Aussie Bush Tucker - An Introduction to Common Native Foods of Australia

[JP 1983]

Updated photography for:

Article 3 - Karkalla (changed and added new C. rossii images)

Article 11 - Geebung (added new cut fruit figure 15 and changed figure 12).

Article 15 - Native Grapes (added four new images of kangaroo vine, Cissus antarctica)

Article 18 - Warrigal (changed and added new images of bower spinach, T. implexicoma)

Article 19 - Samphire (added a new image of native samphire, S. quinqueflora).

Coming soon: Sea Celery!!!

 

[JP 1983]

Some more updates while I try to crank out some new material now that I'm back in Sydney.

Article 3 - Karkalla (Updated article with more of my own images; slight edits to the text)

Article 4 - Dianella (Updated figure 5 to one of my own, and added figure 7, a cut, ripe fruit of an absolutely fantastic specimen I found on Magnetic Island)

Article 8 - Acacia (Updated and added new photos of A. holosericea ripe pods/seeds and A. sophorae unripe pods/seeds)

Article 16 - Native Figs (Updated and added new photos of F. virens and F. opposita, including cut fruits)

Article 20 - Sea Celery is now available [LINK]

Articles to come include:

Pandanus
Candlenut
Sea Almond
Kapok Bush
Devil's Twines
Native Ginger

In the meantime, I have no less than four unidentified tropical fruit trees (not mentioned by Mr Low, my chief source book) which I now have to go through the excruciating process of attempting to identify based on their photographed features alone. I thought one of them might have been one of the native tie bush (Wikstroemia indica) or the finger cherry (Rhodomyrtus macrocarpa), but searching those two entries on ATLAS has been ... fruitless (there's a bad dad joke for ya Mark. Cheers mate!)

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Love the updates and the joke 😆

 

[JP 1983]

Article 21 - Pandanus is now available [LINK]

 

[JP 1983]

Updated Article 8 - Acacias by adding a photograph of roasted green wattleseed (from coast wattle, A. sophorae) which I gleefully ate for breakfast this morning!

More material on the way soon!

 

[daveb]

ive looked over various ones posted and i envy you guys so diverse a selection makes me want to try them to taste at least once. here is hoping the habitat is protected for generations to come unlike many native species here thats many will never see.

a few years ago we had an area being developed and they were back filling areas and i petitioned the state to allow me to move some endangered and rare plant species away from where they were building and was denied , so late one night the plants vanished via indian back pack basket, to a safe spot only 1 out of a few hundred didnt make it. So keep up the good post it show today's generation and those coming up the variety of native plants around them and help save them.

PS 3 varieties i moved are now on endngered species list here and i am not telling them where they are so they can go tromp around and destroy the growing habitat lol

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Article 21 - Pandanus is now available [LINK]

I think I may actually have this one in my backyard. Though it looks very sickly as it's growing on sweet water only here. We had 2 trees (I believe) but one just died and fell over last year. They've never thrived.

 

[JP 1983]

ive looked over various ones posted and i envy you guys so diverse a selection makes me want to try them to taste at least once. here is hoping the habitat is protected for generations to come unlike many native species here thats many will never see.

Oz has more than 3,000 native edible bush foods. I recall James Duke saying that USA has about 1,100. Plenty out there!

 

[daveb]

Oz has more than 3,000 native edible bush foods. I recall James Duke saying that USA has about 1,100. Plenty out there!

yes still many to see or taste and still learn properties about in abundance depends area you live but still so many that are lost

 

[JP 1983]

At long, long last I have finally updated Article 2 - Lilly Pilly with some of my own photos (more to come as fruit set and ripen this season)

Other updates today include:

Article 4 - Blueberry Lily (Added 3 new photos of foliage and stems to assist identification)

Article 5 - Lomandra (Added a photo of a black-seeded variety I encountered on the Hornsby Blue Gum track)

Article 9 - Edible Nectars (replaced header image and one banksia cone image with my own)

Article 11 - Geebung (Added a photo of Persoonia levis flowers; more photos of fruit to come as I let my harvest ripen for a few days)

Article 15 - Native Grapes (Replaced photo of Cissus antarctica brambles & Cayratia clematidea foliage with my own)

Article 18 - Tetragon (Added new photos of a white-flowered variant, and a closeup of the four-cornered seed pod)

Hopefully I'll get some more free time to work on some of the new material later this week.

