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00:00my dad had just died and I was running away from my old life what I found in
00:10Australia changed me but I can remember saying this is me I've escaped this is my
00:16life today Australia is so much more than another travel destination to me my wife
00:24is Australian thank you Ricky scrumptious scrumptious a and this country has become my second home love
00:32and to bitch so after a lifetime of food journeys I'm finally retracing some of that first trip now
00:39I'm ready to go I want to discover how Australia and its food is changing I mean I remember coming
00:45up this coast it was so remote you come back now and it's like this takes me right back after
00:52exploring the outback I'm heading south to see how the floodplains here beautiful have become a food
00:59bowl what enormous birds and I'm bringing my inspiration home to create new recipes I will
01:06end up with my shirt covered in beef and sauce I suspect it's gonna be another journey of a lifetime
01:22I'm making my way through the dusty outback and it's all the proof I need that Australia really is
01:31the most arid inhabited continent in the world I must say traveling around here everywhere is really dry
01:40and the vegetation very sort of very sparse and scrubby I'm heading south to a different part of the
01:48country about 500 kilometers away the riverina named after the waterways that run through it the
01:56Murrumbidgee River in the north and the Murray to the south the plains here have been home to the
02:06First Nations Wiradjuri people for millennia but over the last hundred years this land has been
02:13reshaped by agriculture and I'm on my way to a place that's reinventing what farming in Australia
02:21looks like I'm going to see somebody who's given up normal agricultural pursuits and has thrown his
02:29lot in with emu farming I remember seeing my first emu in the 60s and they were running along a fence near
02:38where I was hitchhiking and I remember thinking what enormous birds it never crossed my mind that you
02:46could farm them but Ian Marston is the proud owner of more than 750 emus since you can't buy emu eggs or
02:59meat in the supermarket I want to find out what's drawn him to this strange animal
03:04good morning what's that extraordinary noise yeah that's um the female making that drumming noise
03:19from from deep in their throat so are they communicating like that yes yeah amazing yeah
03:26it's yeah well I'm blown the female makes the drumming noise yeah and the male makes a grunting
03:32noise well the males have got a they haven't got a good vocabulary like the females have here and on
03:37the in the emu world so well isn't that the same with humans us humans don't you think women have a
03:43better vocabulary than us men there is a lot of things about emus that's very close to being human
03:48all right but I was just reading about emus it's the men that sit on the eggs that's correct yes yes
03:55so so what happens out in the wild and this is this is really intriguing um sometimes you'll see a group
04:01of three three adults yeah there'll be one female and two males the female will go with the alpha male
04:08first and mate with him until she lays a clutch of eggs right and then he'll sit on them and then she'll
04:14go off with the beta male she'll lay a clutch of eggs and he sits on them and then she goes out and
04:20parties it's just like humans so how did it all start then emu farming I bought in some cattle and
04:29I bought him in for 250 dollars each in those days kept them for nine months and sold them for 180 I
04:36thought well I'm not gonna make much money out of this so I thought I'd try something else
04:43Ian's been farming emus now for 30 years he tells me there's just a small niche market for their
04:51decorative feathers meat leather and eggs but in the last few years scientists have discovered that
04:59emu oil rendered from the fat of the bird is rich in a vitamin called k2 the vitamin is believed to
05:06boost cardiovascular and dental health and demand is booming how many kilos you think I'll get off
05:13this bird of fat well they don't look fatty like geese so I'd say I don't know two two yeah okay these
05:23here that one there would go around about nine kilos right and the the older ones you can get
05:31between 12 and 15 average kilos of fat off a bird extraordinary looking creatures I mean I've seen them
05:38just driving through the back of Burke but um are they friendly oh yeah you can you can pad them if they
05:46let you all right but some of them are still flighty they're they're a commercial bird they're not a pet
05:51but the chicks no worries at all Ian's taking me to meet some of his younger birds which he says a much
06:01friendlier so these are nine months yes these are the chicks they do look prehistoric a bit like sort of
06:16dinosaurs really oh they're very friendly yeah they are I don't know what they see my belt but
06:23there's something about it bloody hell if you've got shoelaces then they can undo shoelaces I'm not
06:30used to this hey just stop it whoa would you get off my belt did you just leave my belt alone please
06:39well they are friendly very keep trying to eat my clothes I've only got one belt on this
06:45trip yeah they're extraordinary creatures though I mean I've never never been with animals like
06:52this before you've got a friend for life theory no he's not leaving I've never cooked anything emu
