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 Native Food
FOR between 40,000 and 50,000 years native Australians lived with the land as one. Their culture and society was in every way entwined with the earth, sea and sky. Every clan had a totem, an animal or plant believed to be their ancestral link to the land. Their knowledge of the land, of where to find food, and of how to ensure the regeneration of native plants was passed on from generation to generation for thousands of years via their Dreaming, a verbal and visual storytelling. Today, in parts of Australia the way of the past is still practiced to a degree. Ancient methods of finding, hunting, and recognising edible foods are still used.  Standing in a paperbark swamp, holding long-necked turtles and geese.
Unless otherwise noted the images on this page were supplied courtesy of Animal Tracks Safari. Bushtucker There is an abundance of wildlife in Australia. Native Australians have traditionally eaten the kangaroos, echidnas, emus and other wild birds, snakes, lizards, grubs and insects, and hundreds of native fruits and nuts as a source of vitamins and nutrition. Today they still employ methods of their ancestors in finding and preparing food. Long-necked turtles, Chelodina rugusa, go into hibernation under the mud when the floodplain starts to dry out and they wait there until the rains come to release them. They are found by using wooden probes. The hunter thrusts them into the ground, hoping for a hollow thud sound as the shell is hit. The animal is then dug out.  Paperbark Tree
Paperbark, melaleuca, trees bark is used to cover a ground oven. This keeps the heat in. Rocks are heated in a fire, then placed in the ground oven, which consists of a shallow hole. Leaves are placed over the rocks to flavour the meat, which is laid on top. Water is sprinkled over everything, so that the meat is steamed as well as roasted, and then paperbark is put on top, with a covering of dirt over the paperbark. The aboriginals use paperbark, silver-leafed grevillea, stringybark (eucalyptus), cocky apple, freshwater mangrove – a different one each night.  A woman burning the down off a goose.
Cooking Bush Meats Geese, ducks and other wild birds are singed prior to gutting to remove the down which is left after they have been plucked. In the pictures below, two geese, a water python and a long-necked turtle have been tossed in the fire briefly before being gutted and prepared for roasting in the ground oven. The snakes and turtles are singed this way firstly, to ensure that they are dead, as even hours after they are killed, even if beheaded, they will wriggle and squirm making it an un-nerving experience trying to cut into what in effect is still a live animal. Secondly, the the heat and flames make the skins firmer, making it easier to cut into them.  Cutting up the goose after the down has been singed off  Singed bush meats - turtle, geese and python.  The goose prepared butterfly style, cut open so that it lies flat on top of paper bark on rocks in the ground oven.  Cocoon, grub and beetle in hand Insects - Australia has a wide variety of different insects. They include beetles, moths and grubs. One of the most famous of foods is the witjuti grub. Below is an image of grubs that Australians from Kakadu National Park in Northern Australia call 'gundi'.The only part eaten is the grub which is roasted very briefly in hot ash. To cook them on hot stones or coals would cause them to disintegrate as they are so small. These grubs make a cocoon which turns into a beetle. They live with termites in light grey coloured mounds beside live trees. In the hand is the grub, the cocoon it makes and then the half-formed beetle that was found inside the cocoon.  Searching for grubs
In the image below a woman is digging into the roots of this acacia seeking out a grub she calls ‘dorlek’ which is roasted briefly in hot ash – it tastes like creamed corn. There is a pile of sawdust at the base of each tree where a grub lives. They are about as big as your little finger.  Large Grinding Stone
Grinding Stones are used to grind up food for older people who have no teeth, and for grinding water chestnuts, water lily seed, bush-plum and other seeds for making into bush-bread and wrapped in paperbark and cooked under the coals. The large grinding stone in the picture below lies beside a floodplain and has possibly been used for thousands of years.  Portable Grinding Stone
The stone naturally formed in this position. The constant grinding over many years on the rock has caused the holes. Sitting in some of the holes are smaller, portable grinding stones. Every women would have had a small grinding stone which they would use against this large rock, like a pestle and mortar. A miniature version of the larger, this one the people can either carry with them or leave in a place where there are no other rocks around to grind with.  Sand Palm Heart
The Sand palm, Livistona humilis, is found in woodland on higher ground. Native Australians take the heart of the palm out from just under the leaf base and eat it raw. Sand palm can also be roasted. Although eating the heart of sand palm kills the plant, they are plentiful and they regenerate quickly.  Native Bees
