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Australian Native Foods

Agricultural region

⚠ THE CAREFUL ROW. Native Australian ingredients — sold as "bush foods" or "bush tucker" — have become a commercial sector: MACADAMIA (the only Australian plant that is a major world crop, and most of it now grown in Hawai‘i and South Africa), Kakadu plum, quandong, finger lime, riberry, Davidson plum, muntries, lemon myrtle, WATTLESEED, pepperberry, saltbush, warrigal greens, and kangaroo and emu meat. ⚠ AND THE PROBLEM IS WHO BENEFITS: a documented estimate is that Aboriginal people receive only a very small share of the native-food industry’s value despite the knowledge being theirs, and several plants have been the subject of patent and trademark disputes — the Kakadu plum case is the best known. ⚠ SO THIS ROW RECORDS A COMMERCIAL SECTOR AND ITS EXTRACTIVE HISTORY, and does not present native ingredients as a settler culinary discovery. Knowledge of how to find, prepare and detoxify these foods is Aboriginal intellectual property; where it is published by the communities themselves it can be cited, and where it is not, it is not reproduced here. ⚠ AND SEVERAL NATIVE FOODS REQUIRE PROCESSING TO BE SAFE — cycad seeds above all, which are toxic until leached over days. That is described, never given as a method.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Aboriginal Australians community documented

Languages: English

What is recorded

  • Native Australian ingredients form a documented commercial sector including macadamia, Kakadu plum, quandong, finger lime, riberry, wattleseed, pepperberry and kangaroo and emu meat. Macadamia is the only Australian plant to have become a major world crop, and most production is now outside Australia. A documented estimate gives Aboriginal people only a very small share of the native-food industry’s value despite the knowledge being theirs, and several plants have been subject to patent and trademark disputes. Cycad seeds are toxic until leached over days; this is described and not given as a method. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • part of Australian Foodways documented
  • related to Aboriginal Australian Foodways documented

    ⚠ THE KNOWLEDGE IS ABORIGINAL AND THE PROFITS LARGELY ARE NOT: a documented estimate gives Aboriginal people only a very small share of the native-food sector’s value, and several plants have been subject to patent and trademark disputes.

Recipes

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