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Accessible bush tastes all the rage

Worth an estimated $14 million a year, the nutritionally dense native foods industry in Australia is growing in popularity.

With delicacies such as crocodile sausages, lemon myrtle sauces, mountain pepper cheese and red desert dust bread, foods traditionally consumed by Aborigines, are undergoing a modern twist, including bush tomato with pepperberry creme fraiche, emu pate and fruit chutneys.

Scientist Vic Cherikoff, a research pioneer in the field of authentic Australian foods, explained that unlike the traditional associations of bush tucker with witchetty grubs and kangaroo, the modern take includes “yoghurt, beers, seasonings, sauces, bread, cheeses juices” with “native ingredients now in everything.

“We’ve also got a new bread containing red desert dust. It’s really earthy and really spunky.”

Cherikoff believes native foods are nutritionally dense and, according to the Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO), he is credited with proving that the native Kakadu plum contains the world’s highest known dose of vitamin C in a fruit.

Responding to a recent study that suggested only tourists enjoy indigenous food, Cherikoff said it had become ubiquitous in Australian supermarkets and restaurants.

“Supermarkets are jammed with native products, if it was only tourists eating them, then they wouldn’t be there for long,” he said. “Kangaroo is everywhere.”

Even Australia’s early colonial settlers enjoyed native foods. It is believed Prince Alfred, the son of Britain’s Queen Victoria, was served kangaroo tail soup and emu-egg omelet during a visit in 1868 and a Queensland menu from the 1860s included cockatoo fricassee.

According to CSIRO, the benefits of cultivating Australian native foods include creating jobs and income for largely disadvantaged Aboriginal communities, as well as preserving Australia’s heritage.

Indigenous food plants are also more environmentally friendly, utilising less water and withstanding extreme conditions, while commercially farmed kangaroos produce much less methane than beef cows.

Cherikoff believes this would all play in favour of native foods, especially with increasing public awareness about the health benefits of food and its effect on the environment.

“We’ve got Aboriginal communities coordinating and gaining a new meaning to their life because there’s traditional resources having a brand new meaning on a global scale,” he said.

The CSIRO reported that its popularity established in Australia, the majority native foods have yet to make a big impression overseas, mainly due to their seasonal nature and because suppliers have yet to guarantee a high quality produce

There are a few exceptions: according to Cherikoff, wattle seed, that has hints of coffee, hazelnut and chocolate when roasted, is used to flavour ice cream sold to U.S. manufacturers, and bread containing the seed is sold throughout Switzerland.

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