Bushfood
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Alice Springs Desert Park, Bush Tucker

Bushfood (also called bush tucker) refers to any food native to Australia and used as sustenance by the original inhabitants, the Australian Aborigines, although it is sometimes used with the specific connotation of "food found in the Outback while living on the land". It includes both animal and plant foods native to Australia.

Examples of Australian native animal foods (meats) include kangaroo, emu and crocodile. In particular, kangaroo is quite common and can be found in many normal supermarkets at prices comparable to beef. Other animals, for example goanna and witchetty grubs, were eaten by Aboriginal Australians and thus qualify as bushfood in every sense of the word. Fish and shellfish are culinary features of the Australian coastal communities.

Examples of Australian native plant foods include the fruits: quandong, kutjera, muntries, riberry, Davidson's plum, and finger lime. Native spices include lemon myrtle, mountain pepper, and aniseed myrtle. A popular leafy vegetable is warrigal greens. Nuts include bunya nut, and the most identifiable bushfood plant harvested and sold in large scale commercial quantities is the macadamia nut.

Knowledge of Aboriginal uses of fungi is meagre but beefsteak fungus and native 'bread' were certainly eaten.

Traditional Aboriginal use

Australian Aborigines have eaten native animal and plant foods for an estimated 60,000 years of human habitation on the Australian continent (see Indigenous Australian food groups, Australian Aboriginal sweet foods).

Various traditional methods of processing and cooking are used. Toxic seeds, such as Cycas media and Moreton Bay chestnut are processed to remove the toxins and render them safe to eat. Many foods are also baked in the hot campfire coals, or baked for several hours in ground ovens. ‘Paperbark’, the bark of Melaleuca species, is widely used for wrapping food placed in ground ovens. Bush bread was made by women using many types of seeds, nuts and corns to process a flour or dough to make bread.

Aboriginal traditional native food use has been severely impacted by non-indigenous immigration since 1788, especially in the more densely colonised areas of south-eastern Australia. There, the introduction of non-native foods to Aborigines has resulted in an almost complete abandonment of native foods by Aborigines. This impact on traditional foods has been further accentuated by the loss of traditional lands which has resulted in reduced access to native foods by Aborigines and destruction of native habitat for agriculture.

The recent recognition of the nutritional and gourmet value of native foods by non-indigenous Australians is introducing native cuisine to many for the first time. However, there are unresolved intellectual property issues associated with the commercialisation of bushfood.

Colonial use

Billardiera scandens

Bushfoods provided a source of nutrition to the non-indigenous colonial settlers, often supplementing meager rations. However, bushfoods were often considered to be inferior by colonists unfamiliar with the new land's food ingredients, generally preferring familiar foods from the homeland.

In the 19th Century eminent English botanist, J.D. Hooker, writing of Australian edible plants in Flora of Tasmania, remarked although "eatable," are not "fit to eat". In 1889, botanist Joseph Maiden reiterated this sentiment with the comment on native food plants "nothing to boast of as eatables." ^[1] The first monograph to be published on the flora of Australia reported the lack of edible plants on the first page, where it presented Billardiera scandens as, "... almost the only wild eatable fruit of the country".^[2]

This became the accepted view of Australian native food plants until the late 20th Century. It is thought that these early assessments were a result of encountering strong flavours not generally suitable for out-of-hand eating, but these strong flavours are now highly regarded for culinary use.

The only Australian native food developed and cropped on a large scale is the macadamia nut, with the first small-scale commercial plantation being planted in Australia in the 1880s. Subsequently, Hawaii was where the macadamia was commercially developed to its greatest extent from stock imported from Australia.

Modern use

In the 1970s non-indigenous Australians began to recognise the previously over-looked native Australian foods. Textbooks like Wildfoods In Australia by the botanist couple, Cribb & Cribb were popular. In the late 1970s horticulturists started to assess native food-plants for commercial use and cultivation.

In 1980 South Australia legalised the sale of kangaroo meat for human consumption. Analysis showed that a variety of bushfoods were exceptionally nutritious.^[3] In the mid-1980s several Sydney restaurants began using native Australian ingredients in recipes more familiar to non-indigenous tastes - providing the first opportunity for bushfoods to be tried by non-indigenous Australians on a serious gourmet level. This led to the realisation that many strongly flavoured native food plants have spice-like qualities.