07:03before but Ian assures me the eggs make good eating and he's invited me back to the house to try cooking
07:11with them one emu egg is the equivalent of about eight to ten chicken eggs so I think just one is
07:19more than enough for an omelette look at that interestingly emu eggs have a much higher ratio of
07:28yolk to white than hen's eggs about ten percent more really so that makes them very very rich and very
07:36nicely colored now I'd like to keep my omelettes very simple just a bit of seasoning salt and pepper well so
07:44now pepper in this case I'm going to add a bit of parmesan as well I just love the taste of fresh
07:50pepper in an omelette so there we go now just a simple whisk like that omelettes are so easy to make
08:02I just prefer myself to make them just with butter and some people like to use a bit of oil in the cooking
08:09of them as well but just butter for me so there we go now for making the omelette so I just need a
08:17small amount of butter and it's very important not to use a lot of butter and now what I'm trying to
08:23do is melt the butter and give it a slightly burnt flavor but only very slight but I just want to give it a
08:31little bit of a nuttiness so I'm waiting for the butter to slightly go a tiny bit brown but not too brown
08:38that'll do and now for my omelette mixture might all go into the pan in one big bloop like that
08:48now that's all right that will be about enough so what I'm doing now just going to leave that for
08:57about half a minute just for the bottom to set now of course what I've forgotten to do now because I'm
09:03Rick is I've forgotten to grate my parmesan so I will quickly do that while that's going because I
09:11like a bit of parmesan in my omelette I like a plain omelette but I just addicted to a bit of a bit of
09:18cheese particularly parmesan in the omelette I do we're pretty well ready to go there I'll just start
09:24drawing the forks through to the middle and piling up this sort of cooked egg and as I draw it through
09:32the the raw egg will go to the bottom and make the omelette and fill the omelette up this I'm
09:39building up a bit of height a bit of fluffiness so now the parmesan just all over there
09:47and that's looking good the secret now is just to um to cook it out but just leave it a little bit
10:03a little bit fluffy and soft and slightly liquid in the middle that's what the French called bavers so
10:12that's looking very nice and now it's time to fold the omelette up great and turn it over like that
10:22still a little bit soft because in my opinion a slightly undercooked omelette is the best omelette
10:30so that looks great it's another last bit I'm just going to turn out on the plate and the trick is to
10:37angle the pan slide the omelette onto the plate and have confidence when you're doing the flip
10:43and there we have it nice shape now I need to do is add some salad an omelette for one fabulous
10:55that looks nice yeah it looks all right yeah very nice setting here Ian eating emu egg omelettes
11:06with a vista of distant emus if we had a pina colada it would be like paradise yeah it would what were
11:15you saying about the emus they dig a hole in the ground when they know rains coming yep yep they'll
11:20dig a hole out in the middle of nowhere and then it rains and it's full and then they drink out of it
11:25so how do they know I don't know I don't know amazing paint and pass my pay group I think
11:31oh hmm it's really rich isn't it I mean not overpoweringly rich lovely yellow color the
11:43palmist of Jesus brings it out doesn't it's just beautiful so I mean you know purist would say keep
11:49it keep it plain but I just like a bit of a little tang on it I think I might have more of these all
11:55right I know where I can get them from oh I'll drink to that and cheers cheers
12:02it was very tasty really rich and I feel quite proud that I have made an omelette from an emu egg
12:19the riverina was once harsh plains but in the last century it's been developed into some of the
12:27most productive farmland in the country this extraordinary transformation began with one of
12:34Australia's first nation-building projects the Murrumbidgee irrigation scheme started in 1907 it
12:43involved an elaborate series of dams canals and holding ponds that took water from the Murrumbidgee River
12:51to create 1.6 million acres of farmland and I'm stopping at scenic hill a lookout on the outskirts of the
13:04town of Griffith to see how this landscape has changed the first European to reach the area was the
13:21explorer John Oxley who passed through in 1817 and here's a quote which I really like there is a
13:30uniformity of barren desolation of this country which wear is one more than I'm able to express
13:38how wrong was he to me that looks like a vision of great farming lots of lovely neat fields great
13:51greenness everywhere for a country town and I've been in a lot of country towns in New South Wales it's a big
13:58one the abundance I'm seeing is the result of the irrigation scheme which was completed after World
14:11War one it brought an influx of new settlers and would-be farmers to the region many were migrants
14:20from Europe who came looking for work and a place to call home this is really interesting the hermit of
14:30scenic hill hermit's cave heritage in archaeological site is a rare example of a hermit's dwelling it's a
14:38lasting reminder of Valeri Richetti the young Italian migrant who lived here as a recluse between the late
14:451920s and 1952 Richetti 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 very big lived
