Pie in the sky

From footy stands to petrol stations, the Aussie meat pie is everywhere. LEE TRAN LAM discovers how food personalities from across the country would reinvent this icon today.

- LEE TRAN LAM

The Australian meat pie descends from medieval European "coffins": bland pastry parcels meant to preserve the food they contained (and not originally meant to be eaten). After British settlement, the meat pie became one of Australia's first fast foods. Wandering vendors sold them on 19th-century streets: they'd stab pastry tops with their thumbs and fill the resulting holes with "gravy" (glorified salty water), according to Jan O'Connell, author of A Timeline on Australian Food.

Thankfully, the meat pie has evolved in more hygienic ways. Food Standards Australia New Zealand has strict rules about the selling of this staple: it must contain at least 25 per cent meat flesh (with pastry, gravy and vegetables likely filling the rest). This dish also keeps progressing with our culinary landscape. Chan and Ryan Khun are four-time winners of Australia's best pie: the owners of Victoria's Country Cob bakeries have been awarded for flavours - like caramelised pork and pepper - that reflect their Cambodian migrant roots. Here's how other industry talents would rethink this Aussie classic. 

COREY GRECH
Native Foodways, NSW
Kangaroo chilli pie

 
Corey Grech's meat pie is far from theoretical: it's something you can try at Native Foodways, the First Nations bakery he oversees in Sydney's CBD. "For 60,000 years or more, First Nations people have been sustainably living with kangaroos," says the Gamilaraay, Wonnarua and Wayan (Weilwan) chef. He believes the meat pie is the best introductory format for this native protein. To offset kangaroo's gamey taste, he adds Sichuan-style tingles of pepperberry and unique kicks of saltbush. "It gives a flavour like nobody knows about." Grech first sold this pastry at the Koori Knockout, an Indigenous rugby league event that's been running for more than 50 years.

This is a footy pie that symbolises the landscape that's endured here for millennia.