Airdate: Destination Flavour Down Under

Adam Liaw returns to SBS next week with Destination Flavour Down.

After a season in Japan he is now celebrating the food heroes of Australia and New Zealand.

In this gastronomic road trip of a lifetime, Adam travels along the untouched beauty of Australia’s Western Coast, through the baking desert of the Red Centre and onto the tree changer’s paradise of northern New South Wales, taking in secret destinations that most city-dwellers wouldn’t even know exist. But his journey doesn’t end there. Adam then hops over the ditch and gets back in the driver’s seat for a culinary cruise through New Zealand. In New Zealand, like Australia, he discovers some of the world’s most spectacular scenery and delicious food treats.

Throughout his journey Adam meets and celebrates a whole new cast of farmers, foragers, artisan food producers, chefs and winemakers, all with appetising stories to tell. They are real people with real stories and their passion, innovation and dedication is what inspires Adam to use their ingredients to create some delicious new dishes.

Adam’s journey begins at the northernmost tip of Western Australia in small Aboriginal communities, where conservation and community come first. Down south, in the state’s wheat-belt, he unexpectedly finds ancient foods from across the globe including Egyptian sheep, Italian and Croatian fruit and South American grain. Over in neighbouring South Australia on the Eyre Peninsula, where he spent his childhood holidays, he explores the region’s huge variety of seafood. Then he travels up to the Northern Territory for camel mince, crocodile steaks, barramundi and bush fare.

In Queensland, Adam follows his tastebuds from one tropical treat to another, and eats a simple, but splendid crab sandwich. In northern New South Wales he finds an abundance of sea and tree changers escaping from city life, and following their foodie dreams with produce such as lemon myrtle, chooks and mulloway. On a motorbike tour of the Victorian High Country his major aim is to unearth the ingredients needed for the perfect picnic.

Adam then begins a culinary tour through New Zealand. It’s here that he gets a taste of famous export crops and Māori tradition in the form of a ‘Hāngi’ and cooking at an iconic New Zealand ‘bach’ on the North Island. It’s a quick ferry ride across the Cook Straight to the South Island, where he samples greenshell mussels and crayfish, known as rock lobsters, enchanted by outstanding scenery along the way. Adam meets a local hunter who has collected boar, deer and a hare for him. With the snow dusted Remarkables mountain range as a backdrop, he creates the final dish of the show, a hearty New Zealand hunter’s pie, washed down with a glass of red in front of the fire.

From the dusty heat of the Australian outback, to the lushness of leafy northern New South Wales, from the rugged regional centres in Australia, to the picturesque countryside in New Zealand, Adam shares his passion for all things food and travel in Destination Flavour Down Under premiering on 31 July from 8pm on SBS ONE.

Episode One:
Adam is in the “pearling capital” of Australia, Broome, looking forward to heading up to the northernmost tip of Western Australia, Cape Leveque. Many think of Far North Queensland as Australia’s tropical food hotspot, but he discovers that tropical cuisine is also found in many Broome backyards thanks to Asian pearlers. A local Indigenous jam producer takes Adam to Cape Leveque where he learns the importance of self-sufficiency in small Aboriginal communities, and sees that many businesses are putting community and conservation first. Adam collects wild gubinge, also known as Kakadu plum, mango and tamarind and makes ice-cream for the school kids. He is taken mud-crabbing at low tide along inland river beds, investigates sustainable methods at a trochus hatchery, and plays deckhand on a pearling boat, tasting fresh pearl meat. Adam cooks up chilli, tamarind and mango mud crab at a magnificent beach where red earth meets pure white sand and turquoise waters.

Thursdays at 8pm from 31 July on SBS ONE