15:07this looks like the kitchen because we've got a fire here it's probably a sort of barbecue
15:18it seems this is a place where people can reinvent themselves into whoever they want
15:24Valerio Richetti was part of a wave of Italian migrants who are drawn to the newly fertile farmlands
15:34here as well as growing food they also planted grapes to make the wines they love from the old
15:40country they were among the first table wines made in Australia as Aussies at the time favored fortified
15:48wines like English-style sherry and port something I remember well when I first came to Australia in the
15:5560s I remember there was no like table wine I remember there was sort of half gallon glass jars of wine
16:02yeah it was a bit like you bought wine to get inebriated
16:06since then Australian wine has come a long way and the country is now one of the world's biggest wine
16:15producers today wine sales bring in more than 40 billion dollars or 20 billion pounds to the nation's coffers
16:24each year there are thousands of boutique winemakers as well as a handful of large well-known companies
16:32like the one I'm visiting today well I'm off to the de Bortoli winery and I'm very keen to hear about their
16:39family history I know them because of their popular dessert or sticky wine called Noble One and I'm going to meet the man
16:51who created it third-generation winemaker Darren de Bortoli hey Rick hello it's funny actually don't I
17:02remember somebody saying to me about I don't know the late 50s early 60s going to a pub in the back of
17:06beyond and coming from Europe and saying I'd like a glass of red please and the landlord said we've got
17:13port or sherry which do you want yeah first time Australians started drinking more table wine than
17:19fortified wine was 1972 seriously my grandfather background being being Italian so he started making
17:26a table wine did they start growing grapes then or was it just part of what the what they oh there's
17:33part of what they were doing at that stage so 928 came along and beginning of the depression years
17:38he couldn't sell the grapes so decided he would make his make wines and a lot of the early Italians
17:44were were actually would come fruit pickers and go up to Queensland and cane cutters whatever the very
17:51early markets were up in Queensland I guess that's one of the great things about sort of our agricultural
17:56parts of Australia it's like reinvention one minute you're doing something you think well hang on this
18:01doesn't work anymore so how did you get into the stickies your noble one man well I'll start when
18:07I was studying winemaking they were doing a bit of work with noble rot noble rot or botrytis
18:15scenario is a type of fungus that grows on grapes it sucks the moisture out of the grapes which are then
18:22harvested for winemaking the concentrated juice makes for a complex and sweet dessert wine absolutely love the
18:31wine did you and so and that created an interest in the style when I came home in the early 80s you
18:37know it said I'd like to make them a noble and noble rot wine and because at the stage of providing
18:42wisdom once you mean Australia was too hot and dry well that's what I would have thought yeah but I guess
18:46in the autumn you get temperatures that are a bit lower and slightly perfect and today's a good example but
18:53you know it's been a very dry year but the least of days with high humidity rain whatever the
18:57betrides loves it well quite like to taste some oh let's try the noble one love to gosh yeah it's
19:03um yeah it's over 40 years now it's amazing oh this is nice welcome to our cell dawn Rick and we're going
19:11to try the 1982 that's a noble one where it all started from Wow never tried 82 this dessert wine was
19:21originally called a Sauternes after a region in France famous for this style of wine but in the 1990s
19:28Australian winemakers were prohibited from using French names I've been selling your wine since it
19:36was called Sauternes and can I ask who came up with the name noble one then me of course I think no
19:42was a better name actually a couple glasses Rick here we go that's a serious glass we're sticky yes
19:49and this is this is oh look at the color 1982 yeah and as you can see these colors it's darkened
19:58considerably it has considerably it smells really good though but yeah that's the flavor it's still
20:03alive so a lot of people make the mistake they think the color is so deep that the wine is off as
20:08as you can see this is this is still alive amazing eh it's so nice yeah it's it's just got that I mean
20:35the delicious sweetness you know it's sort of it's sweet but you don't sort of think oh that's sort
20:40of sickly sweet and it's just so full of fruit still but it's just in incredibly concentrates the
20:47flavor doesn't it I think the other great thing about really old wines like this is just the the joy
20:53of opening a bottle that's so old stood the test of time it's still got acidity still got plenty of
20:58fruit I'm probably outlive me that's the scary thing it probably will outlive me yeah let's drink to
21:05that I've just noticed this I was here in 66 67 and as here we've got here hot claret by the gallon
21:24dollar a gallon 120 gallon actually deposit on these gallon jars was 50 cents so half of the
21:32price was a was the jar itself I mean there we got lots of sweet sherry brown sherry that's what it
21:41was like in those days today the de Bortoli winery produces a whopping 30 million litres of wine every
