A 73-year-old dispute affects Bendigo, Wagga Wagga and Bathurst. It strains diplomatic relations, torments its politicians, and sometimes calls into question its own sense of identity.

Who can claim rightful ownership of the Chiko Roll?

Now, a gigantic golden sculpture paying homage to this tasty snack has reignited the war.

Artist Chris Roe likes to play with Australian history and icons with his pop art, and his two-metre-high Chiko Roll is among a series of apocalyptic paintings on display at his Rogue Thoughts exhibition in Wagga Wagga to the end of the week.

“I came up with the idea of ​​making a giant Chiko Roll because Wagga claims to be the birthplace and, funnily enough, it’s part of our history,” he says.

But it is also part of the stories of Bendigo and Bathurst.

A Bendigo tinker, Frank McEnroe, launched the Chiko Roll at the Wagga Wagga Show in 1951. Wrapped in a thick skin of fried dough, the creation filled with cabbage, barley, vegetables and meat became popular throughout Australia.

More than seven decades later, Bathurst is challenging Wagga and Bendigo’s claim to Chiko’s legacy.

“I think outside of Wagga and Bendigo it is generally accepted that the home of the Chiko Roll is in Bathurst,” says federal member for Calare Andrew Gee.

A sign at the Simplot factory in Bathurst, where the snack is now made, says it is “the home of the Chiko Roll”.

“I admire Chris’s art. I admire his commitment to this Australian icon… but the Chiko Roll giant really needs to make the trip home,” says Gee.

But former deputy premier Michael McCormack, a Wagga-based member for Riverina, dismisses the Bathurst case as “rubbish”.

“Of course, Frank McEnroe thought about it in Bendigo. Yes, it is now manufactured and processed in Bathurst. But his home is Wagga Wagga,” says McCormack.

“It’s not about where you were conceived (most people wouldn’t even know where they were conceived) and it’s not about where you end up. It’s about where you were born. “That’s what’s on your birth certificate.”

According to McCormack, “Chiko Roll was born here.”

“Bathurst can borrow it, but not keep it because it belongs to Wagga Wagga.”

Described as “a giant phallus”, Roe’s 2m-tall Chiko Roll is built around two inflatable punching bags, covered in a layer of felt with deliberately placed wrinkles “to give it that Chiko texture”, and then painted with several layers of liquid latex. .

The Chiko wrapper was printed on banners, which Roe photoshopped to include Chinese writing “paying homage to the fact that (Chiko Roll) is essentially cultural appropriation, taking a spring roll and making it our own.”

Roe has declared Wagga Wagga the home of his sculpture. Bathurst, where Chiko Roll is now made, “really has nothing to prove,” she says.

Bendigo, where the McEnroe family remains, is “quite comfortable with its history as a point of origin”. But for Wagga, “we seem to be clinging desperately to the idea of ​​this Australian icon belonging to our city.”

However, he is willing to extend an olive branch and tour the cities at war with his giant Chiko Roll.

The dispute is “a very Australian thing to be angry about”, says Roe.

“Australia likes to brag about things and we love big things,” he adds, particularly Big Prawn and Big Banana.

“It says something about Australia’s view of itself and the way we put ourselves down and feel a little uncomfortable with our identity,” Roe says. “So I like the fact that we can tap into that debate through a piece of art.”