Our culinary culture: What is modern Australian cuisine?

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With so many different cuisines on offer nowadays, it can often be difficult to choose where to go when you want to eat out. No matter what style of dining you enjoy, which region of the world you like the food from or the combination of flavours that get your mouth watering, you can be sure that you will find a restaurant that will cater to your needs.

From trying Thai to chowing down on Chinese, sampling Mexican to Mozambican cuisine, finding a classic steak restaurant to tasting the flavours of French cooking, nowadays, you can embark on a foodie travel tour around the world, sampling the best tastes out there without ever having to go too far.

However, while all of this international fare certainly is appealing and should not be missed, it's important to remember that we also have a range of fantastic restaurants that focus on Australian cuisine. With such diverse landscapes and climates throughout the country, as well as a massive coastline with an abundance of seafood, it goes without saying that we have a huge range of local produce to choose from.

With all of these incredible flavours, Australian chefs have started to bring the true flavours of our country to the fore in what has become known as Modern Australian cuisine or simply Mod Oz for short.

Let's take a closer look at exactly what Modern Australian cuisine is and why you need to sink your teeth into some of these delicious dishes.

One of the most important things that you should know about Modern Australian cuisine is that it is a fusion that combines many different influences. Mod Oz draws on inspiration from Australian history, including all of the different cultures that have helped to shape the country into what it is today.

Although originally a British colony, the food in Australia nowadays is much more than simply an offshoot of traditional British classics. In fact, modern-day Australia is an undoubted mixing pot of cultures that has created an incredibly diverse and multicultural community since World War II.

While Modern Australian cuisine does focus on Australia as we know it today and the melting pot of cultures that it now is, Mod Oz also plays homage to the indigenous Australian communities. Modern Australian cuisine used locally sourced ingredients that can only be found in Australia such as emu, kangaroo and emu meat, as well as a wide variety of native fish species.

In addition, bush tucker ingredients such as snakes, native grub, local berries and other inclusions are often featured in Modern Australian dishes. Taking all of these local Australian components and combining them with different cooking styles, techniques and flavours from around the world have helped to shape Mod Oz into the delicious cuisine that it is.

While many other cuisines around the world have quite strict guidelines, traditions and rules that some might argue limit creativity, Mod Oz does not have this issue. In fact, Modern Australian cuisine encourages chefs to take an experimental approach to the dishes that they cook.

A modern Australian chef has free reign to create whatever types of dishes they like. This, in turn, breeds passionate, inspired and excited Australian chefs that have an opportunity to express their personality in their cooking. Many cooking professionals in countries all over the globe would agree that Australian chefs are visionaries in the culinary world as there really are no traditions shackling their creativity.

Something that defines Mod Oz is that it can't truly be defined. When you go out to a restaurant to sample very well-known cuisines such as Italian, French, Japanese, Korean, Mexican and other well-known foodie countries, you almost always know what to expect.

Even if the dishes are a little different to the norm or are a little less traditional than what you might expect, there will always be components, techniques and flavour combinations that you will instantly recognise. However, this is not typically the case with Modern Australian cuisine.

The types of dishes, flavour combinations, cooking techniques and even how the food is served will typically vary quite a lot from one Mod Oz-focused restaurant to the next, which is exactly what makes this food exciting and enticing.

If you have never tried Mod Oz, now is the time to get out there and sample some of this amazing food. With so many options to choose from, a never-ending concoction of different tastes and flavours to enjoy and constant evolution, this is an exciting cuisine to get stuck into.

Be sure to try out some different restaurants and sample some different flavours to ensure you get to experience a wide range of what modern Australian cuisine is all about