🍛 Australian customs binned five jars of my mother's pickles in front of me

My mother spent two full days last month making pickles for me before my flight back to Sydney. Mango, gongura and a lemon one that she makes only when my father is not around to complain. She packed them in six jars, wrapped each one in a plastic cover and then in an old dupatta. Total weight was about three kilos, which I thought was nothing compared to what some people carry. At Sydney airport I ticked the box for food items on the card because I did not want any trouble. The officer was polite, took me to a side table, and opened the bag while I stood there. She asked if there was any meat, any seeds, any dried fish, and I said no, only pickles. Then she opened the gongura jar, sniffed it, and looked at the label my mother had written by hand. The label said gongura pachadi with a date and nothing else, no ingredients list, no stamp of any kind. She said she could not clear anything without a proper ingredient list and that the oil might hold chilli seeds. I offered to open every jar and show her everything, but that was not how it worked. Five of the six jars went into the bin in front of me. Only the lemon one was kept. I did not argue because there were people behind me and my flight had already been eleven hours. But I stood there thinking about my mother's two days in a hot kitchen going into a grey bin. When I called her that night I told her the bag went through fine, and she was so happy. She asked which one I liked best and I said gongura. I have not told her the truth yet. Now she wants to send another batch with my cousin who travels in December, and I keep delaying my answer. I have read that sealed shop packs with printed ingredients sometimes pass, but I cannot tell my mother to buy those. She would not speak to me for a week, and she makes the best pickle on our whole street. Has anyone got homemade food through Australian customs? Tell me how you packed it and what you wrote on the label.

A plastic tub might pass, but I would not rely on it, my cousin's tub with a printed label was still opened in Perth. They kept it only because she had also declared it on the card. For December, ask your cousin to carry just two jars, each with a printed label. Losing two hurts far less than losing five, and your mother still gets her answer.

I carried my grandmother's avakaya to New York in a steel dabba and it was taken at JFK without a word. Since then I decant into small jars and tape a typed ingredient list on each one. Your mother's gongura story hurts more because you hid it from her, though. Maybe tell her about the labels as a favour to the December batch, not as bad news.

My aunt lost two jars of mango pickle at Heathrow for the same reason, and nobody could explain the rule. What worked the second time was a sealed plastic tub with a printed label listing every ingredient. The officer in Melbourne barely looked at it. Your lemon jar surviving makes me think handwritten labels are the main problem. Sorry about the five jars, that is a painful thing to watch go into a bin.