Australian and New Zealander meat pie is made with flaky pastry that is filled with gravy and minced meat. Of course, numerous variations exist, so the filling can also be made with onions, chicken and asparagus, mushrooms, cheese, crocodile meat, vegetables, or seafood.

There are also variations of meat pies such as party pies (tiny pies served to party guests) and the pie floater (a green pea soup with a pie floating on top of it). The concept of the pie traces way back to the Neolithic period, when barley, semolina, and grains were made into a paste, filled with honey and baked over hot coals. 

The world-famous Australian culinary icon Lamington consists of a sponge cake that is dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with finely desiccated coconut. The cake is believed to have been created by accident when Lord Lamington's maid accidentally dropped his favorite cake in melted chocolate.

Lamington, the eighth Governor of Queensland, suggested that the cake should be sprinkled with coconut in order to avoid the mess while consuming it - and the erroneous cake was proclaimed a massive success by all. Today, the cake is extremely popular due to its climate suitability, as it lasts longer in the heat when it's cut in bite-sized squares and covered in coconut. 

Delicate as the ballerina it was named after, Pavlova is the quintessential summer dessert. Whipped cream is typically dolloped on top of a snowy meringue, followed by a pop of color in the form of fruit, preferably the tart varieties which contrast the sweetness of the meringue.

Research suggests Pavlova is a descendant of the German torte and was invented in the 1920s during Anna Pavlova's tour of Australia and New Zealand, although the exact inventor is still debated. The first recipe for Pavlova appeared in print in 1926, although it was not the dessert we know today, but was instead a multi-colored gelatine dish. 

An institution at many pubs, restaurants, and cafés in Australia, Australian burger with the lot first made its appearance in the 1940s, when beetroot started to be added to the burger alongside onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and meat.

The inclusion of canned beetroot on a burger was possible due to the fact that there were two canneries that opened during the 1930s and the 1940s. Today, there is still a heated debate about the inclusion of beetroot - some say it is obligatory, while the others claim it's a travesty.

Burgers with beetroot rose in popularity during the 1950s and the 1960s, but in the 1970s, with the opening of fast-food chain restaurants such as McDonald's and Hungry Jacks, its popularity began to wane. 

Synonymous with children's birthday parties in Australia, fairy bread is an unusual dessert consisting of triangle-shaped slices of white bread that are smeared with butter and topped with tiny, multi-colored balls of sugar called hundreds and thousands in Australia, also known as sprinkles in the rest of the world.

No one really knows where fairy bread came from, but its closest relative is called hagelslag, a Dutch chocolate sprinkle topping for sandwiches. Some claim fairy bread was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's eponymous poem. The earliest written reference of the dish is found in a 1934 issue of the Sydney Morning Herald, in an article called Christmas Dinner with Toddlers. Easy to prepare, fun, and colorful, fairy bread remains a staple of birthday parties throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Cruffin is a cross between a croissant and a muffin – it's a muffin that's made from laminated croissant dough and filled with different flavors and ingredients such as pastry cream, peanut butter, cream and strawberries, chocolate, salted caramel, and many others.

This treat is a recent invention – it is believed that the first one was created in 2013 by Kate Reid of Lune Croissanterie in Melbourne, Australia. It was subsequently popularized and trademarked by Mr. Holmes Bakehouse of San Francisco.

Salt and pepper calamari is a Chinese cuisine-inspired dish that’s so popular in Australia it might even be called one of Australia’s national dishes. The calamari, or squid in some cases, is covered in salt-and-pepper batter, then deep-fried to crispy perfection.

The dish is often prepared and served as a bar or pub snack, and it often comes garnished with garlic, fried chili, and spring onions. Salt and pepper calamari is so widely available in the country that it can be found everywhere from cafés to pubs, restaurants, and bistros. 

Carpetbag steak is a meat specialty that couples the decadent flavors of boneless beef steak and fresh raw oysters. Rather than going on top of the meat, as is usually the case with other similar combinations, the oysters are meant to be tucked snugly into a pocket created in a thick end cut of a rib-eye steak (called scotch fillet steak in Australia).

Once stuffed, the pouch is either sealed with skewers or sewn up with twine, and the steak is then ready to be pan-seared, grilled, or broiled, usually until the meat is still rare. Despite its strong connection to Australia, a common assumption is that America has been the original birthplace of this delicacy, but still, the exact origins of the dish remain unclear. 

A pie floater is an Australian dish that is most commonly consumed in Adelaide and Sydney. It consists of a traditional Australian meat pie that is usually submerged upside-down in green pea soup. It is believed that the origins of the dish lie in traditional English dishes of pea soup with eel and suet dumplings (dumplings in soups were known as floaters).

The usual accompaniments to a pie floater include tomato sauce or mint sauce, Worcestershire sauce, or malt vinegar. Pie floater has an impressive history that can be traced back to over 130 years. It was invented in Port Pirie, South Australia in the 1890s by a bakery operator named Ern "Shorty" Bradley.