<learning objectives>

In this chapter you will learn about food in Australia, from the traditional diet of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to our present diet, and the contributions different groups of immigrants have made to our Australian food culture. You will not only explore how our cuisine has come to be what it is today, including the brands that are iconic to us, but also how our lifestyle and culture affects our food choices and the impact of this on our health and wellbeing.

You will have the opportunity to develop a range of food preparation techniques and cooking skills while you are preparing a variety of food products that have been incorporated into our diet by ‘new’ Australians.

You will also be able to use a range of personal and technological resources to create and evaluate your own food products designed to meet the requirements of identified needs or opportunities.

</learning objectives>

<quote>

We are one, but we are many

And from all the lands on earth we come

We share a dream and sing with one voice

I am, you are, we are Australian

‘I am Australian’, Woodley & Newton

</quote>

We are one, but we are many

And from all the lands on earth we come’

<insert image<< <insert image>> Alamy >> AH4JH6>>Aboriginal man sunset on beach>>

Australia’s first settlers arrived 60,000 to 70,000 years ago, and were the descendants of groups of people who had travelled over thousands of years through Asia from Africa. Some inhabited the Torres Strait Islands off the north coast of Queensland, while others arrived in the north of the country and over thousands of years moved to all corners of the mainland and to Tasmania. These First Australians lived in clans, or ‘nations’, each with their own territories. At the time of the first European settlement in 1788, there were an estimated 300,000-750,000 Aboriginal people living throughout the continent in over 500 nations.

<insert image<< www.australianhistory.org>>

Map traditional lands>>

Although sharing common ancestors, over time each nation developed its own language, customs, traditions and technology. These differences reflected the peoples’ response to the different natural environments of their traditional lands; from the tropical rainforests of what is now Northern Queensland, through the arid deserts of the Red Centre, to the Kauri forests of the South West and the cool, temperate regions of the South East and Tasmania.

In just over 200 years since 1788 the 11 ships of the First Fleet arrived with its cargo of 788 British convicts and 570 ‘free-settlers’, over 10 million people from more than 300 countries have brought their hopes and dreams, and their customs and traditions to enrich our nation. Approximately one quarter of Australia’s population was born overseas, and half of all Australians have ancestors from at least two different ethnic groups.

<insert image 5.3> Country of birth[edit]

Countries of birth of Australian estimated resident population, 2006.

Source:Australian Bureau of Statistics[26]

<Reflect>

1.Where did the ‘First Australians’ come from?

2.Using the map of Australia in the front of this book and the map of Aboriginal Australia above, identify the traditional owners of the land where you live.

3.When did the first European settlers arrive?

4.What proportion of Australians were born overseas?

5.Find out which countries the grandparents of each of the students in your class come from and plot the results on a map to see how far and wide Australians have travelled.

</Reflect>

<B>‘Hardtack’ biscuits

Also known as ‘sea biscuits’, hardtack biscuits were an important part of rations for sailors and armies, and were part of the diet of the voyagers on the First Fleet. Made from a simple flour, salt and water dough and baked until dry and hard, these biscuits are high in carbohydrate and last for months, even years, because they have no fat content and little water. The Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli called them Anzac tiles because they had the same shape and texture as roof-tiles. They dunked them in hot sweet tea, or crumbled them into hot water to make them soft enough to eat.

<insert image 5.4. Caption: A group of ANZACs making a meal in Gallipoli, 1915>

<Blueprint recipe>

<<Insert image>> (I’ve organised one)

Blue-print recipe: ‘Hard-tack’ or ‘Sea biscuits’.

Mix ½ teaspoon of salt into one cup of flour, and add ½ cup of water to make a dough. Roll the dough thinly, cut into rectangles, and prick with a fork. Place the biscuits on a baking tray and bake in the oven (180°C) until hard and pale brown. Turn the oven off and let the biscuits continue to dry out as it cools.

</Blueprint recipe>

<Design>

Design, make and evaluate a variation of the Hard-tack, or ‘Sea biscuit’ by:

●adding herbs or spices to the flour before adding the water, or

●sprinkling the tops with sesame or poppy-seeds before baking.

●cutting the dough into different shapes and sizes, or twist (or plait and roll).

I come from the dream-time, from the dusty red soil plains

I am the ancient heart, the keeper of the flame…….

I stood upon the rocky shore and watched the tall ships come

For forty thousand years I’ve been the first Australian

Recent discoveries of Aboriginal art and artefacts in the Northern Territory suggest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders may have arrived on our northern shores up to 70,000 years ago.

<insert image>> S/S >> 9942931>> Painting hands>>

As they dispersed, each nation adapted their skills and knowledge in response to their environment.