21:51year the vats here hold gallons of different red white and dessert wines which are then bottled and
21:58exported to more than 75 countries and the next generation of family winemakers like Darren's niece
22:06Kate and now creating their own vintages fantastic yeah it's beautiful and it is fortified wine is
22:14fortified yes and I love these barrels then are they yeah yeah they're actually very they're over
22:20a hundred years old and they're still used as sort of bulk storage best so they use them yes so it's
22:26something quite special I think to yeah I mean it's just still use that Kate's passion isn't dessert wine
22:34it's cool climate pinots and last year she and her team won a double gold medal at the San Francisco
22:43international wine competition being part of the family you're so familiar with wine making I think
22:52so I think it's one of those things that's always always learning and always going but no it's just like
22:58with my son's because I've got you know restaurants yes and I realized that as they were growing up they
23:03didn't say much but they took it all on board so when they started making decisions about how
23:08things you just absorb it naturally yeah definitely what we got here we've got some Pinot Noir oh great
23:13your wine yes so I had a big part in making this one nice color yes oh that smells good of course
23:22that's really nice very sort of lively and fresh but I guess also with different generations the
23:32market changes which and probably the previous generation don't get it I think I'm pretty lucky
23:37that I work with I work with my dad and he's quite innovative both of my parents are so you know you
23:44have a few heated arguments and because it is family you can throw a lot more out there than you would
23:49with other people but at the end of the day we all sit down together and we're all we all love each
23:54other and we all respect each other's ideas and I guess I'm looking in the younger generations of my
23:59family just to be in tune with the next lot of consumers really that's where you come in yes
24:06over four generations the de Bortles have emerged as one of the most well-known Australian Italian
24:21families here but they're certainly not alone today Griffith has one of the highest proportions of
24:27Italian ancestry of any part of Australia nearly one in four people here are of Italian descent I've
24:36come into town to see if that heritage is alive and well wandering around the main street in Griffith
24:42there's so many Italian cafes Italian businesses and it's really unusual I'm in another Australian
24:49town with so much Italian influence and that's great look at that got all doors for told those
25:01planet area I've got to go in there Wow from a quick look at what's on offer here I can see traditional
25:13Italian biscotti and gelato this is really special I must say next to staple Aussie favourites like pies and
25:23lamingtons but I've seen what I want it's cannoli and I'm curious to see how it compares with the cannoli I've
25:31eaten in Sicily the island this delicious pastry comes from hello well I quite like to order something and I just
25:41like the look of those cannolis we've got lemon and ricotta we've got the traditional custard yeah or
25:46we've got the custard with the chocolate on one side and vanilla the other it's got to be the lemon and
25:50ricotta it is thank you look really nice just love the cutter back in Sicily don't forget the cannolis
26:04they're lemony I love ricotta because it's got that sort of grain that's about it yeah it's got a texture
26:11it's less it's less rich than cream and less rich than pastry cream which is the vanilla ones
26:20that will be coffee let's go
26:25well I'm sitting here
26:26sipping what I would say was a perfect flat white and eating what I would say was a perfect ricotta cannoli
26:40so what I'm asking myself really is will the Italian influence live on as strong as it is now
26:47and I think it probably will I mean I guess inevitably
26:50it it'll it'll disperse a bit as more people come into the town but it's such a strong part of the whole
26:57psyche of Griffith I think it'll last forever
27:05and one of the families who are committed to keeping this heritage alive are the piccolo family
27:11piccolo's that brought the concept of agri tourism to the riverina agri tourism started in Italy as a
27:24way of getting tourists to visit local farms with farm shops farm tours and farm-based dining and
27:30hospitality it's a great way for farmers to bring in a little more income good morning hello Rick
27:37the peter isn't it it is it is oh peter piccolo peter piccolo piccolo family farm it's a lovely farm
27:43it's it's really well I mean I've been on farms that don't look anything like as tidy as this this
27:50looks it's a delight to the eye as a compliment no it really is I mean intrigued about this sort of
27:56agri tourism um idea because I've noticed from Italy but I mean you must be a bit of a pioneer of
28:03the idea here in the riverina then on yeah it's interesting uh Rick the agri tourism idea came
28:10about necessity um farming has changed um it's big large scale uh and the expenses are huge yeah so for
28:19a small lot like this it's no longer viable so in order to keep the farm keep it flowing keep it in the
28:26family we had to think outside the square and agri tourism was the answer that's amazing
28:33the piccolos attract visitors to their farm through agricultural education and hospitality in the form
