Aboriginal Cookery

(‘Aborigines Spearing Fish’ (detail), Joseph Lycett, courtesy National Library of Australia)

Aboriginal cookery can rightly claim to be the world’s oldest living cuisine. Scientists would say that it goes back some 65,000 years ago when the first people set foot on the Australian continent and prepared their first meal. Aboriginal Australians, on the other hand, believe that they have been here from time immemorial: therefore their culture and cuisine date ab origine, ‘from the beginning’. Despite huge changes in their way of life over the last two centuries, native foods and traditional dishes continue to figure at least occasionally in the lives of most Aboriginal people today. There is a vivid interest in traditional foods as a way of returning to healthier eating, but equally as a matter of cultural pride and a means of keeping strong the spiritual links to the land.

Gatherer’s Oysters (Badangi)

The Sydney Rock Oyster – badangi in the Sydney language Biyal-Biyal – grows all the way from Gladstone in tropical Queensland to Malacoota Inlet in Victoria, cementing itself firmly to the rock platforms of every harbour and every jutting headland. Lieutenant-Colonel Godfrey Charles Mundy, on secondment to New South Wales in the 1840s, described its abundance in Our Antipodes: ‘Every inch of rock from Sydney to the Heads is thickly colonized by these delicate shellfish; that is, every inch would be so peopled, but for the active extermination incessantly going on.’ The Eora and the colonists both waged war on this delicious mollusc, and the nation’s preferred way of consuming them is still au naturel, after the fashion established in time immemorial by the Aboriginal people of the east coast.

Allow 6-12 oysters on the half-shell per person.

• Serve on the special oyster plates, an ordinary entrée plate or on a bed of rock salt. They will have a better flavour if eaten at room temperature and served in their natural juices. A modern adaptation would be to serve them with a grinding of black pepper and wedges of lemon, or seafood sauce. Brown bread and butter a fine accompaniment.

Mussels Aboriginal Style (Dalgal)

The preferred Aboriginal cooking method for shellfish involves skilfully placing them on hot coals in such a way that each shell forms a tiny cooking pot which retains the precious juices. When cooked, they are retrieved from the fire by means of a pointed stick. At home, they can be cooked under the griller or on a hot barbecue. Mussels prepared this way have a real taste of the sea and are good served with plenty of crusty bread or hot buttered toast to soak up some of the delicious saltiness.

Allow about 9 unopened mussels per person

• With a sharp knife pull the beards off the mussels and clean the shells. Warm your entrée plates. Place the mussels under a preheated hot griller on their sides and grill for a few minutes until the shells open. Some will take only a couple of minutes, others double or triple that time. As soon as they open, remove them to the plates with a spoon and keep warm. Discard any that do not open. Try to spill as little of the liquid inside the shells as possible. Serve immediately.

Aboriginal Grilled Crab

Allow 1 raw crab per person

• Place the washed crabs under a preheated hot griller and cook until done, turning half-way through. As they cook, the crabs will turn vermilion on top and sizzle as some of the juice escapes. Blue swimmers will not take long, about 4-5 minutes each side. Serve hot or cold and eat with your fingers. Serve with lemon wedges or seafood cocktail sauce if you prefer.

Gum-Leaf Fish

Serves 4

Stone fish traps were once of great economic importance to Aboriginal communities along the major inland waterways. The largest remaining is at Brewarrina on the Darling River in northern New South Wales. Ngemba history records that it was the gift of the Dreamtime figure Baiame. During a prolonged drought he set boulders in the pattern of a giant fishing net and then called on the Ngemba people to sing for rain. For several days the rain fell, bringing with it a multitude of fish which were caught in the net. This trip makes use of a natural bar of rock that forms a base for the intricate series of rock walls, channels and pens which stretch over 400 metres. The stones are set at different levels for varying river heights and allow small fish to escape while large ones are trapped. Once huge gatherings of as many as five thousand people would take place at Bre, supported by the ample supply from the fisheries. The traps still work and there are various methods for cooking the fish. A widespread approach is to cover the fish in wet gum leaves before roasting on hot coals, good for trevally or rainbow trout.

4 x 250-350 g (8-12 oz) whole fish, gutted, scaled and washed
Sprigs of fresh gum leaves

• Wet the gum leaves and place a layer in a baking or gratin dish to form a bed. Put the fish on top. Lay some more gum leaves loosely over the fish to form a light covering. Place the dish in a preheated oven and bake at 190^oC (375^oF) for 20-25 minutes.

Ginger-Leaf Barramundi

Serves 4-6

Barramundi are perhaps the choicest of all Australian fish. They are the undisputed monarchs of the north, found in rivers and estuaries from Western Australia, through to the Northern Territory to Queensland. In their natural environment they may reach a length of 1.5 metres but now smaller fish are available on the market, thanks to fish farming.

