GREEN SHED BISTRO
Beechworth, Victoria

It was the bloody whitebait debate all over again. In the charming old town of Beechworth, Victoria, in the middle of Ned Kelly country, I felt I had got involved in a holdup.

The menu said “whitebait”. I said “bullshit”. I could not believe that genuine New Zealand whitebait could find its way to Kelly country on the Victorian-New South Wales border. I suspected it was either Taiwanese trash or sardines.

The waitress said they were “whitebait”.When asked where it came from she said “ South Australia”. Cover blown. Even Ned Kelly couldn’t have said that with a straight face. I actually went into the kitchen and even the chef assured me it was genuine whitebait. And so I ordered it. And it was ----- sardines!!!

Don’t people understand what they are selling? Greek restaurants all over the world – including my favourite Remvi in Melbourne – call sardines “whitebait”. It is just not true. It is false advertising. They are selling small sardines.

The Canadians call them, “smelts”. But they are not whitebait. I am a whitebait expert. Recently, on a trip to New Zealand, the “land of the long white shroud” I paid more than $100 to buy some of the fleeting silver fish for a family dinner of whitebait fritters.

Long gone are the days when, in season, a silver carpet of whitebait would fill the refrigerated window of the local fish shop. Long gone even are the days when my Dad, a bus driver, would bring home a four gallon tin of whitebait given to him by the Maori women in Mokau.

On my last visit to Aotearoa I bought enough to feed six people. And I personally cooked. It.

I did it traditionally right. No flour in the briskly-whisked batter. A smidgen of milk if you insist. To ease the batter. Just genuine New Zealand, silvery, slinky whitebait in small flat fritters cooked quickly in hot butter.

The Green Shed Bistro in Beechworth should not be chastised too hard. The staff is cheery and obliging. Their food is good. And varied.

Roast chicken with spinach sounds pretty ordinary but a pan fried duck breast with root vegetables and cumquat sauce looked good at the next table.`

The eclectic menu also features everything from pizza to cuttlefish risotto and baked scallops from Tasmania. That I believe.

And the local cold climate chardonnays and sauv blancs are pretty good. It was just the bloody non-whitebait that got my goat.

August 2004