WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.120 --> 00:00:05.000 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and today 2 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:08.759 I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May 3 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:12.480 twenty twenty six. As a reminder, Radio Eye is a 4 00:00:12.519 --> 00:00:15.519 reading service intended for people who are blind or have 5 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:18.719 other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. 6 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:22.879 Please join me now for the article titled how Australian 7 00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:26.879 chefs and farmers are rediscovering the ingredients that have been 8 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:31.879 there all along. From kangaroo grass to kakadoo plums, native 9 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:36.280 foods are redefining diner's taste buds and deepening their connection 10 00:00:36.439 --> 00:00:43.079 to the land. By j Cheshi's kangaroo grass covers the 11 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:47.280 hillside at Yambura, Bruce Pasco's farm in the East Gippsland 12 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:52.119 region of Victoria. In this sparsely populated rural corner of 13 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:57.679 Southeast Australia, the native weed doesn't warrant much thought. It's 14 00:00:57.719 --> 00:01:01.880 a sturdy bulwark against erosion and catnip for livestock and 15 00:01:01.960 --> 00:01:06.400 marsupials hopping in from the forest to Pasco. Though, the 16 00:01:06.439 --> 00:01:09.599 seventy eight year old author of a groundbreaking and controversial 17 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:15.079 history of Aboriginal agriculture, Dark Emu, it's something more profound 18 00:01:15.519 --> 00:01:19.519 a portal to Australia's past, when kangaroo grass planketed the 19 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:23.719 continent before imported pasture grass arrived with sheep and cattle, 20 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:28.760 and the indigenous inhabitants ground its seeds between stones to 21 00:01:28.840 --> 00:01:33.280 make flour for flatbreads cooked on hot coals. Pasco's book, 22 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:37.000 first published in twenty fourteen, paints a portrait of life 23 00:01:37.079 --> 00:01:42.319 before European settlement that diverges from many history books. Australia, 24 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:47.200 he argues, was not populated exclusively by nomadic hunter gatherers 25 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:50.359 living off what they scrounged from the land, as some 26 00:01:50.519 --> 00:01:54.920 eighteenth century English explorers had described it, a characterization that 27 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:59.319 was later used to justify rapid conquest. Pasco, while digging 28 00:01:59.359 --> 00:02:03.319 through archives at the Victoria State Library in Melbourne, found 29 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:07.040 historical accounts that told a different story of encounters with 30 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:11.080 people living in permanent settlements and using complex systems of 31 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:15.759 agriculture and aquaculture with stone farming tools and fish dams 32 00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:20.400 and irrigation trenches. In the journals of Major Thomas Mitchell, 33 00:02:20.680 --> 00:02:24.520 an explorer and surveyor who traversed eastern Australia in the 34 00:02:24.599 --> 00:02:28.840 eighteen thirties and forties, Pasco read of grass piled in 35 00:02:28.919 --> 00:02:32.800 hayricks so that the desert was softened into the agreeable 36 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:36.439 semblance of a hayfield, of seed made by the natives 37 00:02:36.479 --> 00:02:39.599 into a kind of paste or bread, and of land 38 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:44.520 patches that resembled ground broken with the hoe. George Gray, 39 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:48.719 another explorer of the same period, wrote of encountering frequent 40 00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:52.919 wells and land perforated with holes the natives made to 41 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:57.400 dig up yams. In Western Australia, a settler named Jesse 42 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:01.280 Hammond wrote of encountering a wicker favents built across a 43 00:03:01.319 --> 00:03:04.680 stream and a platform above it, where local people stood 44 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:07.479 to catch the fish as they swam through the race. 45 00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:12.560 Synthesizing these accounts and others, Pasco's book became a pop 46 00:03:12.639 --> 00:03:17.319 history bestseller in Australia and a political lightning rod. Most 47 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:21.439 of what it describes, he writes, disappeared as European settlements 48 00:03:21.479 --> 00:03:26.759 and agricultures subsumed or Aboriginal land and food culture. People 49 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:29.439 would say, when we first came to this country, you 50 00:03:29.479 --> 00:03:31.879 could run your fingers through the