Following popular TV programs on "bush tucker", a surge in interest in the late 1980s saw the publication of books like Bushfood: Aboriginal Food and Herbal Medicine by Jennifer Issacs, The Bushfood Handbook and Uniquely Australian by Vic Cherikoff, and Wild Food Plants of Australia by Tim Low.

Bushfood ingredients were initially harvested from the wild, but cultivated sources have become increasingly important to provide sustainable supplies for a growing market, with some Aboriginal communities also involved in the supply chain. Gourmet style processed food and dried food have been developed for the domestic and export markets.

The term "bushfood" is one of several terms describing native Australian food, evolving from the older-style "bush tucker" which was used in the 1970s and 1980s. The word "bushfood" was chosen to reflect the sustainable values and gormet qualities, and is the most established and widespread term used to describe native Australian food.

Bushfood in Media

TV shows made use of the bushfood theme. Malcolm Douglas was one of the first presenters to show how to 'live off the land' in the Australian Outback. Major Les Hiddins, a retired Australian Army soldier popularized the idea of bush tucker as an interesting food resource. He presented a hit TV series called Bush Tucker Man on the ABC TV network in the late 1980s. In the series, Hiddins demonstrated his research for NORFORCE in identifying foods which might sustain or augment army forces in the northern Australian Outback.

In early 2003, the first cooking show featuring authentic Australian foods and called Dining Downunder was produced by Vic Cherikoff and Bailey Park Productions of Toronto, Canada. This was followed by the SBS production of Message Stick with Aboriginal chef, Mark Olive.

Ray Mears recently made a survival serious called Ray Mears Goes Walkabouts which focused entirely on survival in Australia and the history of survival in Australia, and specifically on bushtucker. In the series, Les Hiddens was a guest in one episdoe with the two men sharing their knowledge and discussing various topics on bushtucker.

Native Australian food-plants listed by culinary province and plant part

Australian bushfood plants can be divided into several distinct and large regional culinary provinces. Please note, some species listed grow across several climatic boundaries.

Top-end

Monsoonal zone of the Northern Territory, Cape York and North-western Australia.

Fruits

Noni

Vegetables

Nuts

Spices

Outback Australia

Arid and semi-arid zones of the low rainfall interior.

Fruits

Bush Tomatoes

Vegetables

Seeds

Spices

Insects in gall

Bush coconut

Mulga apple

Eastern Australia

Subtropical rainforests of New South Wales to the wet tropics of Northern Queensland.

Fruit

Finger Lime

Vegetable

Spices

Lemon Myrtle

Nut

Temperate Australia

Warm and cool temperate zones of southern Australia, including Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria and the highlands of New South Wales.

Fruit

Muntries

Seed

Seeds of Acacia longifolia

Spice

Vegetable

See also

• Australian Aboriginal sweet foods
• Bush bread
• Bushfood industry history
• Bushmeat
• Bush medicine
• Indigenous Australian food groups

External links

• Bush Tucker in the northern Tropics of Australia
• Popular Native Foods from Australian Flavour
• Aboriginal Australia
• Australian Bushfood and Native Medicine Forum
• Aboriginal women's knowledge
• CSIRO plant profiles
• Site of an industry pioneer
• Bushfoods Magazine
• Eat Australia
• Food Standards website

References

1. ^ Maiden, J.H., The Useful Native Plants of Australia, 1889, p.1
2. ^ Smith, J E [1793]. Spec. Bot. New Holland. James Sowerby. “AMID all the beauty and variety which the vegetable productions of New Holland display in such profusion, there has not yet been discovered a proportionable degree of usefulness to mankind, at least with respect to food.” 
3. ^ Low, T., Wild Food Plants of Australia, Angus & Robertson, 1992, pp 199-202 ISBN 0-207-16930-6

• Bruneteau, Jean-Paul, Tukka, Real Australian Food, ISBN 0-207-18966-8.
• , The Bushfood Handbook, ISBN 0-7316-6904-5.
• Issacs, Jennifer, Bushfood, Weldons, Sydney.
• Kersh, Jennice and Raymond, Edna's Table, ISBN 0-7336-0539-7.
• Low, Tim, Wild Food Plants of Australia, ISBN-13: 978-0207143830