The Chiko Roll turns 75 this year along with Geoffrey Rush, Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Daryl Somers.
asserted
Roll → turn → Rush
I’d call this an impressive birth year group.
asserted
I → call → this
The Chiko Roll is the only one that’s barely changed.
asserted
that → change → ?
Australia certainly has.
asserted
Australia → have → ?
In 1951, takeaway food was usually a choice between corned beef sandwiches and the odd battered something from the local milk bar.
asserted
food → corn → bar
Twisties, just a year old, were the flavour of the month at a time when no one stood in the aisle of Flemings reading the back of a yoghurt carton contemplating what it might do for their gut bacteria.
uncertain
it → stand → bacteria
This was the year that The Goon Show premiered, conscription for the Korean War was introduced and Australians voted against banning the Communist Party.
asserted
Australians → premier → Party
It was in the year before, 1950, that boilermaker Frank McEncroe found chop-suey rolls on sale outside a VFL match (40 years before it became the AFL) at Richmond Cricket Ground in Victoria.
asserted
it → find → Victoria
Yet these were so flimsy he couldn’t hold a beer in one hand while eating the roll in the other.
asserted
he → hold → other
Something had to be done.
asserted
Something → have → ?
And thus, at the Wagga Wagga agricultural show in 1951, McEncroe launched his sturdier “Chicken Roll” – a deep-fried pastry tube that contained a filling including cabbage, barley, carrot and mutton (later beef) but, curiously, no chicken.
asserted
that → launch → cabbage
It soon became known as the Chiko Roll and was trademarked as such in 1958.
asserted
It → know → 1958
From the 1950s, it was marketed with the “Chiko Chick” in a familiar advertising formula: put a scantily clad woman on a motorbike next to the product (although she doesn’t seem much interested in eating it) and assume you’ll sell lots.
asserted
you → market → lots
It worked.
asserted
It → work → ?
By 2000, the formula had developed a problem.
asserted
formula → develop → problem
Twenty-five complaints about a new billboard – which featured a leather-clad and busty Chiko Chick astride a Harley-Davidson – were enough for the Chiko Roll’s owner, Simplot, to replace her with a less revealing version.
asserted
owner → feature → version
The Chiko had survived.
asserted
Chiko → survive → ?
The Chick had been required to put something on.
asserted
Chick → require → something
This is where the Chiko Roll wandered into my PhD research.
asserted
Roll → wander → research
My thesis, titled The Complexification of the Female Surf Protagonist in Australian Fiction, begins with the canonical novel Puberty Blues.
asserted
thesis → title → novel
In the 1979 text, girls who lived for surfing, but didn’t actually surf, fetched Chiko Rolls for their boyfriends.
asserted
who → live → boyfriends
They were essentially Uber Eats before the app, except the delivery girls were paid in male approval.
asserted
girls → pay → approval
By the 1970s, Australians were eating about 40 million Chiko Rolls a year.
asserted
Australians → eat → Rolls
In a feat akin to selling coal to Newcastle, more than 1 million were exported to Japan.
asserted
million → sell → Japan
The true birthplace of the Chiko Roll has been hotly debated.
asserted
birthplace → debate → Roll
The argument has made it all the way to federal parliament, where three MPs have it for their electorates: Wagga Wagga (because it was launched there); Bendigo (because that’s where McEncroe came from, although he was born in Castlemaine); and Bathurst (because that’s where it is made).
asserted
it → make → Castlemaine
Declare something a national icon and Australians can become rather competitive about its ownership.
asserted
Australians → declare → ownership
But, slowly, Australians’ food habits changed.
asserted
habits → change → ?
Thai restaurants popped up.
asserted
restaurants → pop → ?
Banh mi became de rigueur.
asserted
mi → become → ?
Sushi stopped being exotic and ended up next to the food court escalator.
asserted
Sushi → stop → escalator
Much later, cauliflower started impersonating rice.
asserted
cauliflower → start → rice
Meanwhile, a vegetarian Chiko Roll emerged in 2017 but was discontinued in 2023.
asserted
Roll → emerge → 2023
The original, however, endured.
asserted
original → endure → ?
The Chiko Roll has stayed much the same, even while everything around it has moved on.
asserted
everything → stay → it
Women surfers, for one, have gained agency.
asserted
surfers → gain → agency
And the Chiko Roll brand passed through a number of Australian owners before it was bought out in 1995 by Simplot, which has its headquarters in Idaho in the United States.
asserted
which → pass → States
The rolls, however, are still made in Bathurst.
asserted
rolls → make → Bathurst
Today, about 17 million are still consumed yearly in Australia.
asserted
million → consume → Australia
Could this be because, according to Good Food wine writer Katie Spain, they have just the right amount of crunch and a “smooshy cabbage, barley and beef interior” to match perfectly with a semillon?
uncertain
they → accord → semillon
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