soil because of the 51 00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:35.719 intensity of the agriculture that had been going on. Other 52 00:03:35.719 --> 00:03:39.719 people were saying, we saw Aboriginal people driving kangaroos in 53 00:03:39.800 --> 00:03:43.080 a mob, Pascoe told me on a springtime visit to 54 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:47.039 his farm. I didn't learn that in my history classes 55 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:51.719 any of that. It had been hidden from us deliberately. Pasco, 56 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:55.280 a well known public intellectual since the nineteen eighties and 57 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:57.680 the author of more than two dozen books of fiction, 58 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:01.159 poetry and history, with an unread, truly white beard and 59 00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:04.560 a wide furrowed face, says that he likewise grew up 60 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:09.080 with holes in his family's history. Raised in and around Melbourne, 61 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:12.000 he learned about his Cornish ancestors, who had come to 62 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.199 Adelaide in the nineteenth century to work in the mines 63 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:19.279 on Australia's south coast, but only much later in life 64 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:23.519 did he hear from relatives that he had indigenous ancestry too. 65 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:26.519 He had also long dreamed of living off the land. 66 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:29.639 When he was a young school teacher and just starting 67 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:32.079 out as a writer, he lived on his own seven 68 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:36.079 hundred seventy acre farm raising cattle. I was playing at 69 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:39.680 farming because I loved it, he told me. The experience 70 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:42.519 stuck with him even after he moved back to Melbourne, 71 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:45.360 where he worked as a researcher for Victoria's Department of 72 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:49.680 Education and later as a professor of Indigenous Agriculture at 73 00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:53.959 the University of Melbourne. Then in twenty eighteen, he bought Jumburah. 74 00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:57.399 In the years since, along with his life partner Lynn 75 00:04:57.439 --> 00:05:01.040 Harwood seventy four, also a former sp school teacher, and 76 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:04.480 a pair of Australian cattle dogs, Pasco has worked to 77 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:10.000 revive long ignored aboriginal foods and cultivation methods. The one 78 00:05:10.040 --> 00:05:13.879 hundred forty acre farm, a former cattle ranch, was cut 79 00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:17.439 from old growth rainforest along the banks of the Wallagaro River. 80 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:21.160 Pasco is now working the land to grow a host 81 00:05:21.240 --> 00:05:27.079 of indigenous edible plants. Kangaroo grass, almost entirely forgotten as 82 00:05:27.079 --> 00:05:30.600 a staple of the Australian diet. Twenty seven percent protein 83 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:34.000 he boasts is threshed into flower that's sold to local 84 00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:37.920 bakers and a few chefs in Melbourne through his culinary enterprise, 85 00:05:38.319 --> 00:05:43.040 Black Duck Foods, which seeks to influence Australian agriculture toward 86 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:48.839 environmental sustainability and greater social inclusivity. In a small garden 87 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:53.399 behind his home, caged to keep out kangaroos, wallabies and wombats, 88 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:57.800 Pasco has planted neat rows of chocolate lilies, vanilla lilies, 89 00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:02.800 and bulbine lilies, native perennials with squat finger tubers dangling 90 00:06:02.839 --> 00:06:05.480 in bunches from the roots. He dug one out and 91 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:08.560 handed it to meat to taste. It was extra crunchy 92 00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:11.920 like a radish and subtly sweet. You can shop it 93 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.680 up and use it in dumplings, use it in a salad, 94 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:17.839 eat it raw, fry it, bake it, put it in 95 00:06:17.879 --> 00:06:21.399 a curry. He said they're very forgiving plants and cooking 96 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:25.879 because they hold their texture. In a makeshift nursery nearby, 97 00:06:26.360 --> 00:06:31.040 potted saplings of native quandong and courageong trees were beginning 98 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:34.879 to sprout. When they mature, the quandongs will produce a 99 00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:38.680 tart fruit with twice the vitamin sea of an orange. 