28:40of their famous long lunches using homegrown produce what are these I've never seen these
28:47okay so this is uh san mazano oh these are the summers yes perfect for pizza
28:56beautiful yeah really full flavored aren't they that is um a beautiful sweet flavor to them yeah
29:05delicious not too hot at all but it's nice that it is a bit hot
29:09hot so this is radicchio yeah so we call it a radicchio yeah or radici oh yeah it's quite bitter
29:18isn't it yeah nice though and all the produce peter grows here is put to good use by his eldest son
29:29luke piccolo has built a reputation as one of regional australia's most exciting young chefs
29:35today he's offered to cook me one of his signature dishes based on his experience of growing up italian
29:44in griffith hello welcome oh very very nice to meet you luke you too rick this looks exciting we're
29:52going to cook a beautiful dish using uh local quail yeah and um and some of the amazing produce from our
29:58farm as well so um we're actually going to use the whole the whole bird
30:02the quails will go in the oven but the heads wings and legs will be used to create the sauce
30:09and uh one quail for one person we generally cook two my father peter who you've met um he'd eat about
30:19the quail bits are sauteed in butter and then deglazed with wine
30:26water is then added along with fresh figs from the garden and left to simmer the sauce is still
30:32nice and runny but what the figs will do is they're just going to thicken that up nicely
30:37and give the sweetness obviously to to that as well
30:42the quails are stuffed with lemon topped off with sage and thyme from the garden and given a healthy
30:48whack of butter olive oil and a little bit of salt and pepper before being roasted in the oven
30:54so um where did you learn to cook my nonna lived down the road from my primary school so i'd walk
31:01down with her and she had a little veggie garden out the back we'd cook you know gnocchi we'd cook
31:07zucchini fritters you know so you mean you know you'd run home from school to your to your grandmother
31:14to cook exactly this is like fairy tale land you know it's like i mean it's the best story i've
31:20heard of any chef that sort of it's a pretty nice way to spend your afternoon as i traveled and as
31:25i learned more especially in sardinia you know sardinia yeah i did a summer there when i really yeah and
31:31i worked um at a michelin star restaurant but to see the traditions of sardinia and also a a restaurant
31:39that had a farm and had it had its own produce um it a thing clicked in my brain and i said i can do
31:45this back home it blew my mind and we had the farm here but yeah it was a monoculture it was 20 acres
31:52of citrus and so when i i moved back to open the restaurant it was a conversation i had with dad i said
31:59we've got to diversify we've got a interesting isn't it because what's happening is you're sort of
32:03reinventing the place really and griffith's the perfect place for it because we've got that culture
32:08that multiculturalism the agriculture um so it's working and it's you know we're we're absolutely
32:15love loving to do it so the greens from the garden so um yeah beautiful chicory has that lovely bitterness
32:22yeah yeah do you think aussies generally get bitterness as a flavor no they hate it i thought
32:28they might um at the restaurant occasionally i'll i'll mix the chicoria with some silver beetle or english
32:36spinach yeah um just to to dilute the flavor down a little bit so we're going to braise this down
32:43with the uh with our vino cotto the piccolos produce their own vino cotto which is a traditional italian
32:50condiment made of grape syrup aged in barrels among other things it adds a richly complex sweetness to
32:58savory dishes so we're going to put a really good dousing of this so uh this is really because chicory's
33:06it's bitter it's a strong flavor but actually cooking reduces the bitterness doesn't it as well
33:12and i'll put just a touch of uh of water in that too just to get a bit of steam
33:16after 20 minutes in the oven the roast quails are served with chicory on a bed of polenta which will
33:27soak up all the lovely juices and for the guest of honor oh really yeah a guest of honor and lunch is
33:34served on the terrace overlooking the farm oh lovely with the sweetness
33:43hmm has got that slightly gamey flavor isn't it's a bit like guinea fowl it's sort of
33:49a bit like chicken but not quite exactly yeah now this is the important bit to me the chicory with the
33:56vino cotto and you see that balance between between the sweetness of the vino cotto and the chicory
34:02this bitterness it's like another dimension you know on that note i just have to say this is
34:08absolutely delicious luke thank you very much and um it's just so great having
34:17recognizably sort of country italian food in this part of australia thank you good stuff thank you very
34:24much i'm leaving griffith and heading east towards the coast and on the way there's a small stop we
34:33simply have to make my visit to the riverina has coincided with the national election but unfortunately
34:41i'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
34:46station simply because the crew have to vote voting in australia is compulsory and there are hefty fines if
34:56you don't to support this elections have almost always been held on a saturday making them quite a
35:05social event we're pulling into the local primary school that has been transformed into a polling station
