I'm not Australian, but Southern American food is absolutely horrible, as someone who has lived there for decades (so more than your "years"). It's completely overrated, and the only thing arguably worse is the people who try to evangelize it.
I worked with an American from the south, "born and bred", as he wouldn't let us forget it. We were having a lunch conversation once where he was telling us about all the different cultural variations of southern food. Naturally, a co-worker and I were curious, so we were asking questions. We then went to talk about regional variations of our food (Chinese / Indian), and this was the American's response: "How many different ways can ya'll make dim sum and butter chicken?"
He seemed to not understand that regional variations actually exist outside of USA, and never backed out of his viewpoint that "only country in the world is the US that has cultural and regional variations of food".
I worked with an American from the south, "born and bred", as he wouldn't let us forget it. We were having a lunch conversation once where he was telling us about all the different cultural variations of southern food. Naturally, a co-worker and I were curious, so we were asking questions. We then went to talk about regional variations of our food (Chinese / Indian), and this was the American's response: "How many different ways can ya'll make dim sum and butter chicken?"
He seemed to not understand that regional variations actually exist outside of USA, and never backed out of his viewpoint that "only country in the world is the US that has cultural and regional variations of food".