For one thing, there's something about the name "neenish tarts" that just lends itself to strange discussions. It seems vaguely nonsensical in a quaint, nostalgic kind of way - almost like you'd expect it to turn up in a verse by Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll:
The Queen of Hearts ate Neenish Tarts
While the fimble-bamp played the bamzoo
And down by the sea danced the quirrelly-quee
With a snake and a grey kangaroo
For another thing, it seems the country can be sharply divided into those who know what a neenish tart is, and those who don't.
People who know what a neenish tart is (usually from the southern states) regard them as a fairly boring, run-of-the-mill bakery item which can be found in any average bakery or cake display. The tarts are so ubiquitous and "standard" in certain states that these people don't even notice that they can't be found north of certain parts of New South Wales. When travelling north it doesn't even occur to them to look for neenish tarts in, say, Queensland, so they are always rather surprised if you point out that we don't usually have them. In fact, we don't usually know what they are.
The people who don't know what a neenish tart is (usually from the northern states) are the most peculiar part of this dichotomy, because they often refuse to believe that such a thing exists. I have had many a dubious Queenslander look at me as if I had flown off my rocker when I try to explain what neenish tarts are. I think it might have something to do with the name sounding so quaint and odd, something to do with the contents of the tarts (why would anyone want a tart filled with mock cream?) and something to do with the fact that I often start my explanation with the phrase "it's a classic Australian pastry..."
People who have lived in Australia all their lives find it difficult to accept that something can be a "classic Australian" anything if they've never heard of it. Because the contents of our grocery stores is so surprisingly uniform across such a vast space, it occasionally misses our attention that we do have regional variations. For example, if you went to a deli in Queensland you would find cocktail sausages are referred to as "Cheerios", while the same meat product in South Australia would be called "little boys" (something I personally find a bit disturbing).
So I have to explain to the disbelieving northerners that neenish tarts are, in fact, unique to Australia. There are two legends about how they came to be. The first is that a humble housewife invented them for a Country Women's Association do some-time back in the 1950s. The other is that they were created by a woman who owned a bakery and tried to remember some of the recipes her family used to make back in Germany, but ended up producing something with a uniquely Australian twist.
(I love the phrase "uniquely Australian twist" - it implies we have enough of a widely applicable culture to be able to recognise when something is particularly "us", when we all know Australia hasn't had anything resembling a unifying cultural identity since we noticed the White Australia Policy was a bad idea, our cultural cringe kicked into overdrive and we started making a conscious effort to forget anything ever done by British descendants between the years 1770 and 1980. The joy of modern Australian culture is that it isn't really any thing at all - a multiculture is not, and really cannot ever be, a single culture. Unless we use it to hunt marsupials, I'm not sure how "uniquely Australian" a pastry can be).
So, what is a neenish tart? Well, it's a small tart, lined with jam and filled with mock cream, then topped with duo-tone icing - one half is chocolate, the other half is either vanilla or white chocolate. What does it taste like? Fairly unimpressive, actually. The problem with mock cream is that it can be good, but most of the time it's pretty average. Thus a tart which consists of mock cream and jam can have some drawbacks.
If anyone's interested, you can find a fairly decent recipe for neenish tarts here. The recipe forgets to add the jam, though, so for a true neenish tart experience you'll have to remember to drop about a teaspoon of pink jam into each tart case before adding the mock cream.
Why do I find myself having conversations about neenish tarts at this time of year? Because it's Australia Day this weekend, and every Australia Day the conversation turns to typically Aussie cuisine. Neenish tarts may be pretty average, but they're also ours, and belong on any dessert table at an Australia Day function.
So, this weekend, if you can, find or make some neenish tarts, revel in the pointless sugar of it all, and imagine you're "uniquely Australian".
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