy whack of butter,

olive oil and a little bit of salt and pepper

before being roasted in the oven.

So, where did you learn to cook?

My nonna lived down the road from my primary school,

so I'd walk down with her

and she had a little veggie garden out the back.

- We'd cook gnocchi, we'd cook zucchini fritters. - Wow!

So, you mean, you'd run home from school

to your grandmother to cook?

- Exactly. - This is like fairy-tale land!

You know, it's the best story I've heard of any chef that...

- It's a pretty nice way to spend your afternoon. - Yeah.

As I travelled and as I learnt more, especially in Sardinia...

- Sardinia? - Yeah, I did a summer there. - Really?

Yeah. I worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

But to see the traditions of Sardinia and also a restaurant

that had a farm and had its own produce,

a thing clicked in my brain and I said, "I can do this back home."

It blew my mind.

We had the farm here but it was a monoculture.

It was 20 acres of citrus.

And so when I moved back to open the restaurant,

it was a conversation I had with Dad.

I said, "We've got to diversify."

So interesting, isn't it?

Cos what's happening is you're sort of reinventing the place, really.

And Griffith's the perfect place for it because we've got that culture,

that multiculturalism, the agriculture.

So it's working

and we're absolutely loving to do it.

So, the greens from the garden.

So, beautiful chicory, has that lovely bitterness.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you think Aussies generally get bitterness as a flavour?

No, they hate it.

I thought they might!

At the restaurant, occasionally,

I'll mix the cicoria

with some silver beet or English spinach,

just to dilute the flavour down a little bit.

So we're going to braise this down

with our vino cotto.

The Piccolos produce their own vino cotto,

which is a traditional Italian condiment

made of grape syrup aged in barrels.

Among other things, it adds a richly complex sweetness to savoury dishes.

So we're going to put a really good dousing of this.

Cos chicory is bitter.

It's a strong flavour.

- But, actually, cooking reduces the bitterness, doesn't it? - Yeah.

I'll put just a touch of water in that too,

just to get a bit of steam.

After 20 minutes in the oven,

the roast quails are served with chicory

on a bed of polenta,

which will soak up all the lovely juices.

- And for the guest of honour... - Oh, really?

Yeah, a guest of honour!

And lunch is served on the terrace overlooking the farm.

Oh!

Lovely with the sweetness.

Has got that slightly gamey flavour.

It's a bit like guinea fowl.

- It's sort of a bit like chicken, but not quite. - Exactly, yeah.

Now this is the important bit to me.

- The chicory with the vino cotto. - Mm.

You see that balance between

the sweetness of the vino cotto and the chicory.

This bitterness, it's like another dimension.

On that note, I just have to say

this is absolutely delicious, Luke, thank you very much.

It's just so great having recognisably

sort of country Italian food in this part of Australia.

- Thank you. - Good stuff. - Thank you very much.

I'm leaving Griffith and heading east towards the coast,

and on the way there's a small stop we simply have to make.

My visit to the Riverina

has coincided with the national election,

but unfortunately, I'm not allowed to vote.

I've been a resident for 20 years, but I'm not a citizen.

I'm going to the polling station

simply because the crew have to vote.

Voting in Australia is compulsory

and there are hefty fines if you don't.

To support this, elections have almost

always been held on a Saturday,

making them quite a social event.

We're pulling into the local primary school

that has been transformed into a polling station...

..and I'm on the hunt for another cornerstone

of voting in Australia - a sausage sizzle.

Sure enough, the local parents' and citizens' group have set up

a barbecue and are cooking up sausages for hungry voters.

- Hello, I'm Rick. - Hi, Rick. How are you?

- I'm Alicia. - Very nice to meet you, Alicia.

I'm just wanting to know about sausage sizzles.

Oh, sausage sizzles.

Not something we have back in the old country.

OK, well, we've been doing the sausage sizzle in Australia

from the 1980s, I think.

- Really? - Yeah, since the barbecue became portable.

Everybody has a good old-fashioned talk

about politics around a barbecue.

And it's compulsory for Australians to vote, so it just comes together.

- That's great. - Yeah. - Well, can I try one?

Absolutely, Rick. We have a standard barbecue sausage.

And we also have continental sausages today.

No, none of your continental. Not on election day.

- Just a straight sausage? - Absolutely.

Straight from the butcher, we will get you one of those.

Onion?

Maybe I'll have a bit of onion and sauce.

- That's how I would do it. - OK.

Traditionally, a sausage sizzle consists

of a barbecued beef sausage slapped on a slice of bread,

served with optional fried onions

and tomato or barbecue sauce.

The humble snag has become such a feature of elections in Australia

that it's been named the "democracy sausage".

But on the quiet, I don't think the Aussie beef snag

is a patch on the British pork banger.

It might be messy.