 

[daveb]

JP one very important queastion as you comment trying to identify some plants and trees from the book " searching was fruitless " have you every though of writing a follow up guide in real book form a guide to identify and a cook book/culinary book along with the identification. it might spark some interest and also keep some of those invasive non-native plants in check

 

[JP 1983]

have you every though of writing a follow up guide in real book form a guide to identify and a cook book/culinary book along with the identification. it might spark some interest and also keep some of those invasive non-native plants in check

Of course. There are several problems with this suggestion when weighed against this internet forum format.

One: size. As it stands, my articles would occupy something of 275 A4 pages of material (I occasionally use the print PDF function of my internet browser to save external copies of my work and it has steadily grown in size). Of course some better formatting of the photographs by a professional editor could reduce that number significantly, but I'm barely any way along in this project (no prospective end date). Thus, converting it to book format, without significantly reducing the amount of material, will likely end up in a multi-volume work which is not practical for the novice bush foodie. A digital form that can fit on a webpage in any mobile browser (or saved pdf), however, is an extremely portable and useful tool.

Second: this is an ongoing project, which means creating a book now would mean constant revisions and editions as I continue to add material. And to be clear, I currently have approximately 20 unedited bush food articles awaiting publication (and a further 40 or so for the edible weeds, which are a lower priority for me than this project; I was glad to finally knock off my kimchi ones on the weekend - they'd been sitting in my to-do pile for about 2 months). It is simply easier to maintain this page than go through the bother of re-editing editions that are now out-of-date! I can even chronicle my edits in this thread!

Third: accessibility. I'm happy for others to benefit from my work for free. Mark's forum supplies exactly this outlet, both for forum guests and members. Anyone can access the material this way (although I admit my articles are probably heavy on the storage space due to the amount of 1-2mb images they contain! Maybe I need to pay my fair share of website hosting...). This selfsufficientculture forum is the only place my information exists - I have to download the web pages and store them for my own archive!!

Thus, I hope to honour the founder by directing folks to him, his youtube and his forum, and along the way we can all learn to see this beautiful continent through her eyes and think about ways to change 200 years of European agriculture trying to force this land to grow stuff that often struggles. Our native plants don't struggle; they've been here longer than the colonists. They're drought hardy and grow well in our generally terrible soils.

There's so much good tucker available here that I want those native items to become Australia's unique contribution to world cuisine. It would be a joy to find that, in 50 years time when I am a decrepit old man, "Aussie cuisine" is defined as dishes made with lomandra seed, wattleseed, grevillea nectar, blueberry lily, karkalla, lilly pilly, quandong, geebung, warrigal etc. I want these words to become as common as macadamia, apple, pear, orange, cherry, plum, mandarin. This is a truly self-sufficient future.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Third: accessibility. I'm happy for others to benefit from my work for free. Mark's forum supplies exactly this outlet, both for forum guests and members. Anyone can access the material this way (although I admit my articles are probably heavy on the storage space due to the amount of 1-2mb images they contain! Maybe I need to pay my fair share of website hosting...). This selfsufficientculture forum is the only place my information exists - I have to download the web pages and store them for my own archive!!

Thus, I hope to honour the founder by directing folks to him, his youtube and his forum, and along the way we can all learn to see this beautiful continent through her eyes and think about ways to change 200 years of European agriculture trying to force this land to grow stuff that often struggles. Our native plants don't struggle; they've been here longer than the colonists. They're drought hardy and grow well in our generally terrible soils.

And you are very muchly appreciated for all you do for the forum, for Mark and for all of us.

 

[JP 1983]

Added Article 22 - Candlenut [LINK]

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

That's so cool! I wonder if you could press them together to create an even longer lasting candle

 

[daveb]

too funny Mandy i was thinking same thing if they could be ground molded and compressed for that as a longer lasting candle or replacement for the tins of sterno they use in some campers back pack stoves

 

[JP 1983]

That's so cool! I wonder if you could press them together to create an even longer lasting candle

This is exactly how the Hawaiians prepare them on long palm skewers so they burn several hours for night festivals.

 

[daveb]

This is exactly how the Hawaiians prepare them on long palm skewers so they burn several hours for night festivals.

ok now i place it from time on islands , had some good times out there i'd also seen on a few other islands in Pacific same thing as in Hawaii TY JP

 

[JP 1983]

Added Article 23 - Macadamias [LINK]

Also added figure 17 to Article 11 - Geebung

 

[JP 1983]

Updated Article 4 - Blueberry Lily (added figure 10 - Dianella soufflé, my first attempt at cooking with these berries)