Australia India food trade
The jubilant tone of the Australian High Commissioner Philip Green in the Indian Express on January 1 this year was no declaration of hopeful New Year resolutions, it was a statement of fact. From that day, he said, “no Indian goods face any tariff entering Australia. None. Zilch, nada, zippo across the board. No asterisk. No hash. No fine print … In return many Australian goods now enter India under reduced or zero duties”.
This was, he said, a great opportunity to enhance the Australia-India pact, underpinned by the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA), currently worth upwards of 50 billion AUS. Trade in food makes an important contribution to this amount. Since the 1970s, Australian primary produce exports, mostly legumes and cereals, have bolstered Indian supply of these everyday foodstuffs. Once the ECTA was signed in 2022, tariffs reduced bilaterally, resulting in premium Australian food and beverages, including avocadoes, wine, lamb, almonds and fruit becoming available to Indian consumers. It is an exciting advance, and a contemporary rendition of the food and drink trade between Australia and India which began in the first years of British settlement.
In 1790, New South Wales’ newly settled convicts and officials faced an impending crisis. They had only carried two years of rations, hoping the land they were to occupy would yield a bounty of food from imported seeds. It was a false imagining. The foreign plants failed to thrive in the sandy soil. The colonists lacked the skills to capture native animals for meat or substantively utilise indigenous plant foods. With their supplies depleted, the possibility of starvation loomed. A second shipment of convicts in 1791 meant another 1000 mouths to feed. The colony’s Governor, Arthur Phillip, was compelled to take extraordinary action.
Phillip’s instructions for governing NSW forbade direct engagement with India, to protect the monopoly the East India Company had on trade in Asia. But needs must, so Phillip dispatched the Atlantic to Calcutta, the closest British settlement. Eight months later when the ship returned with rice, “dholl” and “soujee”, the colonists “inexpressible joy” turned to disappointment. They did not understand how to prepare the “different species of provisions” sent out, so the soujee turned sour and the dholl cooked “hard”. The rice was full of husk and the salt pork unfit to eat. No-one complained about the 250 gallons of Bengal rum included in the cargo.
A “satellite of India”
The Indian foodstuffs had eased the colonists’ hunger, but their discontented experience of these, led them hope there would be no future shipments of supplies from the subcontinent.
Instead, the episode opened the way to a buoyant trading relationship between the colonial cousins. The Australians became “indebted” to India for the “comforts” and “luxuries” of their lives; the subcontinent became their main source of imported foods, and the homes of wealthier colonists featured Indian furnishings and textiles, which signalled status and sophistication. India was “the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” in the British Empire, a place British merchants could make stupendous fortunes, live in luxurious homes, attended by numerous servants, and enjoy lavish meals every day. Trading links with India likewise contributed to wealth creation in colonial NSW, and an aspiration to emulate British Indian society.
India was evident in NSW, and later Tasmania, in tastes as well as tangible goods. Early Australian cuisine is egregiously represented as uniformly monotonous and bland. However, spices were a familiar ingredient in upper class colonial cookery, including in ‘curry’. Curry was a term describing both a spiced sauced dish as well as mulligatawny, kedgeree and “kabobs”; hybrid dishes, blending Indian and British elements which symbolised the glorious high living of India for the colonists. Spices sold by Sydney merchants were shipped from India, although selling these did not bring riches. It was another Indian import that did that: rum.
The prominent colonist John Macarthur made himself wealthy in early NSW trading in Bengal rum, and sheep. His household ledgers show regular purchases of spices and curry powder for use in family meals. Anne Marie Macarthur, John’s niece-in-law, was advised to include various curries when hosting NSW high society to dinner. The Blaxlands, another prominent colonial family, enjoyed “all sorts of nice Indian dishes” on their table in the early 1830s.
By 1840, British settlement had expanded across Australia, and the local food supply became more abundant. The food and drink trade with India waned, as did its material and cultural influence. Fashions moved on and curry went from status symbol to unremarked middle class eating. The revitalisation of our trading relationship promises enriched eating ahead in both countries. At the ‘Taste the Wonders of Australia’ event at the Australian High Commission in Delhi last March, guests enjoyed dishes melding Australia and India on the plate, including avocado infused chickpea bhel puri, quandong -tamarind water golgappa, Australian apple and pepperberry jalebi. Come March 2026 and Subko cafes across metropolitan India are featuring an ‘Aussie- Indic’ brunch including avo toasts with crisp Manipuri chilli and eggs benedict with tikka gravy. A taste of things to come.
Read Also: A spirited evolution: How India went from prohibition to pinot Australia India food trade