Well, the sausage looks a bit bigger than the bread.

- Than the bread. - Is that normal? - Yes, absolutely.

Local butcher, straight across the road, supports us heavily.

Got kids in the school. How's the sausage?

I'm amazed. I love Australia,

but I'm not actually that keen on the...

- On the sausage. - On the snags. But this is a good one.

I hope so.

SHE LAUGHS

Maybe I am on the way to becoming a proper Aussie after all.

- You've got to vote first. - I'm not allowed to vote.

SHE LAUGHS

My journey east is taking me along

the Murrumbidgee River towards the town of Gundagai.

This region has long been romanticised in Australian folklore,

including one of my favourite songs - Along The Road To Gundagai.

It expresses a man's yearning for his childhood home -

a little shack on the river amongst the gum trees.

And since I'm actually on the road to Gundagai, I'll hum it for you.

# Da-da da

# Da-da da

# Da-da da-da da-da da-da da-da

# Da-da da-da da. #

I'm no singer,

so perhaps I'm better sticking to poetry.

And the most famous poem from here tells the story of a teamster

whose wagon gets stuck in a creek just outside Gundagai.

He comes back to discover his faithful

dog sitting on his tucker box guarding his food.

This old bush verse is

so popular there's even a statue commemorating it.

I had to stop off here. We're just out of Gundagai,

and I remember I came through here in the '60s

with my friend Ed Ifould, and he insisted on us stopping here

and seeing the dog that sat on the tucker box.

But he didn't use the word "sat", I have to say.

The Dog On The Tucker Box.

I've been jilted, jarred, and crossed in love

And sand-bagged in the dark

Till if a mountain fell on me

I'd treat it as a lark

It's when you get your bullocks bogged

That's the time you flog and cry

And the dog sat on the tucker box

Nine miles from Gundagai.

I'm not sure if "sat" is actually what was meant.

Established in the 1830s on the banks of the Murrumbidgee,

Gundagai grew into a thriving town

when gold was discovered 20 years later.

Now home to around 2,000 people,

it's full of traces of Australia's early colonial past,

which gives it an easy-going, nostalgic feel.

But I've come to experience something that,

as a Brit, you wouldn't expect to find in an Aussie country town.

I remember when I first came to Australia,

milk bars were all the rage, and milk bars sold burgers,

but they were burgers beyond my wildest dreams.

I mean, a lot of things about Australia

were quite strange to me then, but once I'd tasted the burger,

and then when I also tasted

a chocolate malted milkshake, I thought,

"I like this country."

It was the milkshakes

that gave these cafes the name milk bar.

And here on Gundagai's main drag,

I've come to pay homage to the country's oldest.

The famous Niagara Cafe.

Built in 1902, it's believed to have been the first

Greek cafe and milk bar in Australia.

And it inspired a wave of Aussie Greek milk bars around

the country that served up some of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten.

This is fabulous. It's really special.

All Art Deco. I don't recall the milk bars I went to

were anything like as grand as this.

And I know I'm going to get a good burger.

I've stopped here first and foremost

to try their Aussie burger with the lot.

And secondly, to meet Peter Castrission,

whose family operated the milk bar over 100 years ago.

Oh, coffee! Thank you very much.

Beautiful coffee.

Cheers. I'll just try it.

- Ah. That's good. - The Niagara's one of the places

that had coffee back when everyone drank tea,

so I don't know, it's just grown.

How come the Greeks started all those milk bars so long ago?

And your family in particular?

Well, first of all, they were good businessmen,

and Gundagai was a good place to be

because it's halfway between Sydney and Melbourne.

I can remember driving through Gundagai,

- right down the centre, in the '60s, yeah. - That's right.

Yeah. So, it was a busy place.

They thought Castrission Brothers Refreshment Rooms

was a bit of a mouthful, so, they decided on the name Niagara,

which was glamorous, American.

Yeah. Of course.

So, it was this idea of an American sort of milk bar, I suppose.

Yes. It was, of course, what the kids saw at the movies,

particularly in the '50s, '60s.

The Americanisation had come in, you know,

like milkshakes, carbonated water.

And they decided, we're going to create Australia's wonder cafe -

and all this, the fountain bar,

the domed ceiling, these mirrors

all came from the US.

- All came from America? - Yes.

- What can I do for you? - Oh, well, I don't need to look at the menu.

- I just want your classic burger. - Sure thing.

And do you have a chocolate milkshake? Malted milkshake?

- We can do a chocolate malt milkshake for you. - Perfection!

While milk bars like this imitated the American fast-food experience,

their burgers were uniquely Australian.

I've ordered a classic hamburger with the lot -

which always includes slices of canned beetroot.

It's a mystery as to why beetroot began appearing on burgers here

but it's believed the opening of canneries in Australia led to

a huge enthusiasm for canned food across the country.

