Bush Tucker Appreciated

Independent on Sunday –UK

How 'bush tucker' became flavour of the month for foodies

After years of neglect, Australians are rediscovering the ancient culinary traditions of the Aboriginals.

By Kathy Marks

Published: 29 September 2007

As Aboriginal people have done for perhaps 60,000 years, Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Bauman catches long-necked turtles by hand in the billabongs of the Daly river. But while her ancestors roasted turtles in hot coals, or baked them in a hole in the ground, Ms Bauman serves them up to her family stir-fried or in the form of turtle liver risotto.

Ms Bauman, an elder of the Nauiyu Nambiyu community, south of Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory, is one of a growing number of Aboriginal women learning new culinary skills – thanks to a "whitefella".

Steve Sunk, a senior lecturer in hospitality and cookery at Charles Darwin University, is showing them innovative ways to cook the animals they traditionally hunt, and their wild fruit and vegetables.

He started his courses because he was concerned about health problems caused to a large extent by poor diet. Indigenous people suffer from high rates of diabetes, obesity, renal failure and heart disease.

Their traditional diet was healthy, combining low-fat meat (kangaroo, emu, crocodile, goanna) with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables: bush tomatoes, water lilies, wild limes, yams, quandongs (native peach), Kakadu plums and wild spinach, to name but a few.

After white settlement, though, Aborigines abandoned their nomadic lifestyle. Forced to live on missions and reserves, they stripped the surrounding vegetation. They were also introduced to Western processed food, and nowadays many of them live off fried chicken and potato chips, washed down with Coke and other sugary drinks.

Mr Sunk wants indigenous people to return to their millennia-old supermarket: the desert, the rivers, the sea. To encourage that, he shows them how to cook their traditional produce more creatively and healthily. Ms Bauman, who is principal of St Francis Xavier primary school in Nauiyu, says: "Steve has helped us to realise there are better foods we can eat, that won't make us sick later."

While Mr Sunk spreads the message in Aboriginal communities, mainstream Australia is belatedly waking up to the rich flavours – and nutritional value – of "bush tucker". The Kakadu plum contains five times the volume of antioxidants found in blueberries, well known for their antioxidant qualities.

Other wild fruit and vegetables have been found to have extraordinary qualities. A government study published last month found that fruits such as brush cherries, finger limes and riberries are a rich source of phytochemicals, which help protect against disease and ageing.

While Australians pride themselves on their adventurous palates, and their multicultural dining scene, they have always resisted eating the produce of their own backyards. For many people, bush tucker evoked visions of squirming witchetty grubs – fat white insects found in the desert, which Mr Sunk swears are delectable fried in garlic butter. Previous attempts to popularise bush cuisine, particularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, were unsuccessful.

Public perceptions are now changing, thanks to new restaurants devoted to "native Australian food", as bush tucker has been rebranded, and the appearance of products such as bush tomato chutney and lemon myrtle-infused fruit juice on supermarket shelves……

. The trend is benefiting Aboriginal communities, where people are employed or paid to supply specialist companies, supermarkets and restaurants. It might be on a small scale, with enterprising individuals digging under acacia trees for witchetty grubs, or using their knowledge of local geography and the seasons to hunt out bush tomatoes. Or it might be on a larger scale, with thriving businesses engaged in growing and harvesting ingredients whose popularity is soaring. Lemon myrtle, wattle seed and quandongs are among the products now being grown on big plantations. Mr Christie's business partner, Vic Cherikoff, sources Kakadu plums from a plantation in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, run by a company uniting five communities. Such enterprises give indigenous people a degree of economic independence, while enabling them to retain their connection with the land. Some have called this serendipitous meeting of demand and supply "edible reconciliation". Mr Christie says: "Aboriginal communities have created real businesses and returned money to their communities by growing and selling native foods co-operatively."

Mr Cherikoff, who has pioneered the use of native produce in Australia, says: "There is an Aboriginal art industry, but only the best artists make money. Everyone can go out and pick bush tomatoes. The expansion of the native food industry is bringing real benefits to these communities."

Despite the growing popularity of native foods in Australia, it is overseas markets that are fuelling much of the demand. Vic Cherikoff exports products such as wild lime tartare sauce to 40 countries including the US. British supermarkets are stocking bush tomato chutneys and desert lime jams. New York is home to half a dozen Australian restaurants, most of them using native ingredients.

At Nauiyu, the former Daly River Mission, children are eating fruit and yoghurt instead of salty, high-fat snacks. They drink watered-down fruit juices; Coke and lemonade are just an occasional treat. The health kick has extended beyond food. Children at Miriam Bauman's school regularly take long walks, and enjoy exercise classes.

Ms Bauman says: "It makes the kids feel important too. It reinforces the culture. We still have all the skills and knowledge surrounding bush food. We just have to start using them again."