While the diversity of experience between the Aboriginal Nations is evident in unique languages, culture and traditions, the Nations shared three common elements: a history of their People evident in Dreamtime stories, music, songs and paintings; respect and appreciation for the Land; and the concept of sharing and common wealth.

<B> How do indigenous communities manage their Country?

Traditionally, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders lived off the land. They did not domesticate native animals for food or fibre although in some areas they raised and trained dingos to help track game. Some planted crops such as native millet seed and yams to ensure reliable food in future seasons. They also practised sustainable land-management systems including the use of fire. Burning has a number of important effects in maintaining food supply:

●Plants such as varieties of Banksias and Eucalypts need the intense heat of fire to release their seeds; others remain dormant in the soil and germinate only when the land is burnt.

●Regular planned burns created a ‘mosaic’ of areas in the bush at different stages of maturity and re-growth, providing a range of habitats for the various birds and animals to hunt and a constant source of the plant roots, fruit, leaves and seeds to collect.

●Areas of bush-land were also burnt and cleared to provide open grass-land habitats which attracted marsupials such as kangaroos and wallabies, and birds including emus.

<insert image>> Corbis>>42-19977933>> Aboriginal boy hunting>>

Planned burns also help protect Aboriginal groups from destructive bushfires by removing underbrush, and providing cleared areas of refuge from fires caused by lightning strikes.

Sacred sites where hunting is not allowed provides sanctuary for populations of smaller animals, ensuring their survival, as well as insurance against periods of drought, flooding or fire when food is scarce. The animals in these areas help maintain the biodiversity of the region by forming the basis of new generations able to repopulate the land during recovery from natural disasters.

<<Insert image>> S/S 26098810>> Goanna>>

‘Fish-traps’ that were constructed throughout Australia are believed to be among the first man-made structures on earth. Complexes of rock walls and piers built across rivers and streams created pools and weirs that trapped fish moving up the rivers, or being swept downstream in floods. This example of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ use of engineering skills to modify their environment can be seen today, 40,000 years after construction, at the World Heritage Site fish-traps at Brewarrina in central northern NSW. Evidence of the earliest use of aquaculture can also be seen at the ‘eel-traps’ at lake Coudah in Western Victoria where the Aboriginals built stone houses and established permanent residence.

<insert image>> Investigations underway into extending heritage area around ...

www.abc.net.au

Another productive land-management activity was to create environments for highly prized grubs and other insects by making piles of dead wood for them to breed in, and ring-barking selected trees to provide habitats for birds, animals and insects that make their homes in the hollows or bark of standing dead-wood.

<Reflect>

1.What differences developed between Aboriginal Nations?

2.What common elements are shared by them?

3.Explain how traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders use fire to help manage their resources.

4.Describe the importance of animal sanctuaries provided by sacred sites in maintaining bio-diversity.

1.Provide two examples of the use of engineering practices Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders applied to provide a more reliable source of food.

</Reflect>

<B>The importance of the changing seasons

Although some groups did preserve food such as the Djargurd Wurrung clans who smoked eels they bred in the eel traps and traded with people in other nations, most traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders eat what is available that day, and in season. Understanding the cycle of the seasons, is reflected by their calendars which are as varied and diverse as the geography, landforms, and climate of the country itself. Unlike the four season calendar of the European year which has a beginning and an end, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ calendars are cycles which identify changes in weather patterns and corresponding predictable stages in the life-cycles of plants and animals. The calendars of the seasons for example, identify the blossoming of trees which signal the arrival of migratory birds, the rains that herald the germination of plants, and the ‘dry’ which coincides with the ripening of fruit or the time snakes lay their eggs.

Insert

). Dennis also providing Wurundjeri seasons (Melbourne)

Aboriginal Seasons

MonthEuropean

SeasonsMinang

SW WA

TemperateArrernte

Central

Australia

DesertGadgerong

NW NT

Monsoon

TropicsTasmania

NE TAS

Cool

Temperate

DECSummerBerucUterneBandenyirrin (cont)Wegtellanyta

JANMayurr

FEBMeertilluc

MARAutumn

APRPournerAlhwerrrpeurleNguag/Gagulong

MAYTunna

JUNWinterMawkurAlhwerrpa

JUL

AUGMeerningal

SEPSpringUlpulpePawenya peena

OCTUterne urleBandenyirrin

NOV

Table1. A comparison of various Aboriginal seasons

from around Australia with the European calendar

http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/climate_culture/Indig_seasons.shtml

Aboriginal Seasons

MonthEuropean

SeasonsMinang

SW WA

TemperateArrernte

Central

Australia

DesertGadgerong

NW NT

Monsoon

TropicsTasmania

NE TAS

Cool

Temperate

DECSummerBerucUterneBandenyirrin (cont)Wegtellanyta

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

Table1. A comparison of various Aboriginal seasons from around Australia with the European calendar <DESIGNER: PLEASE REDRAW TO STYLE>

<Reflect>

1.Why is an understanding of the seasons so important to the survival and health of traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders?

