Where to buy confinement ingredients in Australia

Every recipe on this site assumes you can get the ingredients. In Australia that is usually true, but not from one shop, and rarely from the supermarket alone. Here is where the confinement pantry actually comes from.

Do this once, in the third trimester, rather than in pieces during the month. The dried goods keep for months, and our shopping and stocking list is the checklist to take with you.

The Asian grocer: most of the list, one trip

A decent Chinese, Vietnamese or pan-Asian grocer covers the great majority of the confinement pantry, and almost always cheaper than a health-food shop selling the same thing as a superfood.

What to get there:

• Old ginger. The single most important item, and the one supermarkets get wrong. You want mature ginger with tough, papery skin, not the plump young ginger sold elsewhere.
• Black sesame oil. Dark, toasted, pure. Check the label lists only sesame, not a soybean blend.
• Rice wine. Sweet glutinous rice wine for the wine dishes, or clear mi jiu for Taiwanese-style sesame oil dishes.
• Sweetened black vinegar. For the pork trotter dish, and worth buying the proper sweetened kind.
• Dried goods: red dates, goji, dried longan, wood ear, snow fungus, shiitake, dried scallops.
• Fresh: green papaya, kai lan and other Asian greens, lotus root, pork trotters and fish, which the butcher and fishmonger counters often prepare better and cheaper than a supermarket.

In Sydney this means Chinatown, Ashfield, Hurstville, Eastwood or Cabramatta; in Melbourne, Box Hill, Springvale, Richmond or Glen Waverley; and there are equivalents in every capital. Our city hubs list local services alongside them.

Chinese herbal dispensaries: the tonic herbs

For the medicinal end of the pantry, a Chinese herbal shop is the better source. This is where you find dang gui, astragalus, dang shen, Chinese yam and white peony, usually sold loose by weight and fresher than packaged supermarket versions.

The real value is the counter. Staff can tell you what a herb is for, how much to use, and whether it suits you, which matters because the stronger tonics are not one-size-fits-all. Many dispensaries also make up pre-mixed confinement soup packs by stage.

If you want clinical advice rather than shop advice, Chinese medicine practitioners in Australia are registered with the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia, and you can check a practitioner’s registration on the AHPRA register. The directory lists practitioners who work with postpartum clients.

Online: the answer outside the big cities

The dried goods and herbs travel well and keep for months, which makes online ordering genuinely practical rather than a compromise. Families in regional areas routinely build the whole pantry online and buy only fresh meat, fish and vegetables locally.

Pre-measured soup and tea packages, which arrive sorted by stage of the month, are the other online option and remove the sourcing question altogether. Our guide to meal delivery and soup packages covers who ships nationally.

Order in the third trimester. Nothing should be in transit when the baby arrives.

The supermarket: fresh basics only

Worth being clear about what the big two do and do not cover.

They do: chicken, pork, fish, eggs, rice, most vegetables, goji berries, peanuts, and usually a pale sesame oil.

They rarely do: old ginger, dark toasted black sesame oil, glutinous rice wine, red dates, dried longan, wood ear, or any of the tonic herbs.

So the realistic pattern is one Asian grocery trip for the pantry, plus ordinary supermarket shopping for the fresh items through the month, which whoever is cooking can do without hunting.

A note on cost

The pantry looks expensive as a single shop and is not, spread across a month. The dried goods are bought once and last well beyond it, and buying at an Asian grocer rather than a health-food retailer often halves the price of the same item. Our guide to what confinement costs in Australia puts it alongside the other expenses of the month.