"Everybody’s hungry, everybody wants to sit down and have a meal… it’s the best way to have a conversation about our culture within Australia, and we should be doing more of it."– Nornie Bero, Mabu Mabu

Hanging out with Nornie Bero at

Mabu Mabu

, a Torres Strait Island-owned cafe making native ingredients mainstream. Filmed by

Liam Neal

.

Wominjeka! G'day!

READ » Will Native Australian Ingredients ever be Mainstream?

Australia’s food scene is distinguished by multiculturalism and access to land, which "abounds in nature's gifts". Like the national anthem, our culinary history ignores First Nations people, who have cultivated and harvested native ingredients for more than 60,000 years. It’s only since 2017 that native Australian ingredients really started to hit the headlines, and our education continues to trickle down from fine-dining restaurants with non-Indigenous people at the helm. Last year I wrote an article for Emirates’ in-flight magazine questioning whether Australia truly has a national cuisine. Chatting with Bruce Pascoe – Bunurong man and award-winning writer, teacher and anthologist – it became clear that until native ingredients become mainstream, we don’t.“I don’t think we’ve had an Australian cuisine yet. I think we’re about to have one. We’ve been searching for a national identity and cuisine is part of that,” he told me.In his book Dark Emu, Bruce shares that Indigenous Australian communities were first to bake bread using native grains, tens of thousands of years before the Egyptians. Just this year at his farm in East Gippsland, Bruce harvested and baked with mandadyan nalluk, native dancing grass, for the first time in 200 years. Although restaurants play a pivotal role in educating consumers about native ingredients, Bruce believes that they will only become mainstream when readily available in supermarkets. 

Connecting Indigenous Farmers with BuyersChris Mara, executive director of not-for-profit Outback Spirit Foundation, agrees. The Foundation was set up to support Indigenous growers supplying native ingredients. It’s Chris’ job to connect them with businesses that want to use their products. “The supply chain is fragile, it has never been commercially developed other than in a craft setting – cottage industry sort of stuff and for restaurants – but when you go into mainstream supermarkets, you have to be able to supply a significant volume, even if it’s only a tiny proportion of the product,” says Chris. After departing Coles Group as corporate affairs adviser, where he was also chair of the Coles Indigenous Food Fund until 2014, Chris was appointed as the foundation’s executive director in 2015. He now works with about a dozen Indigenous growers across Australia. The bush foods industry is estimated to be worth around $20 million, yet a survey by industry group Bushfood Sensations found that Indigenous representation is less than one per cent. Chris believes that an Australian food product can only be “authentic” if an Indigenous farmer supplied the native ingredients it uses. “If you’re going to grow the pie and have more people tasting these products, you’ve got to have more customers to sell to. It’s a rising tide carries all boats situation,” he says. The Outback Spirit Foundation was founded by the Robins Food brand in the early 2000s. Its chef-owners started using native ingredients in condiments back in the 1980s, but found it difficult to commercially source ingredients from Indigenous suppliers. In 2007, they launched the Outback Spirit label in Coles supermarkets, with 10 cents per product sold going back to assisting Indigenous suppliers. The future of Robins is uncertain after the company went into administration in March 2020, but Chris is hopeful that someone will take over manufacturing and that the foundation, which is set up separately, will survive.The simplest way for native ingredients to become mainstream is for them to be processed into more familiar products. In Coles you'll find Outback Spirit pork sausages spiked with kakadu plum and beef snags made with mountain pepper. There are also tomato, barbecue and sweet chilli sauces. “There are herbs and things that people don’t really understand how to use. When people taste them they are really impressed, but it’s hard to get consumers to change their habits,” he says. “Restaurant trade will help drive it, but it’s important to keep these things on the shelf.”

Condiments infused with native ingredients line the shelves at Mabu Mabu cafe.

