The Australian Food an Expat Actually Misses

By Arthur Hodgson, Hamper Packing Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

An Australian food hamper is only Australian if you can name the makers. The things people ask for are specific: macadamias still in the shell, boiled sweets from Ballarat, proper Anzac biscuits, crackers made with wattleseed. We deliver within Australia, so the box goes to the family at home rather than across an ocean.

I pack these boxes for a living, and the Australian brief is the easiest one to get wrong. A kangaroo on the label is not the same thing as a food that means something to the person opening it. What carries is provenance you can say out loud: the town, the family, the factory floor.

The test before you buy anything

Three questions for everything going in the box. Who made it. Where. Would you name them out loud when the lid comes off. Anything that fails all three is packaging, and packaging is what makes an Australian gift feel like something bought at an airport on the way to the gate.

It matters more in December than the rest of the year, because that parcel is often the only thing a household receives from someone who could not be there. The Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper at $199.95 is our answer to that brief at the top of the range, and the rest of the Christmas hampers range sits under it.

Five things that actually get missed

1. Macadamias still in the shell. Nutworks roast on the Queensland Sunshine Coast, and the pack people remember is the nut-in-shell one. Easy Crack vanilla macadamias are $13.90 for 200g, with two small keys in the bag: you slot a key into the cut in the shell and twist. It is slow, fiddly and completely absorbing on a couch in December, which is half the appeal. The flavoured 75g packs are $7.95 each, and the range runs from roast salt and rosemary through to wasabi, manuka honey and a finger lime and jalapeno.
2. Boiled sweets from Ballarat. Sovereign Hill lollies are hand-made to a traditional recipe at Brown's Confectionery Factory on the Sovereign Hill site. Raspberry drops are $9.95 for 185g and the rest of the range is the same price: acid drops, barley sugar, salted caramel, strawberries and cream, rainbow shells. The eucalyptus drops are the sleeper pick, a boiled sweet that tastes of gum leaves, which is about as Australian as a lolly gets.
3. Anzac biscuits made to a family recipe. Jen's traditional Anzac biscuits are $9.95 for 300g, baked to recipes handed down through the family. Anzacs are the biscuit people try to recreate abroad and rarely nail, because the texture depends on how far you take the butter and golden syrup before the oats go in. If you are buying more than one, nearly every pack in the Jen's range is the same $9.95, so a mixed box of six costs the same as six of one.
4. Crackers with native flavours. Valley Produce Company's native artisan crackers are $7.69 for 100g, in wattleseed and fig and a Kakadu plum and basil. Wattleseed tastes roasted and faintly of coffee, and it does more work beside a mild cheese than an imported water cracker ever will. This is the one that surprises people: a native flavour used properly rather than as a novelty.
5. Shortbread in a tin worth keeping. Valley Produce Company's Australian-made shortbread comes in wattle, gumnut blossom, waratah, bottlebrush and Aussie birds designs, at $12.95 for the 180g tube and $19.95 for the tin. The tin is the point. It outlives the shortbread by years and ends up in a kitchen drawer holding rubber bands, which is a fair definition of a gift that lands.

Nothing on that list is expensive. Those five come to under $60 together, taking the shortbread tube rather than the tin, which is worth knowing before you start at the top of the price list.

The box that does all of it at once

If you would rather send one parcel than build a shopping list, the Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper is $199.95 and it draws on the same makers. St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon from South Australia sits at the centre, with two craft beers from Bells Beach Brewing in Victoria, the Endless Summer and the Hells Bells XPA. Around them: Nutworks roast salt nut-in-shell macadamias, Kangaroo Island honey popcorn made with honey from the island's Ligurian bees, Kangaroo Island Mediterranean olives, Valley Produce Company olive oil and sea salt pita, a fig and almond fruit pyramid, macadamia shortbread, milk chocolate roasted almonds, and Bundaberg rum liqueur truffles from Chocolatier. It goes out in our French blue box with a gold ribbon.

It holds wine and beer, so it is a gift for an adult household rather than an office reception. Where that does not suit, the Foodies Hamper is $79.95 and alcohol free, built on Valley Produce Company crackers, and it can go to a share house or a workplace without anyone having to think about it.

Ordering from the other side of the world

Being in another time zone does not stop you sending one. We deliver Australia-wide, the gift card is written out here at no extra cost, and the person paying never has to appear on the doorstep. What we cannot do is post food out of Australia. Every country sets its own food import rules and they change, so a hamper leaving the country is not something we take on. If you are sending in the other direction, sending a Christmas hamper to Australia from overseas covers the ordering side properly.

Timing is what catches people out at this distance. Everything is packed by hand in Corio, on the northern edge of Geelong, and orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day. Australia Post confirms its Christmas dates in October and mid-December is the practical limit in a busy year, so order in the first half of the month and the time difference stops mattering. Shipping is free Australia-wide once an order passes $100.

Questions we get asked

What Australian food can you post overseas?

We deliver within Australia and do not post hampers overseas, so this is not ours to answer on your behalf. If you are sending a parcel yourself, the rules belong to the destination country rather than to Australia, and they change. Check that country's customs or biosecurity authority first. Sealed, shelf-stable, commercially labelled food gives the least trouble; honey, meat, dairy and anything fresh is where parcels get stopped.

What do Australians living abroad miss most?

The requests are consistent year to year. Macadamias in the shell, boiled sweets, Anzac biscuits and buttery shortbread come up more than anything else, well ahead of the famous spreads people joke about. It is rarely one flagship item. It is usually a small everyday thing that turns out to be unavailable everywhere else.

What is in a Taste of Australia hamper?

Ours holds St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon from South Australia, two Bells Beach Brewing craft beers from Victoria, Nutworks nut-in-shell macadamias, Kangaroo Island honey popcorn and Mediterranean olives, Valley Produce Company pita, fruit pyramid and macadamia shortbread, milk chocolate roasted almonds, and Bundaberg rum liqueur truffles. It is $199.95, packed in a French blue box with a gold ribbon.

If you are choosing one thing to send this year, start with the Taste Australia Gourmet Hamper and read it as a list of makers rather than a list of products. If you would rather set the bigger boxes side by side first, our shortlist of the best Christmas hampers in Australia does that.