35:16and i'm on the hunt for another cornerstone of voting in australia a sausage sizzle
35:22sure enough the local parents and citizens group have set up a barbecue and are cooking up sausages
35:32for hungry voters hello i'm rick hi rick how are you i'm alicia very nice to meet you alicia i'm just
35:39want to know about sausage sizzles oh sausage sizzle something we have back in the old country okay well
35:44we've been doing the sausage sizzle in australia from 1980s i think really yeah since the barbecue
35:50become portable everybody has a good old-fashioned talk about politics around the barbecues and it's
35:56compulsory for australians to vote so it just comes together that's great yeah well can i try one
36:02absolutely rick we have a standard barbecue sausage and we also have continental sausages today no none of
36:08your continental not on election day just straight sausage absolutely straight from the butcher we will
36:15get you one of those onion maybe i'll have a bit of onion and sauce that's how i would do it okay
36:20okay okay traditionally a sausage sizzle consists of a barbecued beef sausage slapped on a slice of
36:28bread served with optional fried onions and tomato or barbecue sauce the humble snag has become such a
36:37feature of elections in australia that it's been named the democracy sausage but on the quiet i don't
36:46think the aussie beef snag is a patch on the british pork banger it might be messy well the sausage looks
36:53a bit bigger than the than the bread than the bread is that normal yes absolutely local butcher straight
37:00across the road supports us heavily got kids in the school how's the sausage i'm amazed i love australia
37:08but i'm not actually that keen on the on the sausage on the snags but this is a good one i hope so
37:16maybe i am on the way to becoming a proper aussie after all you've got to vote first i'm not allowed to vote
37:23my journey east is taking me along the murrumbidgee river towards the town of gundagai
37:39this region has long been romanticized in australian folklore
37:43including one of my favorite songs along the road to gundagai it expresses a man's yearning for
37:52his childhood home a little shack on the river amongst the gum trees
37:59and since i'm actually on the road to gundagai i'll hum it for you
38:03i'm no singer so perhaps i'm better sticking to poetry and the most famous poem from here
38:20tells the story of a teamster whose wagon gets stuck in a creek just outside gundagai
38:26he comes back to discover his faithful dog sitting on his tucker box guarding his food
38:33this old bush first is so popular there's even a statue commemorating it i had to stop off here
38:40we're just out of gundagai and i remember i came through here in the 60s with my friend ed
38:46ifold and he insisted on us stopping here and and seeing the dog that sat on the tucker box
38:53but he didn't use the word sat i have to say the dog on the tucker box i'd been jilted jarred and
39:01crossed in love and sandbagged in the dark till if a mountain fell on me i treat it as a lark
39:09it's when you get your bullocks bogged that's the time you flog and cry and the dog sat on the tucker box
39:18nine miles from gundagai i'm not sure if sat is actually what was meant
39:30established in the 1830s on the banks of the murrumbidgee gundagai grew into a thriving town
39:37when gold was discovered 20 years later now home to around 2 000 people it's full of traces of
39:44australia's early colonial past which gives it an easy-going nostalgic feel but i've come to
39:53experience something that as a brit you wouldn't expect to find in an aussie country town i remember
39:59when i first came to australia milk bars were all the rage milk bars sold burgers but they were burgers
40:07beyond my wildest dreams i mean a lot of things about australia were quite strange to me then but
40:14once i tasted the burger and then when i also tasted a chocolate malted milkshake
40:20i thought i like this country it was the milkshakes that gave these cafes the name milk bar
40:27and here on gundagai's main drag i've come to pay homage to the country's oldest
40:36the famous niagara cafe built in 1902 it's believed to have been the first greek cafe and milk bar in
40:45australia
40:46and it inspired a wave of aussie greek milk bars around the country that served up some of the best
40:58hamburgers i've ever eaten this is fabulous it's really special all art deco um i don't recall the
41:07milk bars i went to or anything like as grand as this and i know i'm gonna get a good burger
41:13i've stopped here first and foremost to try their aussie burger with the lot and secondly to meet peter
41:21castrician whose family operated the milk bar over a hundred years ago oh coffee thank you very much
41:28beautiful coffee it's such a try
41:32that's good the nyag was one of the places that had coffee back when everyone drank tea so i don't
41:41know it's just grown how come the greeks started all those milk bars so long ago and your family in
41:46particular well um first of all they were good businessmen and um gundagai was a good place to be
41:55because halfway between sydney and melbourne i can remember driving through gundagai right down the
42:00century in the 60s yeah that's right yeah so it was a busy place they thought castrition brothers
42:06refreshment rooms is a bit of a mouthful so they decided on the name niagara which was glamorous
42:15america yeah of course of course so it was this idea of an american sort of milk bar i suppose it was
