R Nitelight
Her Rock
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2000
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Welcome, But Leave Your Turtle-Stewed Dog Behind
CANBERRA (Reuters) - You just can't get good cheese-battered cow lung in Australia, and turtle-stewed canine is nearly impossible to find.
But if you're traveling to the Land Down Under, don't bother packing your own supply -- Australian border guards frown on foreign menu items.
Food including vacuum-packed possum, rodent heads, a small armadillo and monitor lizard, a cow lung cooked and battered in cheese and canine stewed in turtle juice are among the culinary delights seized at Australian airports in the last 12 months, quarantine officials said on Thursday.
``A lot of people are worried they can't get the kind of food items they like in Australia,'' Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) spokesman Carson Creagh told Reuters.
Quarantine officers are unsympathetic, seizing all food and other animal or plant products for incineration or deep burial -- though the most memorable seizures have spawned a bit of a macabre collection in AQIS offices.
Travelers to Australia are routinely searched -- and sniffed by vigilant quarantine dogs -- in an effort to prevent food, animals, plants and soil from entering the island continent which prides itself on its clean, disease-free environment.
Border controls have recently been stepped up in an effort to keep foot-and-mouth disease out of Australia
CANBERRA (Reuters) - You just can't get good cheese-battered cow lung in Australia, and turtle-stewed canine is nearly impossible to find.
But if you're traveling to the Land Down Under, don't bother packing your own supply -- Australian border guards frown on foreign menu items.
Food including vacuum-packed possum, rodent heads, a small armadillo and monitor lizard, a cow lung cooked and battered in cheese and canine stewed in turtle juice are among the culinary delights seized at Australian airports in the last 12 months, quarantine officials said on Thursday.
``A lot of people are worried they can't get the kind of food items they like in Australia,'' Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) spokesman Carson Creagh told Reuters.
Quarantine officers are unsympathetic, seizing all food and other animal or plant products for incineration or deep burial -- though the most memorable seizures have spawned a bit of a macabre collection in AQIS offices.
Travelers to Australia are routinely searched -- and sniffed by vigilant quarantine dogs -- in an effort to prevent food, animals, plants and soil from entering the island continent which prides itself on its clean, disease-free environment.
Border controls have recently been stepped up in an effort to keep foot-and-mouth disease out of Australia
