Phar Lap, fair enough. The horse was born 150 kilometres south of Christchurch before crossing the ditch to find fame. Ditto for Russell Crowe, his paperwork I mean. Born there; came here. A larrikin actor we like to call ours even though we know he’s really theirs.
Crowded House – half/half? Anzac biscuits – let’s split the difference. History says the recipe emerged from both sides of the Tasman in sync, a moreish mouthful to help the Great War effort. So long as neither nation calls them Anzac cookies, we can rest easy.
Yet not for long. Did you read the news? As if owning the Bledisloe Cup isn’t enough, New Zealand is ruining the neighbourhood by making frivolous claims over the fence. Their Long White Cloud carries a sniff of outrage – and onions. Dear citizens, we have a fresh war on our hands. Because where there’s smoke, there’s a sausage sizzle. Joel MacManus, a Wellington journo for The Spinoff, a NZ website covering culture and politics, began the stink. His recent piece asserted the sausage sizzle to be a local creation. Tongs snapping, stakeholders have come from all corners, each party claiming the phrase their own.
Okay, I can cop the pavlova, as much as it hurts. I mean that high-rise meringue is my ancestry, with Grandma Jess trowelling the fruit-topped marvel with extra cream. Only for Professor Helen Leach, a culinary anthropologist, to put her fingerprints on the memory. In her book, The Pavlova Story, Leach avows the cake a Kiwi treat devised (with recipe published) in Aotearoa in 1929, years before our lot preheated the oven.
Then there was the lamington fraud, shared via The Guardian. Olaf Priol wrote the article back in April 2014, which should have rung alarm bells. His story presented a painting called Summer Pantry (1888), depicting a nibbled lamington on the table, despite the cake not existing until eight years later. Where? At a civic bash in Queensland, celebrating that state’s governor Lord Lamington.
Olaf Priol? Try April fool, the claim as spurious as this latest Sausage Sizzle Scandal, with MacManus presenting news of a “popular girl sausage sizzle” in Hamilton in 1942. Allegedly this contrasts with the first Oz citation in Forbes, the junior women hosting a Full Moon Sausage Sizzle in 1946.
We say tomato sauce; they say tomato really. However you shake the bottle, a Guy Fawkes soiree in Adelaide (1939) boasted a “sausage buffet” with “sausages sizzling”, and that’s just those events reaching the press. Nor do sandgropers help, with WA treating sausage sizzle as its label for snag-in-bread, long before that Hamilton picnic. Messy as a mustard squirt, the whole debate only proves how primacy is often smoke and mirrors.
Of course, the weekend perfume of a Bunnings forecourt deepens our communal ties to the phrase. As does the fundraising nuance, the sizzle traditionally organised to benefit Gallipoli or Werribee Primary, say.
Then you have our own election day ritual, a custom the Kiwis have been slow to mimic. Come the wash-up, however, Kiwis can keep their pavlova. I never liked meringue anyway, but the sacred sizzle isn’t budging. And should any outsider place dibs on the democracy sausage, they’d best prepare for a full grilling.
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David Astle is the crossword compiler and Wordplay columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is a broadcaster on ABC Radio Melbourne.