42:21of course what the kids saw at the movies um particularly in the 50s 60s the americanization
42:27had come in you know like milkshakes carbonated water and they decided we're going to create
42:34australia's wonder cafe and all this the fountain bar the dome ceiling these mirrors all came from
42:44the us all came from america yes what can i do for you oh well i don't need to look at the menu
42:50i just want your classic burger sure thing and do you have a chocolate milkshake malted milkshake we
42:56can do a chocolate malt milkshake for you affection while milk bars like this imitated the american
43:03fast food experience their burgers were uniquely australian i've ordered a classic hamburger with the
43:11lot which always includes slices of canned beetroot it's a mystery as to why beetroot began appearing on
43:19burgers here but it's believed the opening of canneries in australia led to a huge enthusiasm for canned
43:27food across the country great well i'm this is the chocolate malted milkshake i'm hoping just have a
43:38little lovely and cold i love it thank you right always in these aluminium beautiful what what they make
43:47them in yeah oh dear heaven oh here we go thank you so much oh lovely thanks very much wow
44:04well that is really special i mean it's actually i think quite a lot bigger than i remember in the 60s
44:12well maybe as i've just got older and when i was in my early 20s this would have been like that you
44:19know but it's fabulous so we've got cheese egg bacon fried onion patty we've got a tomato lettuce but a
44:31beetroot the beetroot was the thing that that's what made it it was made it and what made it aussie i think
44:38yeah it may have come from the states but they never put beetroot in it i always had beetroot but
44:44and i do remember that i don't know when i was i don't think they'd started putting pineapple in it
44:49that's not my cup of tea but this is yeah this is serious stuff three course mail moment of truth
44:55here you go of course it's a handful isn't it oh oh it takes me right back
45:10yum i just i just love aussie burgers i'm you know when oh i've just got the tomato the beetroot the
45:19beetroot's always got this slightly sort of earthy taste great pat beef patty the lettuce nice crunch
45:28and the egg bit of deluxe-ness there the cheese fabulous it takes me back right do you know what
45:38when i came back from australia years and years ago back to the uk i was determined to open a
45:43hamburger restaurant and i remembered saying to my family no no you don't understand hamburgers it's going
45:49to be an aussie hamburger restaurant well i opened a fish restaurant but hey ho still time
45:57do you think so peter yeah of course
46:03long before the niagara cafe put gundagai on the map the town was famous for a far more notorious legend
46:10born of the gold rush the discovery of gold in australia in the 1850s brought an influx of people
46:18and huge amounts of wealth to towns like gundagai these riches were also a magnet for robbers who hid
46:25in a bush and conducted hold-ups on the unguarded roads in and out of the town they were called bush
46:31rangers and one of them is buried here in gundagai's main cemetery i'm fascinated by bush rangers i don't
46:39know why it is but so many of us have this sort of affection for the likes of i don't know robin hood
46:46or dick turpin or ned kelly there's there's something about this idea that they were robbing
46:52from the rich to give to the poor which is absolute rubbish actually they were just you know poor desperate
46:58criminals but i'm looking here for where a particularly notorious bush ranger is buried
47:06one andrew george scott known as captain moonlight
47:14in 1879 he was passing through this area with a small crew including james nesbitt who was very
47:21close to him not far out of gundagai he and his crew visited a station where he took the occupants
47:29they didn't harm them but took their food using their piano and stole their clothes
47:35eventually the police arrived and a gunfight ensued at the end of it a policeman was dead
47:40and so were all but two of moonlight's gang most notably nesbit had died and scott was found
47:49weeping next to his body and this is a quote his leader wept over him like a child laid his head
47:57upon his breast and kissed him passionately scott or captain moonlight as he called himself
48:04was captured by police as he grieved he was taken back to sydney where he was tried
48:10and hanged finally here it is andrew george scott captain moonlight and it says born ireland
48:22eighth of the first 1845 died sydney 20th of the first 1880 so it's 35 years old as to a monumental
48:33stone a rough unhewn rock would be most fit one that skilled hands could have made into
48:40something better it will be like those it marks as kindness and charity could have shaped us to
48:48better ends andrew george scott and this is from the letters from moonlight wrote from darlinghurst
48:57jail in sydney about his feelings he poured his heart onto the page requesting to be buried with his
49:04dearest jim we were one in heart and soul he died in my arms i long to join him where there should be no
49:13more parting there's been some debate of course about whether they were lovers but of course they were
49:19a century later two local women campaigned to have captain moonlight's remains
49:26re-buried here uh near the unmarked grave of jim james nesbitt that's what's happened but what is