100 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:43.000 The couragengs will produce edible roots with a sweet coconut taste. 101 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:46.720 We bought this farm in order to try and educate 102 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:50.839 Australians about their food. Pasco said it doesn't look like 103 00:06:50.879 --> 00:06:54.240 a conventional farm. It's wild food, a lot of it. 104 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:57.759 In the nearly two hundred and fifty years since the 105 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:00.800 so called first fleet carrying a one hundred and fifty 106 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:04.319 British convicts established the first settlement in what would become 107 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:08.839 Sydney in seventeen eighty eight. Australia has drifted steadily away 108 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:13.839 from its native bounty. Subsequent waves of migration brought foods 109 00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:18.800 from everywhere else pork pies, lamb roasts, shrimp, wantons, lasagna. 110 00:07:19.160 --> 00:07:22.079 The original foods eaten on the continent for thousands of 111 00:07:22.199 --> 00:07:26.759 years were largely forgotten as indigenous communities came under assault, 112 00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:31.560 their languages outlawed, their belief systems eroded. The first thing 113 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:35.920 that goes is culture. Pasco told me, genetically your Aboriginal, 114 00:07:36.199 --> 00:07:38.680 but you have no knowledge unless it's passed on to you. 115 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.959 By the mid nineteenth century, many indigenous communities had been 116 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:47.439 forced off their ancestral lands and were living on government 117 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:52.319 rations of white flour, refined sugar, and tinned beef. In 118 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:56.079 the popular imagination, the wild foods of the continent some 119 00:07:56.199 --> 00:07:59.800 sixty five hundred edible plants and animals have been documented, 120 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:05.160 were reduced to survivalist fair known by the blanket colloquialism. 121 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:10.519 Bush tucker, an archetype emerged of the ossy bushmen, most 122 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:14.959 memorably caricatured on film by Crocodile Dundee in the nineteen 123 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.839 eighties as a rugged individualist with enough Aboriginal food knowledge 124 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.439 to survive alone in the outback. On Australian television there 125 00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:28.680 was bush Tucker Man, a former Australian Army officer named 126 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:33.080 Les Hiddens, who from nineteen eighty eight to nineteen ninety 127 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:37.840 six traveled through remote regions, surviving on snakes, lizards and 128 00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:43.399 mangrove worms. But over the past forty years, as Australians 129 00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:46.879 have grappled with the legacy of policies and attitudes that 130 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.679 decimated Aboriginal culture, some native foods have begun making in 131 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:56.799 roads into wider notions of Australian identity. There has been 132 00:08:56.840 --> 00:09:01.039 a reappraisal, especially in the restaurant world, with chefs adding 133 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:06.320 native finger limes and lemon, myrtle, bush tomatoes and cockadoo plums, 134 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:11.120 kangaroo steaks and emo sausages to their kitchen arsenals. While 135 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:14.519 popular tastes can be slow to change, a handful of 136 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:18.919 chefs and TV personalities have broken through to the mainstream, 137 00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:22.679 many of them outsiders, it turns out, who are perhaps 138 00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:26.679 less burdened by the cultural baggage of growing up in Australia. 139 00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:32.480 Jean Paul Brunetaux, whose family moved to Australia from France 140 00:09:32.519 --> 00:09:35.879 when he was twelve, debuted one of the first restaurant 141 00:09:35.919 --> 00:09:40.080 men used to mix European cooking techniques with Australia's native 142 00:09:40.279 --> 00:09:44.559 ingredients when in nineteen eighty three he took over Round Trees, 143 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:49.879 located in a Sydney suburb. Brunetou started his cooking career 144 00:09:49.960 --> 00:09:53.080 in the Australian Merchant Navy, and he got the idea 145 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:57.679 for the reimagined restaurant while traveling the world. It dawned 146 00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:01.120 on me that wherever I went, I could eat local cuisine. 