The official AFC Asian Cup Facebook page seems to have decided a question which has agonised Australians for years by declaring the meat pie our national dish.
The page has put together the “national dishes” of the countries participating. Snuggled among machboos for Kuwait and sushi for Japan is the meat pie for Australia.
The question of whether the pie truly is our national dish has been live for decades, perhaps ever since English agriculture displaced Indigenous diets during colonisation.
Egypt is actually one of the first countries to have dined on the meat pie. It was a common dish in northern Europe since at least the 1300s, when it began to take the form we are so familiar with today.
Kangaroo is always a contender, and though Australia may be the only country to eat one of its national emblems, it’s not popular enough to gain national dish status.
Barbecued anything could surely be a favourite on any bookie’s list – though America’s south may have a stronger claim – and pavlova, as any Australian worth their Vegemite knows, is actually a Kiwi dish.
So we will throw it over to you, what’s Australia’s national dish?