Ancient Produce, New TechniquesChris says he is “more optimistic than ever” about the future of native foods. Plant yields have quadrupled and there’s proactive species selection and breeding taking place. One of the growers supported by Outback Spirit Foundation is Dominic Smith of Pundi Produce. Dominic, who is 37 years old, is from Yuin country in New South Wales but was raised in Adelaide. His farm is in Monash in The Riverland region of South Australia. Dominic started farming native ingredients a few years ago, transitioning from commercial products like basil and lettuce to river mint, rosella, saltbush, muntries, bush tomatoes, lemon myrtle and aniseed myrtle. By the end of winter he will have planted 15 acres of wattleseed. A direct-to-customer website launches in the next month. “The demand outweighs what’s being grown. I’m just finding the market’s ready,” he says. “I’m looking at purchasing another 44 acres in the next financial year and planting that up full of wattleseed. Hopefully I’ll be able to start a program getting a few guys working out there, a few Indigenous fellas, and then proceed onto them getting their own farms to keep building that up.” Dominic, who plans to export wattleseed, is also a couple of years into a nursing degree, en route to becoming a doctor. I ask how he plans to sell the world wattleseed and do medicine simultaneously. “Wattleseed harvest only happens for two weeks of the year,” he assures me. “I like learning. Knowledge is power, you know? I just want to be whatever I set my goals to be, because then there’s nothing in my way except for myself. If I’m to help other people who come from a similar background, then they can go, ‘Well if he can do it, maybe I can do it.’”

Outback Spirit Foundation chair, Peter Dalton, with Dominic Smith on the Riverland farm.

Demand More Native IngredientsFrom a consumer perspective, Nornie Bero, head chef and co-owner of Mabu Mabu cafe and catering in the west Melbourne suburb of Yarraville, says the best thing the general public can do to make native ingredients mainstream is increase demand. “Go out and ask your local grocers, go out and ask your local spice places, ‘stock this product’. Do it, because the more we ask for it, the better the prices are going to be,” she says. At Mabu Mabu, Nornie incorporates Australian ingredients into accessible and familiar dishes and condiments, whether emu and native yams in tacos or calamari battered with saltbush and pepperberry. The reason people don’t eat more native ingredients, she says, is because we don’t know how to use them. “It’s one thing to be on MasterChef and put a sliver on top, but you need to explain it to people. You need to make them aware of how it smells, what the flavour is like, where it comes from and how to use it as well,” she says. “I just don’t think there’s enough conversation around the actual product. Most people walk in the door and they’re like, I don’t know how to use that.” Nornie references saltbush, which she calls “black man’s oregano”, and says there’s no excuse not to have ingredients like it in our pantries beside introduced herbs and spices. “We all live in this multicultural Australia and I want us in the food industry, for people, to take note… I want to start the conversation about Indigenous people around food, because I always know that’s when I’ve had the best conversations,” she says.

Emu tacos from Mabu Mabu cafe.

READ » Fighting Aboriginal Stereotypes with Food & Wine

Gary Green, pictured truffle hunting, wants Aboriginal Australians to be associated with more premium food and wine products.

Unless you’re familiar with the work of artist and photographer Wayne Quilliam, there’s nothing on the new Mt Yengo Wines Mother Earth Collection that screams “Indigenous Australia”. The 2018 Barossa Valley Shiraz and 2017 McLaren Vale Cabernet Sauvignon are each labelled with the figure of a woman melding into different Australian landscapes. They’re a far cry from traditional dot paintings, and according to Mt Yengo Wines co-owner and Kamilaroi/Gidabil man Gary Green, that’s the point. “I branched into wine because I really wanted to break that negative stereotype that people have around Aboriginal people and alcohol,” he says. “When we first went to market people would go, ‘Really, an Aboriginal wine company?’ That to me is institutionalised racism. That’s what we really want to change.” 

The shiraz and cabernet sauvignon are new-release premium wines under cork in 1.2-kilogram bottles. Mt Yengo (formerly Gondwana Wines) also stocks entry-level Riverina sparkling shiraz and estate-grown chardonnay from its winery in the Hunter Valley. For every bottle sold, $0.50 goes to the artist and another $0.50 is used to fund digital literacy programs in remote Indigenous communities. Gary is looking at the possibility of a wine made from an Australian varietal after a traditional owner told him about a native grape species in central Australia. “This spring we’ve got a tour up there to investigate this more and see what we can actually do; if it’s commercially viable and if we can get some of the winemakers to play with it,” says Gary. Pending approval, the next chapter of Mt Yengo wines will be developing the Hunter Valley winery into an outdoor events and function space, complete with 50 glamping tents and cultural tourism experiences employing Indigenous Australians, which Gary says are lacking. He criticizes companies like Yellow Tail, that are “prostituting culture to get engagement”, particularly among the Asian market. “We want to get more Indigenous people into the hospitality sector and viticulture. The best visitors normally get is a boomerang painted at the airport, unfortunately. I like to think that Aboriginal people are the solution; if there is a problem with this representation, how do we fix it as Indigenous people? How do we get more representation in these fields?” he says.