147 00:10:01.159 --> 00:10:04.360 He told me recently. If I was in Thailand, I 148 00:10:04.360 --> 00:10:07.639 could get Thai food. In Germany, I'd get German food. 149 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:11.360 But whenever I came back to Australia, I always thought, well, 150 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:15.240 we don't really have an Australian cuisine. At one port 151 00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:17.840 of call in New Zealand, he tasted the foods of 152 00:10:17.879 --> 00:10:21.000 the native Mayori people and a light bulb went off, 153 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:24.159 I thought to myself, He said, hang on a sec 154 00:10:24.440 --> 00:10:28.720 what did the original people in Australia eat? He returned 155 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:31.879 home from his tour of duty and began researching the 156 00:10:31.919 --> 00:10:37.480 traditional Aboriginal diet, as Pasco would do decades later. Bruneto 157 00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:41.720 read through accounts from early explorers and settlers. This was 158 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:46.039 pre internet, he said, so it met libraries and historical texts. 159 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:50.840 He began to track down ingredients and experiment. Every time 160 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:54.799 I tasted something, I was wowed, he said. It was amazing. 161 00:10:55.240 --> 00:10:58.360 I thought, why isn't this used? Why don't we know 162 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:02.679 about this? There's a cuisine in this. At Round Trees, 163 00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:06.799 the first Australian restaurant with a fully native concept, as 164 00:11:06.840 --> 00:11:12.480 Bruneto describes it, he served barbecued witchety grubs, wood eating 165 00:11:12.679 --> 00:11:16.720 moth larvae with a nutty taste in peanut sauce. He 166 00:11:16.799 --> 00:11:21.399 introduced urban Australians to quandongs and lemon myrtle, a tropical 167 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:25.639 shrub with lemony leaves, and he successfully lobbied the government 168 00:11:25.720 --> 00:11:29.600 of New South Wales to approve the use of kangaroo 169 00:11:29.639 --> 00:11:34.120 meat in restaurants. It was pioneering work and I loved it, 170 00:11:34.200 --> 00:11:39.039 he said. By the nineteen nineties, a full fledged native 171 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:43.360 foods movement seemed to be gaining momentum. In ten years, 172 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:47.080 Australia's cuisine is going to be so new, so different 173 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:49.320 from the rest of the world, that it's going to 174 00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:52.679 have an effect like nouvelle cuisine in France ten years ago, 175 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:57.440 Bruneto predicted in the Montreal Gazette in nineteen ninety. Bush 176 00:11:57.480 --> 00:12:01.240 Tucker catches On read a headline in the Christian Science 177 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:04.679 Monitor the following year touting the hot new trend in 178 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:11.759 outback cuisine. But while niche businesses sprang up supplying native ingredients, 179 00:12:11.799 --> 00:12:17.639 promoting especially their superfood nutrient rich qualities, no explosion in 180 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:23.120 restaurants focused on native foods materialized. When Mark Olif, an 181 00:12:23.159 --> 00:12:27.120 Indigenous chef from a sprawling suburb called Dapto on the 182 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:31.120 coast of New South Wales, opened his first solo restaurant 183 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:35.440 in Sydney in the mid nineties, serving crocodile meat lasagna 184 00:12:35.480 --> 00:12:38.840 and kangaroo loin with pepperberry sauce as a stand in 185 00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:45.399 for stekopovre. The new enthusiasm was already waning. Olive called 186 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:50.159 his restaurant Midland, after historical feasting places found along the 187 00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:55.960 Australian coast, where Indigenous people left behind scattered and buried fishbones, 188 00:12:56.120 --> 00:13:02.279 seashells and other meal time detritus. His restaurant lasted only 189 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:05.879 two years. People couldn't understand what I was trying to do, 190 00:13:05.960 --> 00:13:09.120 he told me recently. It was way ahead of its time. 191 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:14.600 A gregarious, performative figure, Olive went on to study film 192 00:13:14.639 --> 00:13:18.120 and TV in Melbourne, and he found better luck promoting 193 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:21.919 native foods when he successfully pitched a show to Australian 194 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:26.480 TV called out Back Cafe. In the first episode, which 195 00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:30.559 premiered in two thousand six, he foraged for native ingredients 196 00:13:30.879 --> 00:13:35.120 and pieced together a telegenic spread, a salad of cold yabbees, 197 00:13:35.279 --> 00:13:39.919 a native crayfish pizza topped with smoked kangaroo ice cream 198 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.279 