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National identity and authenticity are deeply complicated issues. Discovering that schism between who we are when we are at home and who we are when we are away can come as a shock. Uniting the two and working out what it means to represent a nation, an ethnicity and a family can be a desperately confusing task, sometimes as painful as it is exciting. And measuring the reactions of others who see us as the bearers of strange food and diphthongs -- seeing ourselves through their eyes -- is an important part of grappling with this issue. Unless, of course, you are just in it for the money, which -- if you are the Outback Steakhouse -- means that you take the issue and cheerfully wad it into a tiny little ball before shoving it as far up a roo's bum as it can go. That's right, right up its arse.

Observe our Offerings from the Original Outback

Before I discuss the real thing at Eight Mile Creek and whether it really is the real thing, before I explain the inauthenticity of the Outback Steakhouse's "kookaburra wings," "prime minister's prime rib" and "walkabout soup," I am obliged to point out that if anyone tried to serve a dessert called "chocolate thunder from down under" in Australia, the very planet itself would tilt as my nation stood in one frenzied rush to milk the dessert name for all of the scatological jokes that it invites. Invites? Gets down on its chocolatey knees and pleads. Color, sound, lame metaphors for your bum -- it has everything, but it is not even remotely genuinely Australian.

Syllabic exotica temporarily aside, what does a roo actually taste like and what is the etiquette for eating an animal that stands proudly on your national crest? Well, it tastes great. It is rich, dense and chewy, but as served in the seared kangaroo salad at Eight Mile Creek, it somehow manages to be tender, too. The marinated vegetables (zingy peppers and cucumber) and the mint leaf, crisp shallots and lettuce provide the perfect counterpoint to the meat. Light and bursting with moisture, they prevent the appetizer from being too heavy. You eat the salad Asian-style, rolling up the roo and the vegetables in the lettuce leaf and eating the roll with your hands. The other animal on Australia's crest is the emu; it is served as an emu carpaccio at Eight Mile Creek. The translucent red slice of emu that sticks to the plate appears at first to be a jelly, but closer inspection reveals the wide grain of the meat. If the roo is rich, the emu is much more so. The carpaccio is an intense and delicious experience. As with the salad, crisp vegetables and a black truffle vinaigrette provide lighter moments so that the taste is full but not overwhelming.

While a bald eagle starter would almost certainly provoke a few letter bombs, it seems that we Australians have fewer misgivings about eating the animals from our currency than do Americans. We love the kangaroo no less for eating it: It is a symbol that inspires affection and awe, but we are also intensely proud of its uniqueness, and this pride is easily extendable to its unique taste. Emus, on the other hand, are crabby, pecking, dangerous buggers, and no one would really think twice about cooking one up for dinner. But of course, we don't. These national emblems are national dishes only in the sense that no one else can serve them up and claim them as indigenous. Most Australians do not eat them on a regular basis, and many Australians today have never tried them. For tens of thousand of years, these animals were game for the continent's indigenous people, but they are only beginning to gain popularity as exotic meats in urban Australia.

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