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The yearly round of Australian Restaurant awards, wine list competitions, wine shows and tourism awards raises again the debate about whether there is a distinctive Australian regional cooking. There are certainly lots of new restaurant and cooking trends. There is lots of debate about the best wines to accompany the various tastes. Some say that a unique Australian cuisine does not exist at all - everything is borrowed from foreign countries. There is an alternative view that says we do have a distinctive style. Australian newspapers and magazines commonly carry articles about food and restaurants. Many articles are interested in the practice itself of eating out and they have pieces on the culture and ambience of food and restaurants. Many food/restaurant critics have no doubt about distinctive Australian cooking - not only has it been recognisable for a decade or so, but it is developing , maturing and subdividing itself into groupings. Recognisable Australian cooking may have originally borrowed foreign flavours. However, the modern Australian style produces the food with the borrowed idea being a subtle influence only. New adventurous combinations of food flavours have been developed and these are not recognisable elsewhere. Good contemporary Aussie cooking is characterised by fresher food with essentially simpler cooking. However, flavours are bold particularly in the teamed up combination of ingredients. Asian and Mediterranean influences in the construction of a dish are the biggest current trends. The food may not be an Asian or Mediterranean meal in its own right - it is the influence which is important.

Recent cook books published reveal the interest in this modern Australian cooking. "Paramount Cooking" by Christine Mansfield and Tony Bilson's "Fine Family Cooking" are fascinating (but not for faint hearted 2 minute quickie meal preparation). Wine accompaniment to exciting food flavours can be very flexible. Pinot Noir is very versatile and teams well with new food. For example, Pinot Noir teams with char-grilled salmon (ie. a red wine with seafood). A dry Gewurztraminer accompanies coconut crusted fish fillet with Asian greens and hot sour sauce. Put a cool climate spicy Shiraz with braised lamb shanks with olives, tomato and rosemary and lemon risotto. A tropical flavour might be panfried barramundi with curried artichoke and caper sauce with crisp fresh young Sauvignon Blanc. There are new wine styles emerging in Australia which offer new food matching possibilities. A strong new style has been the spicy Shiraz style made more in the Rhone Valley "Hermitage" manner than the Aussie classic ripe sweet American oak technique. Sure, lots of consumers have "discovered" red wine with this rich soft flavour. It remains a great style and is very well suited to sweet meat dishes such as lamb and veal. Spicy lighter drier Shiraz is probably better with Mediterranean flavours and chargrilled food. Light elegant piercingly fresh but dry Riesling is also a new flavour tool. There are also new grapes appearing in Australian vineyards extending consumer choice by offering other flavour dimensions to explore with fine cuisine.