infused with wattle seeds. It introduced Australians to a lot 199 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:48.440 of indigenous herbs, spices, things they'd never heard of. He said, 200 00:13:48.799 --> 00:13:53.759 That's where my career started. The program ran for just 201 00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:58.200 two seasons, but it helped make Olive a celebrity. He 202 00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:02.000 has appeared regularly on telege since as a judge on 203 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:05.679 the cooking competition The Chef's Line, as a co host 204 00:14:05.720 --> 00:14:09.679 of The Foraging focused on Country Kitchen, and has traveled 205 00:14:09.720 --> 00:14:13.879 the world as a sort of cultural ambassador. It's been 206 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:16.559 a good forty years I've been working with this stuff. 207 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:20.679 Olive told me of his experience promoting native ingredients, and 208 00:14:20.759 --> 00:14:25.000 it's only since reality TV started thirteen fourteen years ago 209 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:30.679 that it's moved forward. For a while, Australians seemed most 210 00:14:30.759 --> 00:14:35.960 interested in engaging with native foods on television. Jacqueson Frillo, 211 00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:39.879 a Scotsman who settled in Australia in two thousand, was 212 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:43.440 another chef and another outsider to make a name for 213 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:49.320 himself by celebrating native ingredients on Australian TV. Like Bruneto, 214 00:14:49.720 --> 00:14:52.440 he had been startled to learn that the country had 215 00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:56.799 no widely recognized pre colonial cuisine to speak of, and 216 00:14:56.879 --> 00:15:01.519 he began visiting indigenous communities to learned about foods most 217 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:06.600 chefs ignored. In twenty thirteen, he opened his flagship restaurant 218 00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:11.559 Urana and Adelaide, serving an elaborate tasting menu heavy on 219 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:16.080 native ingredients. In twenty fourteen, I spent a week in 220 00:15:16.120 --> 00:15:19.399 the outback with Sonfrillo in a remote corner of the 221 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:24.360 Kimberley in Western Australia. We slept under the stars and 222 00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:28.279 ate the wild food around us. A friend of Zanfrello's 223 00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:32.240 cooked us a feast of kangaroo tale the sinewy, gelatinous 224 00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:34.679 meat roasted in a pit he dug in the ground. 225 00:15:35.279 --> 00:15:38.240 Son Frillo spoke of his dream of creating a network 226 00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:41.840 of food suppliers through a foundation he intended to start, 227 00:15:42.159 --> 00:15:45.120 and of plans to catalog everything in a database of 228 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:50.840 native foods. Sonfrillo's fame skyrocketed as he opened new restaurants 229 00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:55.240 and became a fixture on Australian TV as a judge 230 00:15:55.279 --> 00:15:59.200 on the cooking competition program Master Chef. He remained an 231 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:03.759 evangelist for native ingredients, but three years ago, after public 232 00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:08.639 reports of financial mismanagement at his foundation, Zanfrillo was found 233 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:11.360 dead in a Melbourne hotel room at the age of 234 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:15.679 forty six. Although his cause of death was never made public, 235 00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:20.000 family and friends have suggested that Sonfrillo, who was married 236 00:16:20.039 --> 00:16:25.600 and had four children, died unexpectedly of natural causes. Today, 237 00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:31.240 Australia's most prominent restaurant showcasing native ingredients is run by 238 00:16:31.320 --> 00:16:37.600 another transplant chef, Ben Shuri from New Zealand. His restaurant Attica, 239 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:42.440 is a high end yet understated gastronomic gem nestled between 240 00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:46.519 a massage therapist's studio and a veterinary hospital in a 241 00:16:46.559 --> 00:16:51.679 sleepy inner suburb of Melbourne called Ripponlia. In two thousand five, 242 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:55.120 Shuri responded to an ad for a head chef job 243 00:16:55.159 --> 00:16:59.399 at what was then a modest neighborhood bistro. It lacked 244 00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:03.279 a clear eye identity, he recalled recently. The owner didn't 245 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:07.000 work in hospitality and wasn't even present most of the time. 246 00:17:07.480 --> 00:17:11.079 He told me to make it whatever I wanted. Churie 247 00:17:11.279 --> 00:17:15.079 introduced a new menu that fused references from his eclectic 248 00:17:15.160 --> 00:17:18.559 background as a chef, a mix of Thai, French and 249 00:17:18.599 --> 00:17:24.839 Australian influences. It was more autobiographical than of any particular place. 