1 x 1.5 kg (3 lb) barramundi, cleaned and scaled
1 teaspoon oil
6 or more fresh ginger leaves
2 lemons, wedged (optional)

• Rinse the fish inside and out and wipe dry. Starting at the tail end wrap the ginger leaves closely around the fish, tying them in place with string as you go and overlapping the leaves so that no part of the flesh is exposed. Six large leaves should be enough, more if they are small.
• Transfer the wrapped fish to an oiled baking dish. Cook in a preheated oven at 190^oC (375^oF) for 45-50 minutes until done. Show your guests the fish cooking in its wrapping before removing the string and peeling back the leaves to serve. Accompany with some lemon wedges if you wish.

Kangaroo Tail, Aboriginal Style

Serves 3-4

Aboriginal people traditionally cook kangaroo tail in a ground oven or grill it. James Dawson, a pastoralist and friend of the Wurrung people, described the method of grilling in his book Australian Aborigines: The Languages and Customs of Several Tribes of Aborigines in the Western District of Victoria, Australia, published in 1881:

Kangaroo tails are cooked unskinned, first singeing and scraping off the hair, and then toasting them before the fire till thoroughly done. By this method none of the juices of the meat escape; and what would otherwise be dry food is made savoury and nutritious. As the sinews, however, which are very strong, would render the meat tough, they are pulled out previous to toasting, and are stretched and dried, and are kept for sewing rugs and lashing the handles of stone hatchets and butt pieces of spears.

The following recipe is an adaptation to the modern home.

1 kg (2 lb) kangaroo tail
Oil
2-3 gum leaves or bay leaves

• Lay all the kangaroo-tail joints together on a sheet of foil, lightly oiled, and put a couple of gum or bay leaves on top. Wrap the foil around the joints and seal the edges. Bake in a preheated oven or covered barbecue at 180^oC (350^oF) for 2 hours.

Aboriginal Ground Oven

Ground ovens are one of the great classics of the Australian cuisine. The method involves cooking meat and any accompanying vegetables in a hole lined with hot stones and wet, leafy branches or grass. The food is exposed to heat, smoke and herbal aromas within the moist atmosphere of the sealed oven and a humidified baking, light smoking and herbal seasoning of the food take place simultaneously. The effect is unlike anything in European cookery and a new term, perhaps ‘fragrant steam-baking’, is needed to describe it. The food is usually cooked till well done and turns out moist and succulent.

The size of the ground oven varies tremendously depending on the catch and may be used to cook anything from a few yams or shellfish to a dugong or quantity of vegetables. The bigger ovens require a good deal of physical labour and team work. Heated stones are preferable for the prolonged cooking needed by large meats although, if unavailable, pieces of anthill or clay may be substituted, hardening like bricks in the initial fire. Old ground ovens are often re-used or raided for good stones. By the sea, discarded shells may be heated to cook shellfish. Usually the food is placed directly on the hot stones and wet leaves, but sometimes it is wrapped first like a parcel in paper-bark or large leaves before being covered in more wet leaves and more stones and finally sealed with paperbark and earth. The finished oven looks like a domed mound. Experience is needed to judge the cooking time since, once the oven is opened, it cannot be resealed.

Ground ovens are the preferred way of catering for large gatherings and the preferred method for cooking large game. Sometimes special dishes are prepared as accompaniments. Black soup is made by filling a cleaned kangaroo stomach with blood and fat to be cooked alongside the kangaroo in the pit. A Pitjantjatjara dish consists of an emu skin pulled carefully off the bird in one piece, stuffed with grass and feathers, skewered up and browned in the flames before being put in the ground with the prepared emu. The stuffing is, of course, discarded before serving. For those with a backyard here are the instructions to build an oven of your own.

• Firstly, dig a long shallow hole in the ground slightly larger than the meat to be cooked. For a piece of beef or lamb weighing about 4.5 kg (10 lb), or for 5 or 6 chickens, dig a hole about 10 cm (4 inches) deep, 30 cm (1 foot) wide and 45 cm (1½ feet) long. Light a wood fire in the hole, avoiding woos that will give an unpleasant taste to the food. Place a number of stones in the fire to heat up or use pieces of ant-bed from which the ants have been removed.
• After a couple of hours the fire should have died down and the stones should be red hot. Push half of the stones to one side, reserving them for later. Over the remaining hot stones place wet branches of eucalypt, bottlebrush, paperbark, tea-tree or other plants that will give the meat a pleasant flavour. Place the meat on the branches skin side down in one layer. If cooking poultry, split the birds down the back and place a hot stone inside. Put vegetables around the meat, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, onions and pieces of pumpkin. Place the reserved hot stones on top of the meat and cover these with more wet branches. Over everything lay a large sheet of paperbark or clean, soaked sacks, ensuring that there are no holes, otherwise the meat will get dirty. Lastly, shovel earth on top and pat this down. Add more earth if you see steam or smoked escaping.
• A piece of beef 8 cm (3 inches) thick will cook in 1 hour. Chickens will take a little longer and a forequarter of lamb will take about 1½ hours. Allow 2 hours for a forequarter of pork.
• When the cooking time is up, carefully clear off the earth. Lift off the paperbark or sacks slowly and very carefully so that no dirt gets on the food. Serve immediately.

