I have been very remiss on the food updates. Time for a long post.

We need to start in New Zealand where various people offered me interesting substances. There were Toffee Pops, which are rather like flat, round Twixes. They were nice, but not a patch on Tim Tams, I’m afraid. Rather more interesting were Pineapple Chunks – lumps of pineapple-flavored candy coated in chocolate. The candy can be either chewy or crunchy, which may depend on the ambient temperature or on the batch – no one seems quite sure.

Also found in New Zealand, though it is originally from South America, is the feijoa, a type of fruit related to the guava. I had a feijoa smoothie at it was quite pleasant. Despite what Wikipedia says, the Kiwis pronounce it fey-joe-uh. Us Californians know better.

Finally in New Zealand there was the great Mars v Moro taste test. This, you will recall, was all about the Mars Bar (made by Mars, and not called Mars in the US) and the seemingly identical Moro Bar (made by Cadbury’s), both of which are available in NZ. Having done a back-to-back tasting I can confirm Peter Hamilton’s judgment that the Moro is much less sickly-sweet. Whether this is a good thing or not is open to debate, as I suspect it means you can eat a lot more of them in one go.

In Australia I mainly contented myself with checking out new varieties of Tim Tams. I particular like the Black Forest variety in the Sweet Surrender range. I also discovered the new Tim Tam Crush range, which is a different shaped biscuit. I have tried the honeycomb and a mint flavor, and I have a cookies & cream packet yet to sample. They are nice, but I much prefer the traditional biscuits.

While the eating in Adelaide was very good, there was little in the way of bush food. Even the cheeses we bought from the market were French. So for my last night here I determined to find something Australian to eat. The hotel restaurant obliged. For starters I had Morton Bay Bugs (a type of small lobster) done like a prawn cocktail. The main course was Barramundi with stuffed squid in a bouillabaisse sauce. And for dessert I tried some local cheeses from Raw Materials in Gippsland. The cheddar was pretty good, though not very strong by Somerset farm standards. The blue was OK, though a bit uneven in texture, but I’m sorry to say that the “brie” tasted nothing like brie.

Seeing that I was dining alone, my waitress offered to fetch me something to read. I ended up with some copies of Australian Vogue and was astonished to discover from it that Australia is now officially the most obese nation on Earth. And this from a nation that is supposedly obsessed with sport! Obviously they all only watch it these days. I know I have eaten too much while I have been on the road. I ought to go out and walk. But I have a luxury hotel bathroom at my disposal, and a new flavor of Lush bath bomb. I’ll start the exercise regime tomorrow.