AY Honors/Aboriginal Lore/Answer Key
lolBushfood 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 and 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 fruits: quandong (Santalum acuminatum), Australian desert raisin (Solanum centrale), muntries (Kunzea pomifera), Riberry (Syzygium luehmannii), and, Davidson's Plum (Davidsonia spp.), Finger Lime (Citrus australsica). Native spices include Lemon Myrtle (Backhousia citriodora), Mountain Pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata), and, Aniseed myrtle (Anetholea anista). A popular leafy vegetable is Warrigal greens (Tetragonia tetragonioides). Nuts include bunya nut, the seeds of Araucaria bidwillii, and the most identifiable bushfood plant harvested and sold in large scale 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.
