This week we watched our country lose its collective mind when hardware giant Bunnings decreed that all onion must be placed UNDER the sausage from now on. Apparently it’s a measure aimed at reducing the onion slipping death toll, and only time will tell how successful this move will be. However it got us thinking about Aussie food faux pas, those little things that drive us nuts in pubs, restaurants and cafes. NATHAN DAVIES and cartoonist PETER MACMULLIN took a look.

PUTTING A SCHNITZEL ON TOP OF THE CHIPS
Look, we get it, there’s only so much room on a plate. Which is why you should just ditch the salad instead of covering our chips with a slab of steaming hot crumbed chicken breast and ensuring they’re completely soggy by the time they arrive at your table. This is obviously a view shared by the more than 7000 members of the Facebook page called Stop Putting Parmis/Schnitzel on top of the Bloody Chips. Also, it’s a parmy, not a parma. Don’t make us cancel your SA visas.

SAUCE IN A PACKET
Those of us above 40 will remember those halcyon days, back before the internet and the Kardashians, when shopkeepers put sauce IN your pie. Yep, they stuck that little nozzle through the crispy pastry top and gave you a couple of good squirts of dead ‘orse FOR FREE. We’re pretty sure nobody ever died because of this, but we’re also pretty sure that something in the ocean has died after eating one of those plastic sachets that they had the audacity to charge you 20c for. Free sauce is an Australian birthright, it’s in our constitution.

LUNCH ON A PIECE OF WOOD
Once, a really long time ago in ancient Mesopotamia, somebody discovered that you could put clay on a wheel and make a plate or a bowl. It was a really, really good idea that served up well about five years ago when some smarty-pants decided to ignore 20,000 years of common sense and serve a burger on a board. Wooden boards are basically a germ sponge, and worse there are no edges to stop the beetroot and egg juice from running onto your newspaper. Don’t get us started on drinks in jars.

TEA BAGS
Why is that a barista will carefully extract the precious juice from rare beans grown in the highlands of Ethiopia before expertly blending it with perfectly frothed organic cow’s milk, but the poor old tea drinker gets a cup of hot water and tea bag? Worse still, they often pay almost as much as the coffee drinker. Is a properly steeped pot of cha really too much to wish for?

HONOURABLE MENTIONS
■ Waiters saying, “How is everything?” The answer will always be, “It’s fine thanks”.

■ Metre-long pepper grinders.

■ Eye rolls for people who like a well-done steak. It’s our meat, now go burn it.

■ Communal tables. We already have enough friends, thanks.

■ Paying for bread.

■ Ordering a complicated cocktail in a pub where everyone else just wants a beer.

■ Backseat barbecuing — next time you “suggest” that the steaks need turning you’ll be on dishes duty.

■ Ten dollar bottles of water. We don’t care if it’s collected from the crystal clear streams of North-West Tasmania by a specially trained platypus, it’s still just water.

What are your food gripes? Have your say below...