AY Honors/Aboriginal Lore/Answer Key
Bushfood refers to any Australian native food, although it sometimes is used with the specific connotation of "food found in the Outback while living on the land". It is also called bushtucker.
In the last decade, industry groups such as the Southern Bushfood Association, the Queensland Bushfood Association, the Northern Bushfood Association, and many others have been pushing for the introduction of bushfood as genuine cuisine in Australian and international restaurants. The term "Bushfood" is the current term for Australian native cuisine, evolving from the older-style "bushtucker" which was used in the 1970s and 1980s. The word "bushfood" was chosen to reflect the sustainable nature of the industry's products, and to help exporters with product branding. It is the term most often used by Australian Government and CSIRO sources & authors.
Bushfood includes both plant and animal foods. Examples of Australian native animal foods (meat) include kangaroo, emu and crocodile. These meats are not uncommon in Australian restaurants. Other animals, for example the Goanna and the witchetty grub, were eaten by Aboriginal Australians and thus qualify as bushfood in every sense of the word.
Examples of Australian native plant foods include the Quandong (Santalum acuminatum), Bush Raisin or Bush Tomato (Solanum centrale), Warrigal Greens (Tetragonia tetragonioides, or New Zealand Spinach), and Mountain Pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata, the Mountain Pepperbush, is one example). The most identifiable (and probably only) bushfood plant harvested and sold in commercial quantities is the macadamia nut (Macadamia integrifolia).
Since the 1970s, many TV shows have made use of the bushfood theme. Malcolm Douglas was one of the first presenters to show how to 'live off the land' in the Australian Outback. Major Les Hiddins, a retired Australian Army soldier, presented a hit TV series called Bush Tucker Man on the ABC TV network in the late 1980s. In the series, Hiddins demonstrated his training and research in combat survival by locating native foodstuffs in the northern Australian Outback.