250 00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:29.240 Soon the restaurant was racking up raves and food pilgrims 251 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:34.200 flooded Rippamly. A decade ago, Schuie began a decisive shift, 252 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:38.279 inspired in part by meeting Pasco, who was promoting Dark 253 00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:42.319 Emu at a food and ideas festival. That book had 254 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:45.359 a profound effect on me. Schu Ree told me it 255 00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:49.279 totally flipped the script, dismantled the lie of Aboriginal people 256 00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:53.759 being solely hunter gatherers, and presented them as farmers, which 257 00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:56.480 of course they were. It was so obvious, it was 258 00:17:56.559 --> 00:18:01.720 right there. Schurie had already been experimenting with ingredients. He 259 00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:06.160 foraged himself. I poisoned myself multiple times, he told me. 260 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:11.000 But Pasco introduced him to Aboriginal elders, who taught him 261 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:14.559 the traditional uses of the foods he'd been collecting and 262 00:18:14.680 --> 00:18:19.079 other intriguing ingredients. He learned how to turn bunya nuts, 263 00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:24.000 the world's largest pine nuts, into a chestnutty puree. How 264 00:18:24.039 --> 00:18:27.440 to grill fish wrapped and bark from the paper bark tree, 265 00:18:27.720 --> 00:18:31.000 how to harness green ants as a tangy pepperys seasoning. 266 00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:37.240 Attica's chefs now cook almost exclusively with native ingredients. We 267 00:18:37.359 --> 00:18:41.200 haven't used hard hoof animals here for some time, said Shrwery, 268 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:44.839 chatting in the restaurant's dining room. We prefer to use 269 00:18:44.920 --> 00:18:50.359 wallaby and kangaroo and emu and crocodile. Guests would begin 270 00:18:50.559 --> 00:18:54.119 arriving for dinner in a few hours. On a wooden tray, 271 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:58.160 he'd laid out a selection of produce from the restaurant's larder. 272 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:01.079 He held up a golf ball sized fruit with the 273 00:19:01.079 --> 00:19:05.319 bright purple skin. This ouh ray plum is intense, he said. 274 00:19:05.880 --> 00:19:09.599 It's sour on an almost unprecedented level. It makes an 275 00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:13.960 amazing jam. The fruit is also known as Davidson plum 276 00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:18.599 after a nineteenth century sugar cane grower, John Davidson, but 277 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:23.319 Scheweery prefers the Aboriginal name. Davidson was a notorious murderer 278 00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:27.160 of Aboriginal people. He said, herein lies the trickiness of 279 00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:31.440 our country. There were also sprigs of salt bush, a 280 00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:34.599 wild salty shrub that grows on beeches and in deserts 281 00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:39.000 across the country. And red champagne finger limes with tiny 282 00:19:39.079 --> 00:19:43.440 sour pearls sometimes called citrus caviare bursting out from under 283 00:19:43.480 --> 00:19:47.720 their ruddy skin. My twelve course dinner that night included 284 00:19:47.720 --> 00:19:52.319 a miniature map of Australia, playfully constructed from thinly sliced 285 00:19:52.480 --> 00:19:56.559 raw fish, with tiny dollops of native produce deposited around 286 00:19:56.599 --> 00:20:00.279 various corners of the country, smidgeens of munch tree trees, 287 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:04.799 tiny berries from South Australia that taste like spiced apples, 288 00:20:04.839 --> 00:20:08.480 of Geraldton wax, the soapy herbaceous leaves of a shrub 289 00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:13.240 from Western Australia of waregaal greens, a native spinach from 290 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:17.880 New South Wales and elsewhere of rainforest cherry, a tangy 291 00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:22.359 sweet berry from Queensland. A buttery tart shell came filled 292 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:25.799 with pepperberry cream and a sprinkle of green ants from 293 00:20:25.799 --> 00:20:29.279 the Northern Territory, adding a citrusy zing to the dish, 294 00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:33.480 which was served on a plate with hyperrealistic ants painted 295 00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:37.880 on it. Crocodile rib meat arrived on flatbread in a 296 00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:41.920 sort of sweet and savory gyro smeared with macedamia nut, 297 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:46.680 yogurt and native honey. A classic Australian meat pie was 298 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:50.119 