BELL TINKLES

Great. Well, this is the chocolate malted milkshake, I'm hoping.

- It certainly is. - I'll just have a little...

Lovely and cold, I love it when...

- Thank you very much. - Thank you. - Right.

- Always in these aluminium... - Beautiful.

- ..what they make them in. - Yeah.

Oh.

- Yeah, they're... - Heaven.

- Ah, here we go. - Yum.

- Thank you so much. - Thank you. - Oh, lovely. Thanks very much.

- Thank you. - Wow.

Well, that is really special. I mean...

..it's actually, I think, quite a lot bigger than I remember in the '60s.

Or maybe it's I've just got older,

and when I was in my early 20s, this would have been...

..like that, you know!

But, oh, it's fabulous.

So, we've got cheese, egg, bacon, fried onion,

patty. We've got tomato, lettuce.

- We've got the beetroot. - Beetroot. - The beetroot was the thing that...

- That's what made it. - It was what made it.

- What made it Aussie, I think. - Yeah.

- It may have come from the States but they never put beetroot in it. - No.

No, it always had beetroot.

And I do remember that, I don't know when I was here,

I don't think they'd started putting pineapple in it.

That's not my cup of tea.

But this is, you know, this is serious stuff.

A three-course meal.

Moment of truth.

- Here you go. - Cor...

..it's a handful, isn't it?

Oh.

Aw.

Takes me right back.

Yum.

I just love Aussie burgers. I...

You know, when... Oh.

I've just got the tomato, the beetroot.

The beetroot has always got this slightly sort of earthy taste.

Great beef patty.

The lettuce, nice crunch.

And the egg, a bit of deluxe-ness there.

The cheese, fabulous.

- It takes me back. - Right.

Do you know what? When I came back from Australia years and years ago,

back to the UK, I was determined to open a hamburger restaurant.

And I remembered saying to my family,

"No, no, you don't understand hamburgers.

"It's going to be an Aussie hamburger restaurant."

Well, I opened a fish restaurant, but hey-ho!

There's still time.

- Do you think so, Peter? - Yeah. Of course.

Long before the Niagara Cafe put Gundagai on the map,

the town was famous for a far more notorious legend

born of the gold rush.

The discovery of gold in Australia in the 1850s

brought an influx of people and huge amounts of wealth

to towns like Gundagai.

These riches were also a magnet for robbers

who hid in the bush and conducted hold-ups

on the unguarded roads in and out of the town.

They were called bushrangers

and one of them is buried here in Gundagai's main cemetery.

I'm fascinated by bushrangers. I don't know why it is,

but so many of us have this sort of affection for the likes of,

I don't know, Robin Hood or Dick Turpin or Ned Kelly.

There's something about this idea that they were robbing from the rich

to give to the poor, which is absolute rubbish, actually,

they were just, you know, poor, desperate criminals.

But I'm looking here for where a particularly notorious bushranger

is buried, one Andrew George Scott,

known as Captain Moonlite.

In 1879, he was passing through this area with a small crew

including James Nesbitt, who was very close to him.

Not far out of Gundagai,

he and his crew visited a station where he took the occupants.

They didn't harm them, but took their food,

using their piano, and stole their clothes.

Eventually, the police arrived, and a gunfight ensued.

At the end of it, a policeman was dead

and so were all but two of Moonlite's gang.

Most notably, Nesbitt had died

and Scott was found weeping next to his body.

And this is a quote -

"His leader wept over him like a child,

"laid his head upon his breast and kissed him passionately."

Scott, or Captain Moonlite as he called himself,

was captured by police as he grieved.

He was taken back to Sydney, where he was tried and hanged.

Finally, here it is.

Andrew George Scott, Captain Moonlite.

And it says -

"Born Ireland, 8th of the 1st, 1845.

"Died Sydney, 20th of the 1st, 1880."

So, he's 35 years old.

"As to a monumental stone, a rough unhewn rock would be most fit,

"one that skilled hands could have made into something better.

"It would be like those it marks, as kindness and charity

"could have shaped us to better ends.

"Andrew George Scott."

And this is from a letter Moonlite wrote

from Darlinghurst Gaol in Sydney, about his feelings.

He poured his heart onto the page,

requesting to be buried with his dearest Jim.

"We were one in heart and soul. He died in my arms.

"I long to join him where there shall be no more parting."

There has been some debate, of course,

about whether they were lovers but, of course, they were.

A century later, two local women campaigned

to have Captain Moonlite's remains reburied here,

near the unmarked grave of "Jim" James Nesbitt.

That's what's happened.

But what is really great, it is now a heritage-listed site.

He probably didn't want to end up as a bushranger,

but now he's been reinvented as a sort of folklore hero.

One of the things I was sort of thinking about Australia,

I came here in the '60s with a bit of

a sort of difficult time in my family

and I suddenly realised I could do what I liked.