49:36really great it's now a heritage listed site
49:43he probably didn't want to end up as a bush ranger but now he's been reinvented as a sort of
49:50folklore hero one of the things i'm sort of thinking about australia i came here in the 60s
49:55with a bit of a sort of difficult time with my family and i suddenly realized i could do what i
50:00liked and i think there is a sense of sort of reinvention about life here anyway whether you fail
50:08or succeed at reinventing yourself the important thing is being prepared to give it a go and i think
50:14that spirit still lives on in places like the riverina which is what i'm paying tribute to in
50:21this new recipe it's my take on a great italian classic so this is ragu of slow cooked beef with
50:29pappardelli so the beef i'm using for slow cooking is shin of beef now if you were to slice it and fry it
50:38it would be so tough but over two two and a half hours all that connective tissue is going to melt
50:45and give you this luscious taste so the first thing i need to do is fry this beef off
50:54just add a bit of olive oil in the pan just putting my pieces of beef in there i don't need to cut the
51:01beef up much at this stage and at the end of the slow cooking i'm actually going to pull the meat apart
51:06with a couple of forks also going to add some vegetables often we call that in the trade of
51:13miroquois two carrots two celery sticks two garlic cloves and one onion should be enough i'm sure that
51:21beef's ready for turning now yeah look at that and that will just add a great color and caramel flavor
51:34to the finished dish nice and brown now so out there you go and in go my veg
51:46i often ask myself why is that the classic miroquois the classic combination i.e celery carrot
51:54onion and garlic i don't know honestly i suppose the flavors work together so so well you've got
52:01the sweetness of the carrot and the onion you've got the garlic flavor of course which you need
52:08but also you've got the herby taste from the celery it's sort of like a perfect combination i think
52:15smelling very lovely smelling very like a stew now i'm just going to add back my beef
52:23and now add the rest of the ingredients and that's the great thing about this stew once you've got this
52:33far or this ragu everything else gets put in and then a slow cook first of all tomato just tin tomato
52:42put in half a can then add 500 ml of beef stock
52:50red wine about 300 ml if you can afford it something like shiraz really full-bodied wine is great there
53:00some aromatics a couple of bay leaves and some
53:03time and finally from griffith from piccolo farm in okoto and it's actually sort of reduced grape juice
53:11it's delicious and you can pour it over strawberries but also it gives a real lift and a bit of a
53:18sweetness to a good ragu so now all i have to do is put a lid on here and leave it to bubble away gently
53:27but i will check it just after about two hours just to see if the beef is falling apart
53:41so two hours has passed just have a look at this now they're smelling wonderful but there's quite a
53:49lot of juice still in there of sauce still in there i'm just going to turn the heat right up now
53:54and just reduce it down a little bit so now just to cook the pasta the pappardelle you're just going
53:59to season it with salt a couple of teaspoons and then in goes the pappardelle and because this is
54:06fresh pappardelle it'll only take a minute or two to cook if you can't make or buy fresh pasta don't
54:12worry dried is fine you'll just need to cook it a little bit longer so that's reduced down and
54:17wonderfully look at that now i'm just going to taste it now for seasoning put a little bit of salt
54:24in early i'm just going to put a bit more and a bit of pepper
54:3110 turns i always go for minimum that'll be fine now i'm going to start pulling the beef apart
54:40this is one of those occasions where i will end up with my shirt covered in beef and sauce
54:45i think as you can see this is really quite a different finished sauce to bolognese which is made
54:50with mince smelling delicious so that's already cooked the pasta just lifting it out so some of
54:58the pasta water will thin it up a little bit i like the ribbon pappardelle because the large surface area
55:06of the pasta allows the sauce to cling to it in a pleasing way so now just tossing this over a bit
55:14in the in the pasta so i'm now just going to finish that with some olive oil and parmesan
55:28lots of parmesan
55:35this ragu is so different it's slow cooked beef to ragu bolognese i mean that's lovely but this is
55:41really deeper rounder more comforting i suppose i think i can taste i can indeed
55:48taste a of a hint of that vinocotto i put in there but it's optional of course but
55:56isn't food a cheering up sort of thing i mean it's a bit of a dull day it's an instantly made me feel
56:03more happy and jolly but it's crying out for a gulp of red
56:11now perfection is achieved
56:16join me next time on the final leg of my trip around new south wales
56:21such a serene and green part of australia the south coast where i'll savour some south coast
56:27favourites how many oysters can an oyster shaka shaka delicious sweet and try the unexpected
56:35this is our yellowfin tuna and pistachio salami sensational though i'll take that
56:41best australian fish pie i've ever had oh in fact it's the only australian fish
56:45fish pie i've ever had but it's absolutely delicious
56:57so
57:15so
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