What do Australians eat in a day?
Australians start with cereal or Vegemite toast and a flat white, grab a sandwich or meat pie at lunch, and eat dinner early, around 18:00 to 19:00, often from the barbecue.
Typical dishes and their calories
Breakfast
On weekdays it is cereal such as Weet-Bix, or toast with a thin scrape of Vegemite, about 140 kcal a slice. Weekends mean brunch at a café: smashed avocado on toast, about 290 kcal, eggs on sourdough or bacon and egg rolls, with a flat white. Australian cafés helped spread avocado toast around the world.
Lunch
Lunch is quick, usually between 12:00 and 13:00: a sandwich or wrap, sushi rolls, a salad or leftovers from dinner. A meat pie from a bakery, about 450 kcal with tomato sauce, is the classic hot lunch, and many schoolchildren bring a lunchbox with a sandwich and fruit.
Dinner
Dinner, often called tea, is early, around 18:00 to 19:00. It can be a barbecue of sausages, lamb chops and steak with salads, a roast on Sunday, or a stir fry, curry or pasta, since cooking at home borrows from Asia and the Mediterranean. Pubs serve chicken parmigiana, the parmi, with chips and salad.
Starters
In Australia the entrée is the starter, not the main course. At home before a barbecue there are dips with crackers, cheese and cold prawns, and at Christmas, which falls in summer, a platter of prawns and oysters is the usual start. Restaurants often offer oysters, salt and pepper squid or bruschetta.
Desserts
Pavlova, a meringue with cream and fruit, about 300 kcal a slice, is the Christmas dessert. Lamingtons are sponge squares in chocolate and coconut, about 250 kcal each. Anzac biscuits of oats and golden syrup are baked around Anzac Day on 25 April, and Tim Tams are the biscuit in every pantry.
Drinks
Coffee is serious: the flat white, about 120 kcal, became popular from the 1980s, and most people order from a local café rather than a chain. Beer comes in glasses whose names change by state, a schooner in Sydney and a pot in Melbourne. Australia is one of the largest wine exporters, with Shiraz from the Barossa Valley.
Street food
The sausage sizzle is a sausage in a slice of white bread with onions and sauce, about 400 kcal, sold for charity outside hardware stores and at polling places on election day. Meat pies are eaten at the football, fish and chips by the beach, about 1000 kcal for a takeaway serve, and Melbourne has dim sims.
Normal there, odd elsewhere
Vegemite is spread very thin over butter, never thick like jam. At children's parties there is fairy bread, white bread with butter and sprinkles. A burger with the lot comes with a slice of beetroot and a fried egg. Christmas lunch in summer heat is often seafood and a barbecue, and many restaurants let you bring your own wine.