bush tucker

[~*heket*~]

I have a thing for bush tucker. My kitchen has lemon myrtle, pepperberry, wattle seed, saltbush flakes with pepperberry, and a few other odds and ends. I also have some yummy barramundi fillets awaiting my attention! And a really amazing lemon aspen jelly. OMG I love bush tucker! It's really yummy, and I figure it's good for the environment coz it's grown here, you know the workers are being paid a real wage not a sweatshop pittance, and it doesn't have to travel half way around the world which is also enviro friendly!

Tonight I made baked ricotta with lots of garlic dip, pepperberry, wattle seed, and lemon myrtle. Fuck it's yummy!

Do you like bush tucker? Would you like to try it?

[Sarasvati]

I have tried bush tomatoes and am not a huge fan, but lemon myrtle is delicious! I also like wattleseed... would really like to try more though!

[Ayla]

I love Dick Smith's Bush Foods breakfast, does that count? :lol

[~*heket*~]

:lol I might try that!

The ricotta is SOOOOO good! OMG it's yum!

[Janet]

Good thing we're going to the markets today. :D

[bella]

I am crazy about bushfoods and wildfoods. I don't necessarily buy them, though. Well, I bought local, wild-caught fish sometimes. But we harvest tons of stuff from our own property. Right now there are native raspberries, Millaa vine, blue quandong and bumpy satinash in season. At other times we have yellow guava, cherry guava, lemon aspen, davidson's plum, lemon myrtle, lillipillies, bush lemons, banana figs, atherton oaks, macadamias, cherry satinash and more right here in our own backyard (must admit there's 20 acres of rainforest out there)...

I make a lot of jams and jellies from native fruits - very rich in Vit C and fantastic tangy flavour.

I've just found a local website (http://earthsci.org/aboriginal/Ngadjonji%20History/Introduction/history1.htm) which has a great outline of bushtucker which grows native to the area in which we live.

BTW - I included wildfoods in that list too - the guavas etc which are introduced species...

[~*heket*~]

That sounds GREAT!!!

I bought a packet of dried native mint today and will be trying it out at some stage :eager

[Aurora]

I don't grow or buy alot of bush/native foods, but should! We have some excellent sauces... my fave is wild lime, chilli and ginger. ''Outback Spirit'' I think is the brand. There are some other goodies at the Oxfam shop. I have some ''bush'' teas aswell which are nice. But yeah, we don't get alot of fresh bush foods at our local fruit and veg market unfortunately... I really should get motivated to seek out some seeds and grow our own. We have some amazing flavours here in Aus!

As a teenager, I attended a bush tucker workshop and it was excellent. A local Koori guy cooked all kinds of delish things, he made fritters with wild yams that were really yummy. You can buy native juices which are good.... the Rosella is YUM!

[Ayla]

Lemon Myrtle leaves make a yummy tea, and Lillypilly jam is yummo! Have you ever had finger limes? I don't know if they're native or not, but they had them at the farm and they're great! I bet kids would really love them.

[Sarasvati]

Finger limes are supposed to be native I think. I have a cookbook of native foods and that's in it.

[~*heket*~]

Lemon myrtle is also great in stir fries, or cheese cake, I use it in heaps of stuff :eager

I do think the finger limes are aussie, but I could be wrong.

Pistacios and kumara are homegrown bush tucker but we don't often think about them in that light coz they're so readily available!

[Ceres]

Is anyone growing bush tucker? I saw some plants at a market stall on the weekend that looked promising. Probably going to get some of the finger limes.

[Ayla]

We have lillypillys growing but I've never harvested the fruit.

[~*heket*~]

Lilly pilly makes great jam and chutney apparently.

I really wanna grow some food too! let me know what you learn.

[bella]

My kids eat the lillipillies straight from the tree. There are so many varieties - some are sweeter than others.

I have planted some bushtucker trees and plants because they're Bel-proof to grow. :p

I don't have a finger lime tree, but I've heard they are really nice. I have kaffir lime and tahitian lime, but should still hunt one down as they grow well here.

Kumara is originally from Sth America, be we have our own tubers here too of course. Most of those I grow are Asian though, as they appreciate our wet weather more. :) I grow tons of sweet potato, they love it here. I have orange, purple and white ones so far! :)

Cherry tomatoes are soon becoming wild food here in the house paddock. In our first year we had one vine. It's now our 2nd year here and there's about 9 plants of cherry tomatoes rambling in various corners of the yard. The kids just love them!

[breeze]

Wow, Bella. Ididnt realise there were different types of lillipillies. I used to climb one as a kid and eat the friut too :) What is the best variety to eat and make jam out of?

[~*heket*~]

I didn't know there were different lillypilly's either. The one I knew when I was a kid was a huge one that overhung the trunk so you could climb through the leaves and there was a ready made cubby house waiting (hard to explain :lol) but the fruit was always somewhere between tart and boring, not really sweet, which is why I suggestd chutney and jam!

[breeze]

My lillipilly was a ship ;) Best climbing tree ever! I found the fruit like that too Heket. That's why I'd love to taste it in a jam!

[~*heket*~]

I wish I had a photo of that tree now! Have you got one of yours?

[bella]

Hmmm, I don't know the varieties' names. But the ones that are really shiny and dark pink, and bigger than a sultana but smaller than, an, um, oh, a Malteser (LOL) - those ones are yum!

We have "woolly pears", raspberries and lillipillies on right now. Next wild foods will be the guavas (cherry and yellow).

[breeze]

Should have a photo somewhere Heket. It'd be a print and at mum's. I'll ask her to have a look. The tree'd still be standing, but it blew down in a huge storm about 6 years ago :(
Thanks Bella, I shall go and have a look at the native nursery near us

[Sarasvati]

http://www.barbushco.com.au/ some native spices etc.

[~*heket*~]

I LOVE barbushco! Their bush dukkah is AMAZING, and I always have their lemon myrtle in the fridge :eager

I've also noticed a growing number of bush tucker things available in the regular ordinary big name supermarkets lately too! That's got me all in a lather :lol

[Sarasvati]

I want some lemon myrtle oil, I LOVE the taste of lemon myrtle. And I want to get some bush dukkah too, and am intrigued by the aniseed and cinnamon myrtles!

Yeah Outback Spirit is one I've seen in Coles or Woolies, I love their Kakadu Plum and Sweet Chilli and the Wild lime, ginger and chilli... but they're full of sugar gah!

[bella]

We get some Outback Spirit sauces as a treat sometimes. :)

I have a lemon aspen tree fruiting at the moment, and the macadamias are back in season. There's guava's too, but they're wild food rather than bushfood.

[~*heket*~]

They've also had just the dried spices though. We have saltbush, saltbush/pepperberry combo (AMAZING!!!) and another one that I can't remember. And I got some pasta sauces that were the outback spirit brand, they were nice! Adam made the bestest home made pasta for it. Oh ... that was when I ate carbs :runcry

[Sarasvati]

Ooh lemon aspen sounds interesting!

[~*heket*~]

I have a lemon aspen jelly, it's really interesting! Such a complex flavour. We use it in home made mayo.

[Sarasvati]

Is it actual jelly, or jam?

[~*heket*~]

jam now that you mention it. It's like really bitter marmalade with an odd twist.

[bella]

Oooh, I'm going to look for a recipe and make some from our tree. Thanks for the idea!