Centuries ago the only food eaten in Australia was 'bush tucker' - food that hopped, crawled, slithered or grew in a land then populated entirely by Aboriginal people. These native inhabitants herded no animals, planted no crops and were hunter-gatherers, relying on the harsh, hot land for each mouthful. In hard times, every waking moment was spent foraging for food.
Little wonder then that they soon instinctively knew which piece of bark might hide a grub, what valley would attract wallabies or emus in the evenings, or the leaves and berries which could safely be eaten. Their lives depended on it.
When the white man came, overnight everything changed. Driven back from their hunting grounds, the Aborigines had to learn to find and use new foods, while from the colonist's camps drifted strange smells: those of baking bread, roast pork and lamb, strange vegetables stewing in water, and sweet fruits they had never seen before. Unfortunately curiosity and fear on both sides prevented much sharing of knowledge and while most Aboriginal people have acquired a taste for western food, until very recently the cuisine of Australia's native people has been strictly 'off the menu' for most people.
It is only recently that these unusual and rare foodstuffs have been catalogued and described; even more recently that they have become available to the general public in restaurants and shops; and the time is yet in the future when all Australians will share in the enjoyment of them.
Most Australian foods, given their desert or bushland origins, are not suited to advanced farming methods or mass production. They are better left in their original environment, and some companies now work with Aboriginal communities, at times blending in traditional Aboriginal land management practices with current scientific agronomic methods. Some bush food is laboriously gathered by hand from sites known only to a few Aboriginal people. Others may be cultivated using polyculture systems, and in this way Aborigines are involved in both the education of new consumers and traditional users, as well as the development of their wild food resources.
And if emu and kangaroo seem a bit too unusual for now, even though nutritionists are hailing them as health foods because of their low cholesterol, there is still much that can suit your taste. Paperbark from a tree with unusual papery bark, keeps steamed or baked meats moist and tender, warrigal greens pasta mixed with native pepper is an exotic ready-made accompaniment to bush or western food, and you can now find breads using a variety of native foods - bush tomatoes, native pepper leaves or wattleseed.
Restaurants throughout the country are now starting to use natural bush foods as part of their regular ingredients and soon no one will think twice about whether something is indigenous or not. But while we're thinking local food, remember too the excellent seafood available from all coastal areas. The oceans and bays surrounding Australia are full of fascinating fish and crustaceans. Visitors should make sure that they sample local oysters, Balmain and Moreton Bay bugs, crab, lobsters, scampi, octopus and mussels as part of the huge variety of fish. They may not be strictly 'bush' tucker, but many are uniquely Australian.
'Tucker' may be Australian slang for food, but 'bush tucker' means much more. It translates as Australia's real fare.
All over the country, rivers yield freshwater crayfish such as marron and yabbies, and the oceans and bays surrounding Australia are full of fascinating fish and crustaceans such as:
4WD