Native Bees A bees nest (‘sugarbag’) is a most sought after food in the bush, and those who find them are happy to cut a whole tree down to get to it. It is considered one of the best bushtucker foods available. Honey is the only bushtucker source of pure concentrated sugar and it was treasured so much that in the ‘old days’ it was often traded rather than eaten as it was so valuable.  Mussels Cooking
Australia has over 1500 species of native bees. There are 10 species of social native bees (genera Trigona and Austroplebeia) which do not sting and produce honey. The honey is eaten and the wax is used for spear-making. To do this the spearhead is attached to the shaft then string is tied around the wax to fasten it. The honey and pollen is mixed with water and often drunk for breakfast. It is also used for relieving constipation. Today they are still considered valuable, and are treasured. The tree is chopped down to access the honey and it is assumed by the people that the bees will simply find another tree hollow and start again. Freshwater Mussels, Velesunio ambiguus, found in the dry creek beds and edges of billabongs where they sit in the dry mud until the rains come again. Like turtles, they are located by prodding the ground with a stick.The mussels rest in the dry dirt for many months. Mussels are looked for in the beginning of May or June, before it floods there again, sometimes not until February or March the following year.  Long Yams in Hands
Long yams, Dioscorea transversa, are the tubers of a vine that grows in higher woodland. Yams are found under the ground by following dried up vines. It can take half an hour or more to dig up one yam due to the ground usually being very hard and the yams can be longer than an arm. When the dirt can no longer be dug out, due to the depth of the yam, the yam will be broken off at that point.  Water Chestnuts
Water chestnuts are the corms of the aquatic rush Eleocharis dulcis. It is found by searching in mud drying in floodplains, or by waiting till it’s dry then hitting the mud with hammers to break it open. The Chestnuts are eaten either raw or roasted in hot ash. This form of cooking, by pushing away the hot coals and cooking in the hot ash under them, is used for small foods such as grubs and nuts. Water chestnuts taste like those used in Chinese and South East Asian cooking, except they are much smaller.  Bush Coconut Tree (Photographer Gary Warner)
The Australian explorer Leichhardt describe it this way "had a sweet taste, was very mealy and nourishing, and the best article of the food of the natives we had yet tasted.” Bush coconuts are galls which form on a plant, Eucalyptus opaca. The galls contain an animal, the gall grub Cysticoccus pomiformis. The walls of the container taste like coconut and also contain a source of water in a very arid environment. The Cysticoccus pomiformis (insect in gall) grows inside the wood of the bloodwood tree Eucalyptus opaca. After the bush coconuts are broken open, the grubs living inside are eaten and the sweet liquid drunk. The 'coconut' is a gall created by a species of coccid; found on desert bloodwood Corymbia opaca, common and widespread in the central desert regions of Australia. The two photographs below, were taken in the Tennant Creek area, home of the Warumungu people.  Bush Coconuts broken up and left after the grubs have been eaten and the juice drunk. (Photographer Gary Warner)
 Geebung - Persoonia pinnifolia (Photographer Gary Warner)
Geebungs is the common name for approximately seventy species of the, Persoonia, which are small trees or shrubs. Grape-sized berries grow on the shrubs and usually ripen when they have fallen off the bush.  Desert Raisin Solanums are eaten when they fall off the bush (Photographer Gary Warner)
Solanums, from the potato and deadly nightshade family, include edible fruits with the common names of bush tomatoes, desert raisins, kangaroo apples and nightshades. They are all herbs or small shrubs with flowers characteristic of the tomato and potato family and often have prickly leaves and branches.  Ficus platypoda (Photographer Gary Warner)
Figs, Ficus. We eat some of the fleshy fruits from the various species raw while other unpalatable figs are pounded into a smooth paste and sometimes mixed with honey and water to make them edible. Figs are found in all states apart from Tasmania.  Grevillea wickhamii provides nectar (Photographer Gary Warner)
Nectars - Nectar is gained from a variety of sources including a selection of plants such as banksias, grevilleas and waratahs. The nectar can usually be sucked or shaken from the plants, and is often used as a treatment for diarrhoea.  Grevillea striata shrub (also kown as beefwood.) Photographer Gary Warner)
Beefwood, from the genus Casuarina, is the name given to a number of Australian trees and shrubs. Apart from some of the trees being used for wood, others provide fruits, nuts and tubers, and endless supply of seeds used for various purposes, from adding flavour to ground ovens to providing medicines.  Australian Flavour Front Cover
Read more about Australian food and the recipes that we have grown into as a nation. Australian Flavour – Traditional Australian Cuisine
Link to Photographers Gary Warner |
