Originally Posted by cheebacheeba
Squid and Octopus aren't considered exotic here at all really...squid is more common though I'd say.
Even kids eat squid, as fast food, crumbed and fried with chips (er, thicker fries).
A very popular cafe/bar dish here is
salt & pepper squid
in which the outside of the squid is scored and tossed in a seasoned flour, and flash fried so it cooks just right (which is fuck all) and the outside gets crispy. Usually served in quite an uninspiring way atop a bed of roquette (arugula) under a light dressing.
We have a large asian population here, and they're big with the seafood...so I see a lot of it, and it's quite often in stirfry.
Octopus I actually love. Love. love. LOVE.
It's nowdays often served at places that have grilled/fried fish etc.
Usually baby octopus. Whole thing fits in your hand.
I love it grilled, and lends itself really well to thai seasoning, goes great on its own or in salad.
Often served on sticks at a bbq with nothing but a lemon squeeze.
Big Octopus can be rolled, tentacles out, tied into a ball, trussed and immersed in a seasoned liquid (water, white wine, peppercorn, bay leaf, lemon...that kinda thing), boiled until tender, refrigerated whereby the galatinous content adheres it all together, at which point you can untie it, and slice along the entire thing...it makes a cool white coloured slice with purple channels through it.
You can eat that on a salad, on its own, even on top of a soup or laksa.
Mussels and Duck are pretty commonplace too, usually used in italian and Chinese/malaysian cuisine respectively.
Exotic?
So we're not talking beef and chicken, or turkey right?
Well, here you can get Lamb a lot which I understand is not super-available in a
lot of parts in the world.
Pretty much all seafood you can think of, we can get.
What else...these are commonplace:
Goat.
Camel.
Crocodile.
Moreton Bay Bugs (this is a shellfish here)
Kangaroo.
Eel.
Venison.
Of course there's a whole bunch of smaller birds that we can access to eat here too, cornish hen, pheasant, pigeon, quail. Ones like that.
Little less common:
Snake
Emu
Wild Boar
Goose
Razor Clams.
Asian restaurants serve jellyfish, and bullfrog.
...and you may have heard of our Aboriginal people and their "bush tucker", which includes the witchetty grub, which is like a large hairless caterpillar type thing that lives in, and feeds on the insides of trees.
They're served various ways, some are eaten raw.
A popular way seems to just be to cook the things on fire/roast them...They get crispy, and from what I've heard the inside (mainly processed wood I guess) is similar to eating potato.
I have not myself tried these, and I'm not entirely sure if there's any farms or suppliers, or if it's a "harvest yourself" type thing.
That's all I can really think of.
You should try a thai green curry next time.
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