"Floater" - aka Pie Floater:

A Brief Description:  The pie floater is an Australian dish particularly common in Adelaide and, to a lesser degree, Sydney.

It commonly consists of a traditional Australian-style meat pie, usually sitting, but sometimes submerged (sometimes upside down) in a bowl of thick green mushy pea soup. It is usually garnished with tomato sauce, and the consumer may also add thick mint sauce, salt, pepper and / or malt vinegar to their personal preference. The pie floater is usually purchased in the street from pie carts as a late evening meal.

Who invented the Floater?

• Ern 'Shorty' Bradley in Port Pirie in the 1890s
• The Gibbs Brothers in the early 1900s
• Charles Franklin who had a pie cart at Port Adelaide

Other than family tradition there seems to be no hard evidence to name an inventor, although there does seem to be an intersection between Port Adelaide, the Gibbs, and Ern Bradley.

There are related dishes: mushy peas sold in English pie shops and fish and chips shops, and Yorkshire 'pie and peas' suppers. Cockney slang around 1864 used the term floater for a suet dumpling in soup. Pie stalls sold pea soup as well as pies.

Barbara Santich concludes the exact origins of the pie floater in South Australia 'are blurred in a swirl of faded memories and vague hearsay' but believes 'it could have been simply the result of fortuitous proximity [of pie stalls selling both pies and peas]. It's not necessarily obvious, but one can understand the progression to a pie in thick pea soup'.

The pie floater does seem to be an early twentieth century South Australian invention. The earliest recorded uses of the word in the sense of a pie floating in peas are South Australian from the 1920s and 1930s. In 1934 Ernestine Hill described a floater as 'nothing but a mince-pie floating in a soup-plate of thick, dark-green peas gravy, an appetising dish to those who like that sort of thing, and a good "filler" when one is down to the last sixpence late on a Saturday night'.

About Pie Floaters in more detail:

In 2003, The South Australian National Trust has traced the history of the pie floater: an impressive history tracing back 130+ years.

Even though the early records in South Australia state that the pie floater was reputedly born in Port Pirie, South Australia, (however, not conclusive), conceived by one Ern "Shorty" Bradley in the late 1890's - Pie Floater at the GPO Pie Cart in 2009 but no one really knows how or if he really did. This is still being debated.

So did someone inadvertently drop a pie into a bowl of soup?

Or maybe what (Rina Centofanti) might have worked out, "She believes it could have been because the bottom of the pie is softer and easier to tuck in with a spoon and that the top of the pie stops the pie from slipping around the plate when faced down".  

Or though pea soup with meat has long been part of English culinary history, with honourable mentions in the 19th Century, including Yorkshire "pea and pie supper", "pea soup with eel", "suet dumplings or saveloys", (Dumplings in soup were known as "Floaters"). Maybe, it developed from those dishes, which are useful when you have a lot of people to feed on a budget: for example at a cricket match, or at harvest time or even at the footy.

The pie floater is a meal available in some parts of Australia, which consists of the traditional meat pie sitting, unusually inverted (upside-down) in a plate of thick green mushy pea soup. It is traditionally served and covered with tomato sauce and, although subject to the taste of the individual consumer, thick mint sauce, salt and pepper are the also traditionally added to complement the dish. Another popular condiment is vinegar and / or even Worcestershire Sauce.

The addition of the mushy pea soup provides extra flavour and dietary fibre, and extends what otherwise may be considered a snack to a full meal. High profile fans    have made the pilgrimage for our famous pie floater are: the late Anthony Bourdain (American Chef), the late Joe Cocker (Singer), Billy Connolly (Scottish Comedian), Nigel Mansell (British F1 Racing Driver), Shane Warne (Australian Cricketer), Angus Young (Australian Guitarist) and Hugh Jackman (Australian Actor / SInger). Also, Adelaide's high profile fans are / were: the late Bob Francis (Talk Back Radio Presenter) (Bob Francis was a regular visitor to the pie cart when I was operating it - always a true Gentleman, thank you Bob for the memories), Peter Goes (Various Fields but I know him as a Radio Presenter), and Ian Henschke (Various FIelds but I know him as a Radio Presenter - a regular to the pie cart.  Thank you Ian for all the information you shared with me).  (I hope to add more names soon).