It’s been two years since Americans discovered Australian café culture. You may remember the New York Times raving about it: Bizarre coffees with frothed milk, eateries with twee colonial names like Brunswick St, Little Collins and Two Hands and “satisfying egg dishes” served with a wink and a “no worries” — that means you’re welcome, they noted.
Now it seems another Aussie culinary speciality is taking the Big Apple by storm, a yellow-ish condiment so fancy, you can literally find it on the counter of every fish and chip shop in the country.
Chicken salt.
That’s right, in 2016, Americans have finally discovered chicken salt. For a country that prides itself on its fast food, they are surprisingly slow on the uptake.
“Already a sensation in Australia, chicken salt is the savoury umami magnet that belongs on everything,” one food writer at Epicurious expounds breathlessly.
Then there’s this. A New York deli, making and selling it’s own gourmet chicken salt for $6 a pop. That’s $6 American. That’s about $8 Australian. That’s about twice the price of a large container of Master Foods chicken salt, which retails at Woolies for $3.65.