AY Honors/Aboriginal Lore/Answer Key

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Bush bread refers to the bread made by Australian Aborigines for many thousands of years.

Aboriginal grinding stones - a pestle and mortar - vital in making flours for breads.

With the arrival of Europeans and pre-milled white flour, this traditional bread-making process all but disappeared, although the tradition of cooking bread in hot coals continues.

Bread-making was a women's task. It involved collecting seasonal grasses, roots or nuts, and preparing these into a flour or a dough. The process was generally carried out by several women at once, due to its labour-intensive nature.

Bread-making from grains

Seeds of grains were collected. Seeds varied depending on the time of year, and the area in Australia. In Central Australia, native millet (Panicum decompositum) were spinifex were commonly used grains. Wattleseed was also often used in the mix.

In north Western Australia, around the Kimberley region, Aboriginal women observed that, after the dry season, many seeds would gather around the opening of ants' nests. The ants husked the seed for them, and the women were able to collect this seed.

Making the flour

The grain was then winnowed, often using the coolamon, the multi-purpose carrying vessel used by women. Once the grain was winnowed, it was ground using a millstone, to create a flour. Millstones have been discovered which prove to be as old as 50,000 years. The flour was then mixed with water to make a dough and placed in the ashes for baking. The results could be small buns, known today as johnny cakes, or a large loaf, known as damper. Damper appears to be a mix of this traditional style of breadmaking and European breadmaking.

The dough could also be eaten raw. Cooking was a good way to prepare the bread if the group were about to travel for some time.

Damper is cooked in hot coals in the way traditional Aboriginal bread has been for eons.

Bread-making from other plant products

Bread could also be made from roots and corms of plants. In the Top End of Australia, people such as the Yolngu used the lotus root and wild taro. These were ground, then mixed to a paste to make the bread.

Water lily seed bread was also popular in the Top End. The two species of water lily used were Nelumbo nucifera and Nymphaea macrosperma. During the early part of the dry season, teh water lilies are an important part of teh diet, with seed pods eaten raw or groind into paste.

Women also had expert knowledge of how to "de-toxify" certain plant foods. The cycad palm, Cycas media are highly carcenogenic when raw and require elaborate treatment includuing shelling, crushing, leaching in running water for up to five days, then cooking. They are finally made into small loaves, which can keep for a nubmer of weeks.

In Queensland, the people of the Mount Tamborine area, used the Bunya Pine cone, endemic to the area, in this way to make bread.

Some names for Aboriginal bread

  • Bunup

References