What is a pie floater?

Answer 1

In Australia, a pie floater is a single-serve sized meat pie in a large soup plate of green pea soup. Vinegar was originally added to the dish, but this condiment lost favour when some brave soul added ketchup to the pie as it floated about in the soupy pea concoction; the ketchup idea caught on and the result is a colourful dish and reputed to be a hangover cure. This reputation could be down to the fact that in some Australian cities in the middle of the last century the only food available as one staggered home from the pub was to be had at the pieman's van. Then Pizza arrived, and curry, and the after-pub food scene changed forever, as did the colour-scheme of city pavements in the early hours before the cleaning trucks came through. 'Floater' comes from an English term describing dumplings in soup. The pie floater is considered, with no real evidence to the contrary, to be unique to Australia. My first experience, long ago, of a traditional roast Sunday dinner in Australia, was at the home of new friends who ran a farm. Raised on notions of Aussie tables creaking under the weight of huge cuts of meat, mountains of crisp roasted potatoes and glorious fresh and colourful vegetables, I was astonished to be confronted by dry, greyish slabs of beef, soggy potatoes and, yes, tinned grey-green peas, all mushy to match the tinned grey-orange carrots. Oh, and Gravox gravy, not served on the side but poured all over the horrible excuse for a roast dinner. I soon discovered this type of meal wasn't unusual in Australian homes back in the sixties. No wonder dad went out on the tiles and finished his evening with a pie floater.