stuffed with stewed kangaroo and paired with a shot of 299 00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:54.000 dark Emu Lager, a local beer brewed with native grass 300 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:59.440 seeds and named after Pascoe's book. Schwelry has forged personal 301 00:20:59.480 --> 00:21:03.400 relationship with many of his suppliers, who are often isolated 302 00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:07.119 and working with very small quantities. We don't really have 303 00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:10.440 a consistent supply chain for some of these foods, he said. 304 00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:14.240 It may seem odd then that some ingredients I first 305 00:21:14.279 --> 00:21:18.039 tasted a decade ago have become big business, but not 306 00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:21.640 in the way chefs like Showery would hope. Demand has 307 00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:26.119 come instead from the pharmaceutical and beauty industries think skin 308 00:21:26.200 --> 00:21:30.160 creams made with finger limes and cacadoo plums, and shampoos 309 00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:34.559 infused with river mint. At the same time, Aboriginal owned 310 00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:38.680 businesses have been mostly left out of the expanding native 311 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:42.519 foods and botanical sector, accounting for just two percent of 312 00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:47.720 all generated revenue according to a recent estimate. Pasco is 313 00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:52.079 working to even the playing field to pass down traditional knowledge. 314 00:21:52.119 --> 00:21:57.599 He explained, Aboriginal elders sometimes encourage younger generations to gather 315 00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:02.799 plants for interested outsiders, such as cosmetic industry representatives who 316 00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:07.440 show up in Aboriginal communities. They more or less donate 317 00:22:07.480 --> 00:22:11.160 those plants, and then the cosmetics industry think that's the price, 318 00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:14.920 Pascoe told me, so we're having to educate the market 319 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:19.000 to be a bit more respectful. One morning in Perth, 320 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:23.000 in Western Australia, I met with the founders of Gather Foods, 321 00:22:23.240 --> 00:22:27.000 an Aboriginal owned business, in their kitchen and a historic 322 00:22:27.079 --> 00:22:31.279 building of the Aboriginal Advancement Council, a civil rights group. 323 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:35.279 The company launched in twenty sixteen as a catering business, 324 00:22:35.559 --> 00:22:39.720 before expanding to include events, food production, and a wholesale 325 00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:43.759 arm selling a wide range of native spices, herbs, jams 326 00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:47.400 and sauces. We started the business really to take the 327 00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:51.920 narrative back around native food, Jerry Mattera, a co founder 328 00:22:51.960 --> 00:22:54.799 and a trained chef raised in a small town south 329 00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:59.480 of Perth, told me. Along with funneling native ingredients into 330 00:22:59.559 --> 00:23:04.640 corporate catering gigs, gather foods hosts, bush Tucker talks and 331 00:23:04.680 --> 00:23:09.680 tastings experiences that offer tips on using, sourcing and growing 332 00:23:09.759 --> 00:23:13.920 native edible plants, with an option to include traditional dance 333 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:18.640 performances and smoking ceremonies. The hope is to get people 334 00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:22.200 thinking a little bit differently about native foods. As Matera 335 00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:26.319 explained it, our ancestors have been here for over sixty 336 00:23:26.359 --> 00:23:30.480 thousand years and people should know that. The company works 337 00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:33.640 with the network of farms around the country to source 338 00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:37.359 native ingredients, which it slips into a range of sleekly 339 00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:42.839 packaged commercial products pints of chocolate, wattleseed ice cream, jars 340 00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:46.759 of chili and desert lime flavored roasted nuts, bottles of 341 00:23:46.839 --> 00:23:51.039 gin infused with salt bush and sunrise lime. This year 342 00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:55.200 on the waterfront in Fremantle, just south of Perth, Materira 343 00:23:55.279 --> 00:23:59.200 and his team are opening their own culinary complex with 344 00:23:59.319 --> 00:24:03.000 the cafe, retail shop and an event space, and they 345 00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:07.200 have been working on exporting their products globally. I feel 346 00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:10.240 like we're at the tip of an explosion, Matira said. 347 00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:15.680 Like