Courtesy of tikiwanderer, I now have an assortment of "weird australian food". Er, I mean "unique". Yeah. She even signed the "this is not dangerous" part on the customs declaration... :-P

	Aussie food! * 145g tube Kraft Vegemite concentrated yeast extract * 200g container TimTam original chocolate biscuits * 15g box passionfruit-mint TicTacs * 2 Cadbury Caramelo Koala caramel/chocolate candy bars * 2 Cadbury Cherry Ripe cherry/coconut/chocolate candy bars * 175g box Nabisco "Burger In-a-Biskit" * 240g Nestle Milo "energy food drink" * bag lemon myrtle * bag wattle seed * bag bush tomato
	Note that some ingredients are numbered, and some are bolded. No idea what this indicates. Also, though it's "burger" flavor In-a-Biskit, there's no meat.
	Some differences here too. I find kJ funny for some reason (vs our [k]C). They also list amount-per-100g, which I've not seen before. The Milo is even more specific; breaks down by type of sugar (sucrose, lactose, galactose), etc.

So far I've only tried a bit of the Vegemite, which is a sort of paste. The taste reminds me very strongly of beef boullion base (the liquid concentrate kind). No beef though. I'm not quite sure whether you're supposed to use it straight, or somehow de-concentrate it first. Also not yet sure what to use it for, but I should be able to figure out something.

Have yet to try the others, but will post descriptions when I do.

One thing I noticed was that most of this is made by the same companies that make food in the US - Cadbury, Nestle, Nabisco, Kraft - but nevertheless I've never seen them sold here. They are also labeled as being made in Australia, FWIW (with a cute stylized kangaroo logo).

Edit: Tiki mentioned this practice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Tam_Slam, done with Milo... that should be, ah, 'interesting'. I'll try it.

I tried one TimTam by itself. Very tasty. A somewhat light crunchy texture to most of it, with a soft, almost airy, almost gooey center. Very milk-chocolate flavored. Feels less heavy than comparable cookies here that I can think of.

Edit 2: For some reason, I find the pronounciation of "go" by the little girl in the Milo skipping commercial - http://www.nestle.com.au/milo/ - mouseover or click the three girls at the top middle - to be very very funny.

Edit 3: Tried some vegemtie on toast... Definitely an "acquired taste". Only used a very thin spread - not much comes out of the tube at once, and I didn't want to use it too quickly. Still tastes very strongly like concentrated beef boullion.

Tried a tim-tam slam, but the tim-tam lost its constitution too quickly for me to get much. Not sure about the Milo yet; I think the soymilk I used to make it has gone a little bit bad (it tastes weird), so I'm not going to judge its taste based on this batch. Definitely not 'crunchy' though; perhaps it's not supposed to be mixed thoroughly?

Burger in-a-Biskit has a very addictive taste. Does actually taste like a burger if you squint (as it were), but mostly tastes like a type of cookie available here whose name I'm forgetting. I also just noticed that the box is scored so that it has fold lines from the bottom corners to the center of the top; as a result, you can squeeze it into a hexagonal opening shape. Clever, and probably not coincidental that the inabiskits are also hexagonal wafers.

Also of note - the box is labeled "Big Munch Box!", but would never sell as such here; it's tiny compared to even the standard or small sizes. Maybe Aussies eat less when they're stoned?

Edit 4: At the suggestion of the Vegemite website and the Wikipedia article, I tried another version. Toast topped with a significant amount of psuedobutter spread, then a small amount of Vegemite, and some sliced avocado. It did spread somewhat better (and thinner) with this method than bare. The taste was... um, still rather yet-to-be-acquired. Closer to palatable, though. Perhaps would be better if I liked the taste of beef or the very strong saltiness? I washed it down with some strawberry kefir to help settle my stomach.

Perhaps it would be best to use the stuff in very buffered amounts, or in ways that compensate for its saltiness...

It also strikes me that this is very similar conceptually to the Japanese fermented soybeans (natto). I can eat it in some forms of sushi, but taken straight it's utterly revolting, bordering on being an ipecac substitute. My understanding is that the Japanese use it as a test of sorts on foreigners - some sort of cross between a practical joke and a matter of racial / national pride.

Edit 5: The tic tacs are interesting. The primary flavor is mint, of a medium-strong menthol sort. Normally I find that unpleasant, but these are okay. They have a bit of the nose-filling feel that menthol cough drops do. Overlaid with it is indeed a sort of passionfruit or mango like flavor / smell - I'm not sure what exactly. It's not directly tastable; it's more like a strong sort of aftertaste. Strange but interesting nonetheless.