2.How can you account for the differences between the examples of calendars from the four areas identified in the table above?

3.Which of the above examples of calendars is most suitable to the area you live in?

</Reflect>

<B>What was the diet of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders?

Although highly variable between each Country, the traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ diet is most commonly animal based, and supplemented by plant foods. Animal foods include birds and reptiles and their eggs, mammals, fish, seafood and amphibious animals, and insects. All parts of plants including roots and tubers, leaves and seeds, fruit and the gum from various trees is also collected for food.

<C>Animals

Almost native animals including koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, possums, bettongs, quolls and echidnas are hunted for food. Even the Tasmanian Tiger was sometimes hunted.

<C>Reptiles

Large reptiles like snakes and goannas are hunted by the men who often follow their tracks to their hiding places under rocks or in the hollowed trunks of dead trees. Women often catch smaller reptiles. Crocodiles are hunted in some areas.

<C>Birds

Birds of all species are speared or captured in nets. The emu which ranged over the continent except for the Kimberly, and mutton bird from islands to the north of Tasmania were especially valued for the richness of their meat.

<C> Eggs

<<insert image>> Alamy AMB30G>> Emu with eggs>>

The eggs of birds including emus, and reptiles such as snakes and crocodiles are eaten raw or baked in the coals. Insect eggs such as termites which are dug out of their nests are also eaten.

<key term>

Emu eggs are equivalent in size to up to 12 hen eggs.

The mature crocodile lays between 40-60 eggs. The sex of crocodile embryos is determined by the incubation temperature: when the temperature is 31’6 °C, males are hatched, when the temperature is a little above or below that, the crocodile will be female.

</key term>

<C>Fish, seafood and amphibious animals

<<Insert image>> Alamy>> B0MGTW - RM

People living traditionally in coastal regions and along waterways catch fish including Barramundi, Mullet, Golden Perch and Murray Cod, as well as seals, molluscs including mussels, crustaceans such as marron, cherabin and yabbies, and reptiles such as turtles.

<C>Plant foods

<Insert image >> S/S 157852778>> Berries>>

Depending on each individual eco-system, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women collect a wide range of plant foods including nuts such as the Bunya-Bunya nut Macadamias and Candlenuts; seeds for example from the Pandanus palm, roots, and tubers including those from various native lilies; leaves, and the rhizomes and fronds of ferns. ‘Lerp’, the sweet, dried gummy sap from some species of trees is chewed, and blossoms rich in nectar are soaked in water to provide a sweetened drink. Fruits including ‘Lilly-pilly’ (riberry) the ‘Bush tomato’ (‘Bush Raisin) Kakadu plums and native limes provide not only variety, but containing very high amounts of Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) which makes a valuable contribution to the diet. Seeds collected from grassy plains and species of Acacia are also collected and ground into flour to make ‘bush-cakes’ or ‘stone-cakes’ that are cooked on the hot stones of the campfire.

<C>Insects

<Insert image 5.12>

Some of the insects include Witchitty grubs which are the larvae of the Cossid moth, moths such as the highly prized Bogong Moths which migrate over 1000 Km each spring year from southern Queensland and western New South Wales to the the mountains in the South East, and green ants which are sought after for their abdomens swollen with sweet nectar. The hives of native bees provide honey.

<C>Weaning foods

Babies are often breast-fed to some degree to about three years of age, or until the mother becomes pregnant, or gives birth again.

<B>Dietary restrictions

‘Totem’ animals are not killed by some groups, not eaten by individuals, or not by males, or by females. Totem animals are sometimes associated with a group or clan, or a Nation, and these animals cannot be hunted or eaten by anyone in the group. Other animals are totem to individuals who may have been identified with their own totem at conception, birth or at initiation, depending on tradition. In other areas, the sex of the animal determines whether it would be eaten by males or females.

<key term>

Totems are sacred symbols usually of birds or animals, that have been passed down through generations of each family.

</key term>

In some communities, pregnant women do not eat red meat, and eat only fish and plant food, and in some groups, there are traditions related to the parts of animals that are reserved for the hunters, for older people, the very young or the sick.

About 4,000 years ago the Tasmanian Aboriginals stopped eating fish. One possible explanation is that the Island was so rich in terrestrial (land-living) animals, it wasn’t worth the time or effort required to make the hooks out of bone, or weave the ropes or nets needed for fishing, when other game was so readily available.

