So the Aussie national dish, our most popular culinary go-to, is pretty much the chicken parmi.

Been that way for a while, of course, though I’m not quite sure just how it superseded the old dog’s eye and dead horse, and barbie snags and roast lamb, let alone Vegemite on toast and Chinese fried rice, but there you have it.

Look through any pub kitchen’s order list and the chicken parmi’s first cab off the rank with the punters … steaks, battered fish and chips, sliders and spag bol and marinara all lengthy place-getters in the race.

Parmi nights are de rigueur in many pubs, often pipping trivia nights, happy hours, burger nights and half-price cocktail sessions.

But it seems keeping parmi patrons happy is still a bit of a tricky business. Which is probably why you’ll find chicken parmi morphing to meet the market.

Actually, it’s more than morphing. More like transmogrifying, if you can do that to a battered chicken.

That’s transmogrify, transitive verb: to change or alter greatly and often with grotesque or humorous effect.

Yeah, strange, grotesque, bizarre. That’s about the only way you can describe the menu I tripped over up the bush this week.

It hosted no less than 18 different chicken parmi toppings. And two types of chicken, grilled and crumbed, plus crumbed eggplant if you didn’t fancy chicken at all.

All very cosmopolitan, multicultural: Napoli, Hawaiian, Italian, Mexican, Greek, French and Moroccan. Even Australia if you like barbecue sauce, bacon, onion, egg and mozzarella cheese, which was Italian last time I looked.

And diverse too: meat lovers, spice of life, pumpkin, carbonara, pepper, gravy, mushroom, garlic butter, creamy Dijon and seafood for the piscatorially-inclined.

Amid all these you’re talking jalapenos, chilli flakes, hummus, dukka, chorizo, pineapple, feta, goats cheese, corn chips, sour cream, ras el hanout, salsa, olives … and kilos of mozzarella.

In short, the humble chicken parmi is quietly assuming the role played for the past five decades by that evergreen European migrant, the pizza.

The pizza, of course, has already been through the mill, assuming every global gastronomic possibility to the point my favourite has morphed from Napoletana and pepperoni to the more-catholic quattro-gusti four-quarter job.

And the favourite of the four, what else? Satay chicken.

Yeah, sacrilege I know but perhaps not as bad as my effort at the bush pub parmi jamboree.

Sick to death of chicken, I ordered the scotch fillet.

“No probs mate – how do you like it?”

“Medium’ll be fine, mate.”

Then I was taken aback.

“Which topping do you want?”

“Topping? Like all the parmis? Gees, you’ve got ’em from everywhere.”

“Yair.”

I quickly eyed the menu again.

“You don’t have satay sauce by any chance?”

I already knew the answer. This was northern Vic, after all, not Bali or Thailand or Malaysia.

“Sorry, I can ask the chef.”

“Naah, don’t fuss, I’ll go the mushies. They’re not from Leongatha by any chance, are they?”

Fair to say I’m still smarting from the glare that attracted.