adventures in Australian cuisine

I had spaghetti for breakfast this morning. That in itself would be interesting enough, but the funniest part was, the flavor was exactly that of Spaghetti-Os. Seriously. Straight out of the can. I was really surprised the pasta wasn't in rings. (This isn't to say it wasn't delicious, of course; I'm honestly a huge closet fan of Spaghetti-Os, no matter how much they violate every law of what is good and healthy in the world. I just never really thought of them—or anything that tasted exactly like them—as a breakfast food.)

This has been only my latest adventure in what I am discovering to be Australian cuisine. I'm finding that it's a lot like American cuisine, in that it's hard to say exactly what constitutes a "typical Australian" dish; basically, it ends up being everything that's not explicitly "ethnic" food. It doesn't seem to be inherently bad, but I have to admit, what I'm finding so far has often been rather less than inspiring.

My theory is that the basic Australian palate is closely related to that of the British (makes sense, no?). This accounts for the prevalence of the term "chips" in referring to fried bits of potato, as well as such interesting concepts as baked beans as a breakfast food, and the horror that is Vegemite. (Seriously, how do they eat that stuff?)

However, there is significant Asian influence as well, undoubtedly due to the large immigrant population. This means that for every egg and mayonaise sandwich you have to choke down, there's a Thai restaurant somewhere nearby waiting to serve you rice and yellow curry to make up for it. So it all works out in the end.