Bush Mud Casserole

Serves 4

A method of cooking poultry or echidna is to coat them in mud or clay and bake in a small heated pit with a fire on top. When done, the clay is broken away, taking feathers or quills with it, leaving a succulent dish without the trouble of plucking.

1 x 1.5 kg (3 lb) chicken or other poultry
Stuffing to taste (optional)
3 kg (6½ lb) clay

• Cut the necks and wing tips off the bird, wash and pat dry. Stuff with a favourite stuffing if desired. If the birds are plucked, you may wish to wrap each in a square of foil.
• Place the clay (available from potters’ supply shops) on a clean plastic garbage bag. Push out with the heel of the hand or fingers to make a rectangle of clay about 30 x 38 cm (12 x 15 inches) for a chicken. Place the bird on its back in the middle, gather up the clay, peeling of the plastic and completely enclosing the bird. Smooth and seal over the joins. Transfer to a baking dish or baking tray and cook in a preheated oven at 190^oC (375^oF) for 2 hours for a chicken. Cooking in a covered barbecue is also good.
• When done, crack the clay with a mallet or hammer on a cutting board. Present the bird in its clay coat and then remove the clay, and foil if used, to serve.

Paperbark Chook

Serves 4

Paperbark is known to many bush cooks, easily stripped from melaleuca trees in sheets, to be fashioned into troughs for carrying food or water, or spread on the ground for kneading damper or laying out food to eat. Wrapped around game birds or large fish, it keeps the flesh juicy while emitting a lovely smoky fragrance.

1.5 kg (3 lb) chicken
3 sprigs paperbark leaves (optional)
Salt and fresh ground black pepper (optional)
1 sheet of paperbark, about 40 x 45 cm (15 x 18 inches)

• Wash the chicken and dry with paper towels. Wet the leaves and push inside the body cavity. Rub with salt and pepper if you wish.
• Wipe over the paperbark with a damp cloth. Rub off as many as possible of the little long fibres to leave a smooth, clean surface on one side. Patch any holes with pieces of bark, overlapping the edges. Place the chicken on its back in the middle of the bark on the smooth side. Wrap around the bird, overlapping the edges over the breast. Tie with string in 2 or 3 places across the chicken. Then fold the bark over at the ends and tie again.
• Place the wrapped fowl on a baking dish and cook in a preheated oven at 190^oC (375^oF) for about 1¾-2 hours until done. Cooking in a covered barbecue is another way. Remove the string and bark in front of the guests just before serving.

Roast Eggs

A good, simple way of cooking eggs over a camp fire or in the oven.

• Make a small hole in the fat end of each egg with a pin, skewer, tip of a knife or sharp stick.
• If cooking them on the campfire, let the fire die down and set each egg with the hole uppermost in the hot ash and cook for about 5-15 minutes. Scoop up with a spoon and transfer to an egg cup to eat or let cool a little before using as picnic eggs.
• At home, place in a preheated, moderately hot oven (190^oC, 375^oF) on an oven-proof dish and bake for about 15 minutes for well-done large hen’s eggs, or less if you prefer your eggs soft.

Munyeroo Salad Balls

Serves 6-12

Pigweed, known as munyeroo in the desert regions, is useful for both its seeds and leaves. In the desert the tiny black seeds are collected in large quantities by upending the plants onto sheets of bark or animal skins to dry, the grain shaken out, then ground into flour for damper, or wrapped in bark and stored away carefully for future use. The leaves may be eaten whole in small quantities as a salad green, but often the women mash them between stones to form a rough purée which is shaped into small balls, a refreshing addition to summer meals.

4 cups pigweed (purslane)

• Discard any tough old stalks and wash the pigweed well. Shake off excess water. Place the pigweed in a food processor and blend to form a rough paste. It should not be too smooth: small pieces of leaf and stalk will still be present in the green mass. Form into 12 balls about 4 cm (1½ inches) diameter and use to decorate a salad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jump-Up

Serves 4

A colonial dessert from the mid-nineteenth century, the name derives from the bubbles of air which ‘jump’ to the surface during cooking. It is basically a sweetened flour and water paste, a good cheap filler food to be eaten straight from the billy or from tin plates. I like to serve it in small mousse pots with whipped cream.

½ cup plain flour
½ cup sugar
½ cup powdered milk (optional)
¼ cup golden syrup or honey

• Place the ingredients in a food processor or blender and add 1 cup of water. Blend together until thoroughly combined. Pour into a small saucepan and add another ¾ cup of water.
• Cook over a moderate heat, stirring constantly, until it boils. Cook for a couple of minutes more until thick. Spoon onto enamel plates or, to be fancy, into mousse pots. Allow to cool to room temperature to eat as it is or with whipped cream.

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