Monday, August 25, 2008

Hot Dogs and Sausage Rolls

The church bulletin said: Family luncheon 24 August. Bring enough sausage rolls for your family. We are having soup, rolls and dessert.

So the night before, we went shopping at Coles and bought a pack of 6 hot dog rolls and some nice frankfurters.

In the morning, CA grilled the frankfurters, and we brought the whole lot to the church kitchen. Mindful of bacteria growing if we left the cooked meat at room temperature, we bunged them in the fridge.

At lunchtime, I went a-hunting for said frankfurters so we could warm them up.

I was a bit puzzled that I couldn't see heaps and heaps of cooked frankfurters anywhere.

Not even a hot dog roll.

What had everyone else brought?

I made discreet inquiries of the people helping to get lunch ready.

They laughed, but not in an unkind manner.

One of them opened the multi-tiered oven (reminds me of the steamer the coffee shops use for displaying "bao" back home), and there, stacked to the gills, were trays and trays of sausage rolls.

The Aussie kind, with flaky pastry and minced meat.

We usually find them in the frozen food section of the supermarket, along with spring rolls, dim sims and party pies.

Thus began my journey of discovery into another uniquely Aussie icon.

Lesson learnt: Hot Dogs are not Sausage Rolls, and Sausages, Frankfurters and Saveloys mean different things.

The best explanation I could find was in this ABC Forum. What a godsend.

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