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Australian Bush Food, Wild Food and Bush Tucker books and guides |
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Australian bushfood, also called wild food and bush tucker, refers to any food native to Australia and used as sustenance by the original inhabitants, the Australian Aborigines, although it is sometimes used with the specific connotation of "food found in the Outback while living on the land". It includes both animal and plant foods native to Australia. Fruits, nuts, vegetables, fungi, spices, meats, insects, seafood.
Examples of Australian native animal foods (meats) include kangaroo, emu and crocodile. More recently, camel and rabbit would also be regarded as 'wild food'. In particular, kangaroo is quite common and can be found in many normal supermarkets at prices comparable to beef. Other animals, for example goanna and witchetty grubs, were eaten by Aboriginal Australians and thus qualify as bushfood in every sense of the word. Fish and shellfish are culinary features of the Australian coastal communities.
Examples of Australian native plant foods include the fruits: quandong, kutjera, muntries, riberry, Davidson's plum, and finger lime. Native spices include lemon myrtle, mountain pepper, and aniseed myrtle. A popular leafy vegetable is warrigal greens. Nuts include bunya nut, and the most identifiable bushfood plant harvested and sold in large scale commercial quantities is the macadamia nut.
Knowledge of Aboriginal uses of fungi is meagre but beefsteak fungus and native 'bread' were eaten.
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