many champions of indigenous Australian ingredients, Materia sees Pasco 348 00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:19.440 as a personal hero. All that he's about is bringing 349 00:24:19.519 --> 00:24:23.640 native food to the forefront, Materira told me. In twenty 350 00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:27.720 twenty four, Pasco published a new book, Black Duck, A 351 00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:31.720 Year at Yamburah, chronicling both life on his farm as 352 00:24:31.759 --> 00:24:35.160 it emerged from the COVID nineteen pandemic and the public 353 00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:40.480 reaction to dark Emu with pastoral sketches by Harwood. Since 354 00:24:40.519 --> 00:24:44.799 buying the property, he's tackled his share of logistical challenges, 355 00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:50.279 from staff and equipment shortages to devastating wildfires. While launching 356 00:24:50.319 --> 00:24:54.880 an agricultural business from scratch, He's made his life more 357 00:24:54.920 --> 00:24:59.799 difficult by hewing closely to indigenous growing techniques. We are 358 00:24:59.839 --> 00:25:04.119 not applying fertilizer except in the very early stages, not 359 00:25:04.200 --> 00:25:07.480 providing much water because part of the argument is these 360 00:25:07.559 --> 00:25:10.680 practices are sustainable and the old people did it with 361 00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:12.799 what was available, so we have to do it with 362 00:25:12.839 --> 00:25:16.480 what is available. He uses fire as a land management 363 00:25:16.519 --> 00:25:22.119 tool firestick farming. The Aboriginal community calls it conducting controlled 364 00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:26.519 burns to clear out invasive vegetation and encourage new growth. 365 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:32.359 The weather was turning windy. Harwood was preparing lamb stew 366 00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:36.559 for dinner. Near By, a mob of kangaroos emerged from 367 00:25:36.599 --> 00:25:41.119 the forest to graze. As we spoke, Pasco noticed smoke 368 00:25:41.279 --> 00:25:44.079 rising from the river bank, and he popped down to 369 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:48.440 investigate the embers of a fire lit earlier that day 370 00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:51.640 had come back to life. Jumping on to the dock 371 00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:55.079 where he moors his motor boat in the river, he 372 00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:58.599 grabbed a bucket and doused the burning planks, then rushed 373 00:25:58.599 --> 00:26:02.000 back up the hill. He returned a few minutes later 374 00:26:02.440 --> 00:26:05.759 with a vat of water and a powerful hose, and 375 00:26:05.920 --> 00:26:11.559 soon the fire was out. Kangaroo grass farming, it turns out, 376 00:26:12.079 --> 00:26:15.759 is rigorous work, and the business has been a struggle. 377 00:26:16.920 --> 00:26:20.680 But Pasco has hope. It's very boutique at the moment, 378 00:26:20.759 --> 00:26:24.680 he admitted, but sooner or later he felt sure it 379 00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:28.440 would catch on and if we have anything to do 380 00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:32.960 with it, there will be cultural acknowledgment and Aboriginal people 381 00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:37.519 will benefit. To hasten that change. In early twenty twenty five, 382 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:41.759 Pasco brought on new partners at the farm, handing day 383 00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:46.279 to day management over to members of the local Indigenous community, 384 00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:50.440 and he has set in motion plans to transfer ownership. 385 00:26:52.079 --> 00:26:55.799 A few years ago, in the Sydney Opera House, Olive 386 00:26:55.960 --> 00:26:59.640 opened a new incarnation of Bidden, more than twenty five 387 00:26:59.720 --> 00:27:04.160 years after closing the first. It's a more ambitious version 388 00:27:04.200 --> 00:27:10.559 of the original restaurant, serving kangaroo prejute, crocodile tanduri, geraldton 389 00:27:10.680 --> 00:27:15.480 wax panacotta and cocktails made with green ant infused gin. 390 00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:20.640 Among restaurants, it may be the most high profile bridge 391 00:27:20.720 --> 00:27:26.079 yet between ancient and modern Australia, another step toward bringing 392 00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:32.599 native ingredients into the mainstream. At the restaurant's inauguration in 393 00:27:32.680 --> 00:27:37.119 July twenty twenty three, Olive spoke to some four hundred 394 00:27:37.160 --> 00:27:42.440 well wishers, who included his ninety year old father. Recalling 395 00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:45.319 his early days as a chef, Olive told the crowd, 396 00:27:46.039 --> 00:27:48.480 if you said to me that an indigenous bloke from 397 00:27:48.599 --> 00:27:52.079 Dapto would one day open a restaurant at the Sydney 398 00:27:52.119 --> 00:28:01.559 Opera House, I would have said, that's mission impossible. This 399 00:28:01.640 --> 00:28:06.039 concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your reader 400 00:28:06.079 --> 00:28:09.480 has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have 401 00:28:09.640 --> 00:28:10.400 a great day.