And I think there is a sense of sort of reinvention

about life here anyway.

Whether you fail or succeed at reinventing yourself,

the important thing is being prepared to give it a go.

And I think that spirit still lives on in places like the Riverina,

which is what I'm paying tribute to in this new recipe.

It's my take on a great Italian classic.

So, this is ragu of slow-cooked beef, with pappardelle.

So, the beef I'm using for slow-cooking is shin of beef.

Now, if you were to slice it and fry it, it would be so tough.

But, over two, two-and-a-half hours,

all that connective tissue is going to melt

and give you this luscious taste.

So, the first thing I need to do is fry this beef off.

Just add a bit of olive oil in the pan.

Just putting my pieces of beef in there.

I don't need to cut the beef up much at this stage.

And at the end of the slow-cooking,

I'm actually going to pull the meat apart with a couple of forks.

I'm also going to add some vegetables.

Often we call that in the trade a mirepoix.

Two carrots, two celery sticks, two garlic cloves

and one onion should be enough.

I'm sure that beef's ready for turning now.

Yeah, look at that.

And that will just add a great colour and caramel flavour

to the finished dish.

Nice and brown now.

So, out they go, and in go my veg.

I often ask myself, why is that the classic mirepoix,

the classic combination, ie, celery, carrot, onion and garlic.

I don't know, honestly.

I suppose the flavours work together so well.

You've got the sweetness of the carrot and the onion.

You've got the garlic flavour, of course, which you need,

but also you've got the herby taste from the celery.

It's sort of like a perfect combination, I think.

It's smelling very lovely, smelling very like a stew.

Now, I'm just going to add back my beef.

And now, add the rest of the ingredients.

And that's the great thing about this stew.

Once you've got this far, or this ragu, everything else gets put in,

and then, a slow cook.

First of all tomato. Just tinned tomato.

Put in half a can, then, add 500ml of beef stock.

Red wine.

About 300ml.

If you can afford it, something like Shiraz,

a really full-bodied wine, is great there.

Some aromatics, a couple of bay leaves, and some thyme.

And finally, from Griffith, from Piccolo Farm,

vino cotto, and it's actually sort of reduced grape juice.

It's delicious.

And you can pour it over strawberries,

but also it gives a real lift and a bit of a sweetness to a good ragu.

So, now, all I have to do is put a lid on here

and leave it to bubble away gently.

But I will check it just after about two hours

just to see if the beef is falling apart.

So, two hours has passed.

Just have a look at this now.

It's smelling wonderful.

But there's quite a lot of juice still in there,

of sauce still in there. I'm just going to turn the heat right up now

and just reduce it down a little bit.

So, now, just to cook the pasta, the pappardelle,

I'm just going to season it with salt, a couple of teaspoons.

And then, in goes the pappardelle.

And because this is fresh pappardelle,

it'll only take a minute or two to cook.

If you can't make or buy fresh pasta,

don't worry, dried is fine.

You'll just need to cook it a little bit longer.

So, that's reduced down,

and wonderfully, look at that, now.

I'm just going to taste it now for seasoning.

I put a little bit of salt in earlier.

I'm just going to put a bit more, and a bit of pepper.

Ten turns, I always go for, minimum.

That'll be fine.

Now, I'm going to start pulling the beef apart.

This is one of those occasions where I will end up

with my shirt covered in beef and sauce.

I think, as you can see,

this is really quite a different finished sauce to Bolognese,

which is made with mince.

It's smelling delicious.

So, that's already cooked, the pasta.

Just lifting it out.

So, some of the pasta water will thin it up a little bit.

I like the ribbon pappardelle

because the large surface area of the pasta

allows the sauce to cling to it in a pleasing way.

So, now, just tossing this over a bit in the pasta.

So, I'm just going to finish that with some olive oil and Parmesan.

Lots of Parmesan.

This ragu is so different,

this slow-cooked beef, to ragu Bolognese.

I mean, that's lovely but this is really deeper, rounder,

more comforting, I suppose.

I think I can taste,

I can indeed taste a hint of that vino cotto I put in there.

But it's optional, of course. But...

..isn't food a cheering-up sort of thing?

I mean, it's a bit of a dull day.

It's instantly made me feel more happy and jolly.

But it's crying out for a gulp of red.

Now, perfection is achieved!

Join me next time on the final leg

of my trip around New South Wales...

Such a serene and green part of Australia, this south coast.

..where I'll savour some south coast favourites...

How many oysters can an oyster shucker shuck?

Delicious, sweet.

..and try the unexpected.

This is our yellowfin tuna and pistachio salami.

- Sensational. - I'll take that!

- Best Australian fish pie I've ever had. - Oh!

In fact, it's the only Australian fish pie I've ever had

but it's absolutely delicious.