<B>How healthy is the traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander diet?

The traditional diet of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is very healthy because all their food is unprocessed and freshly hunted and collected in season. Although the diet is usually animal based, all the native animals are ‘free-range’ so most have a very low fat content. To help solve the problem of a very low fat, nutrient-dense diet, the organs of animals such as the liver and kidneys are eaten, and insects like Witchitty grubs which have a fat content of over 60%, highly prized.

<key term>

‘Nutrient-dense’ foods are foods with a high proportion of nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, protein etc. to a lower amount of energy.

</key term>

<Reflect>

1.Create a table to summarise examples of food sources of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders around the country.

2.What differences are there between the diets of people living in the same community?

3.How healthy is the traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ diet?

</Reflect>

<Blueprint>

Blueprint recipe:

Honey Baked Macadamia Nuts

<key term>

Australia’s macadamia nuts are a rich source of nutrients. The energy they provide comes from carbohydrate (8%), fats (88%) and protein (4%). They have a low GI, are a rich source of anti-oxidants and provide calcium and Vitamin C. Honey is pure sugar so roasting the nuts with honey will increase the GI of this snack.

</key term>

</Blueprint>

<B>Gender roles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders

Traditionally, men are the hunters, and women and children are the gatherers. The men hunt the larger animals and the women gather food plants, eggs and insects, and in some places, smaller reptiles. Collecting shellfish is usually ‘women’s work’, but depending on the area, sometimes both men and women catch fish. Children of both sexes usually accompany the mothers on their food collecting forays, until the boys are old enough, or have been initiated when they join the men to hunt.

<B>Tools and technology

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders all over the continent designed and made an enormous range of artifacts to assist in collecting, hunting, preparing and cooking their food. These included canoes dug-out of tree trunks and bark canoes, made by tying the two ends of the bark together and inserting a transom of wood in the middle to stabilize them, used for travelling and fishing the wide variety of boomerangs, brilliantly aeronautically designed, with different shapes and sizes used for hunting birds and animals

Woven pandanas leaves, grass and bark ‘dilly-bags’ and baskets for collecting and carrying plant foods, and as containers for food being soaked to leach out toxic substances in some plants. Also used in some ceremonies.

<insert image 5.15>55103383>> Boomerangs>>

Bags made from animal hide, or leaves for carrying water. Grinding stones for milling seeds

Stones struck to provide a sharp cutting edge used to skin and cut up animals.

<B>Traditional cooking methods

●Large animals are roasted whole over the fire, or in pits in the ground lined with hot stones or coals and covered with branches and soil. Smaller animals can be cooked in the coals of the fire.

●Smaller animals and fish can be wrapped in wet paper-bark or leaves and steamed over the fire. Fish is also sometimes coated thickly with clay from the riverbank and steamed in its own juices. Mussels and other shell-fish not eaten raw are steamed in their shells.

●Crustaceans like crayfish, yabbies, marron and cherabin are grilled on a lattice of green sticks or branches.

●‘Bush-cakes’ made from ground roots, seeds or tubers mixed into a dough with water are baked on hot stones around the fire, and whole tubers are also baked in the coals.

<Reflect>

1.What are ‘dilly-bags’, and how are they used?

2.Name two types of weapons used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men to hunt game.

3.Identify and describe four different methods used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to cook food, providing examples of food cooked using each method.

</Reflect>

<B>The role of indigenous food in modern Australian cuisine

The macadamia nut, native seafood, and wild duck and other birds were readily incorporated in the diets of later Australian settlers because they were recognisably similar to European foods. Some early pioneering families also used native animals to supplement their European style meals, but the interest in Australian ‘bush-foods’ did not begin to develop until the 1980’s, around the time of the Bicentennial.

This was the time Australians started looking for their own culinary identity, and it coincided with the legalisation of kangaroo meat sale in South Australia in 1980.

Kangaroo meat is now readily available in butcher shops and supermarkets around the country, and farmed emu and crocodile meat is also available in many butcher shops in the major cities.

Indigenous plant foods are also more readily available now and as many of the top chefs are beginning to feature dishes incorporating indigenous ingredients in their menus, consumers are becoming more familiar with their unique, delicious flavours.

<Reflect>

1.Make a list of all the groups of people who will benefit from the development of an Indigenous Food Industry.

2.How could the cultivation of native plant species benefit the environment?

</Reflect>

<Blueprint>

Grilled seafood skewers with Macadamia and finger-lime, dessert-lime or lime mayonnaise.

<key term>

</key term>

</Blueprint>

<Design>

Design brief: Design a fresh seasonal salad or vegetable accompaniment incorporating an indigenous flavouring ingredient to serve with the Grilled seafood skewers.

</Design>