The latest in Australian food news

From the science behind why your takeaway food tastes so much better the next day and a surprising accolade for an Australian classic to a promising forecast for our 2020 winter crops, here are some tasty local food news tidbits you might have missed.

Here today, better tomorrow

If you think your home-delivered pizza tastes better the next day, you’re far from alone. Deliveroo has released results from a survey that found 55% of Australians prefer their takeaway food the next day. The survey also found that 48% of Australians purposefully over-order their takeaway in order to enjoy the leftovers the next day. So which cuisine is officially the best-tasting the morning after?

Top takeaway leftovers:

1. Pizza – 62%
2. Desserts – 33%
3. Salads – 31%
4. Chinese – 21%
5. Thai – 21%
6. Pasta – 19%
7. Fried chicken – 19%
8. Indian – 17%
9. Vietnamese–  11%
10. Mexican – 9%

But why does your takeaway taste so much better the next day? According to nutritionist and food scientist Dr Hazel MacTavish, your food doesn’t stop changing once it’s pulled from the oven. It’s in a constant state of chemical alteration, and ultimately, the flavours combine and shift over time. “The reheated food may taste more savoury, and the overall flavour is more mellow and balanced,” she says. “Specific flavours dominate less, and the perception of flavour is improved.”

Well, there you go. Science with extra pepperoni. But no pineapple, thanks.

US ranks Four’N Twenty as a “must-try”

While we wouldn’t exactly call it a sandwich, we’ll take the win anyway. The Four’N Twenty Traveller Beef & Cheese Pastry has been named as a top 10 must-try sandwich in a new list from American news website CSP Daily News.

The publication recently released a ranking of America’s “30 Must-Try Sandwiches for 2020”, with the Beef & Cheese Traveller coming in eighth place, keeping company alongside majorly established American brands such as 7-Eleven, Burger King and McDonald’s.

Stocked in Rutter’s stores all throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia since 2018, the Four’N Twenty Traveller Beef & Cheese pastry has proven to be a hit with the Yanks. While we enjoy a pie with the footy, Americans can buy a Four’N Twenty at the basketball, with the pastries regularly sold at Philadelphia 76ers games.

Some Four’N Twenty fast facts:

1. One Four’N Twenty classic meat pie is eaten every 1.4 seconds each day.
2. Four’N Twenty produces 19,000 pies per hour in Australia.
3. Around the world, 58,000 Four’N Twenty pies are eaten every day

Good news for our winter crops

Australia’s winter crop planting is set to climb by over 25% this year on the back of widespread and well-timed rainfall across most of the country. After prolonged drought conditions, which delivered three years of decline in our grain production and exports, global agribusiness specialist Rabobank is forecasting the nation’s crop planting to be up by 26% on last season to 22.5 million hectares. This is 12% above the five-year average.

Combined with forecast above-average rainfall for the critical growing season ahead, this should deliver Australia an average to above-average winter grain crop. Much of this improvement will occur in the previously-droughted cropping regions of the eastern states, with NSW-planted area forecast to be up by a whopping 95% and Queensland by 44%.

For wheat, the report says a total harvest volume of 26 million tonnes is “not unrealistic, given our expectations for hectares planted this year”.

Rabobank senior grains and oilseeds analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon says the promising crop outlook is welcome news for Australia’s agricultural sector after years of drought and the severe disruptions of summer bushfires and COVID-19 in the first half of 2020.

“While it’s still around six months until the grain is in the bin, all the hallmarks of an above-average season are now falling into place,” she says.

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