Acacia lay dormant for a while after our time in Glastonbury. At first I spent some time working with Wells Cathedral School's kitchen team, an independent, specialist music school in Somerset, to help them re-work their vegetarian and vegan menus. I then moved to Australia for a year and half, where my story with food unfolded further. I had some misconceptions about Australia immediately dashed: that there would be little ethnic diversity among its' population, a poor range and quality of food and little to learn about food. How wrong I was. Australia is, and has been for centuries, a mecca of migration. With its' emigres have come a global food culture; most notably that of Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan.
For a cuisine renowned for its' use of meat, I was heartened to see such variety of vegetarian options on Korean restaurant menus - a cuisine I'd been intrigued by, but knew little about. A memorable meal was had at Miss Korea, in Camberwell, Melbourne, with my travelling partner Jonny. We were welcomed in by gracious and warm staff and began the meal with a seaweed salad and some steamed mandoo (dumplings), delicacies in every sense. Packing so much potency of flavour into dishes so light and fresh is a feat in itself. Of course the dumplings came alongside a dipping sauce, delivering the ultimate in umami. Whilst I tend to go for fried dumplings generally, I admit, when a sauce is this good, you want them steamed so they're more spongy, to soak up that juice!
For the main I went for the ubiquitous dish of Korea, first recorded over 400 years ago, a bibimbap; a bowl of steamed rice, typically topped with sauteed vegetables, gochuchang (a chili paste containing fermented soybeans) and a raw egg yolk. My salmon dolsot-bibimbap (hot stone-bibimbap) was served in a stone bowl, which is heated, coated in sesame oil, before the rice is added, to have it crisp up to a crust. If I wasn't already converted to Korean food, then this sealed the deal! Far too often in restaurants poached or steamed fish is overcooked. This elegant dish, it's many flavours and textures complementing beautifully, came topped with a fillet of sumptuous salmon, perfectly poached. After this experience, early on in my Australian travels, I sought out Korean food often, though none ever quite lived up to Miss Korea's immaculate standards.
Sorry to put a downer on the tale, but some months after this I gave up eating salmon in Australia, as it turned out all Australian salmon is farmed in Tasmania, in conditions disastrous to the local ecosystem and the local inhabitants water supply; the biggest player of the industry being Huon who fill the shelves and counters of all supermarkets. While campaigners are active in pushing those involved to address the problems caused by the industry, aggrievedly, little is being done, besides plans for filtration of the drinking water supply. It would seem that Huon salmon's RSPCA certification is no more than confirmation that the salmon themselves are in good shape, rather than the local environment as a whole. If even that much is true...