Mt Yengo Wines new releases come in 1.2kg bottles.

Gary is also involved in other food initiatives focusing on premium products that benefit Indigenous Australian communities, like a consulting project for the Queensland government that will see 20,000 organic vanilla bean plants grown by the Wujal Wujal community in the World Heritage-listed Daintree National Park by the end of 2021, and Mr Wagyu, which supplies wagyu beef. Until COVID-19 hit, the latter was only available in high-end restaurants, such as Matt Moran’s Aria, but is now sold direct to consumers online – a solution to being stuck with a million dollars worth of product when restaurants closed. Gary praises the power of what he calls “social proofing”, with Mr Wagyu organically reaching customers through Instagram influencers. The timing worked in his favour, with National Rugby League stars buying Mr Wagyu beef and having friendly, unofficial Instagram cooking competition between teammates. “Food and wine is a great conversation starter,” says Gary. Born to an Aboriginal father and Australian-Danish-Irish mother in Casino, the beef capital of Australia, Gary previously traded in beef but had the opportunity to move into wagyu through a family friend in mid-2019. He’s since cracked the export market, been nominated for a Delicious Produce Award and as of two days ago, delivers wagyu to food lovers in Melbourne as well as Sydney. “I want people to associate an Aboriginal business with something that is prestige and premium… to inspire Aboriginal people that they can achieve everything. There’s no boundary – get in, work hard and have a crack and you can achieve anything,” he says.

BUY » 3kg of Wagyu for $159 (and support young Indigenous Australians in Hospo)

Until the end of July, $19 from the sale of every 2.7 kilogram pack of whole wagyu MBS 8-9 tenderloins is being donated to the National Indigenous Culinary Institute, which trains Indigenous Australians in hospitality and places graduates in fine dinging restaurants across Sydney and Melbourne. Usually $320, it’s online for $199. Use the code seasonedtraveller20 for 20% off your entire order. Shop here.

CHEF SPOTLIGHT » Liz Lorente, Rockpool Bar & Grill

Liz Lorente started training at the National Indigenous Culinary Institute (NICI) when she was just 16 years old, joining the team at Rockpool in Sydney the following year as an apprentice chef. She grew up eating more paella than pepperberry – her mother is a Yunin woman from New South Wales and her father is Catalan. Liz’s first encounter with native Australian ingredients was during her training. “I didn’t know very much about it until I got to Rockpool. We did a function not too long ago and it was a whole indigenous menu. We made some prawns with Davidson plum, so I’ve got a little bit of an idea, but I still want to work on it and learn more about it.” Although Liz has worked with ingredients like Davidson plum, finger lime and Australian seafood, the up-and-comer doesn’t want to be pigeonholed working solely with native ingredients. Liz doesn’t have set plans for the future, but hopes to work for Ben Shewry at Attica, incorporating native ingredients into fine dining, and plans to move to Paris and spend some time in French kitchens.“At the moment my plan is just to travel and work overseas in countries where I don’t know how to speak the language or I don’t know about the food,” she says. “I’m definitely interested in indigenous food, but I don’t want to cut myself off there. I want to know about everything.”

SUPPORT » Indigenous Aussie-Owned Food Directory

EAT VictoriaMabu Mabu: Torres Strait Island-owned all-day cafe and caterer making native ingredients accessible from Yarraville. Condiments and damper packs available for sale online.GLaWAC Bush Cafe: an Aboriginal cafe and art gallery in Kalimna West, East Gippsland, run by the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation. The cafe provides employment access and hospitality training for Gunaikurnai people, with local produce and bush tucker on the menu.Cooee Cafe: Mornington Peninsula cafe and caterer in Rosebud with an Indigenous Mezzanine Gallery. Dumu Balcony Cafe: a social-enterprise cafe in Bright providing young Indigenous Australians with hospitality training.New South WalesThe Tin Humpy: Redfern brunch cafe from Bundjalung woman Yvette Lever, previously from Grounds of Alexandria. Mirritya Mundya: catering company and food truck parked at Callala Bay from Wednesday to Saturday, that also sells dinner boxes, rolls up at markets and hosts pop-up meal experiences. Kawul: offers organic breakfast, lunches and dinners (think pepperberry hummus on ciabatta and fried zucchini flowers with lemon myrtle goat's cheese) with a stunning Hunter Valley outlook. QueenslandThe Lillipad Cafe: a Cairns favourite since 2003 with hearty breakfasts (eggs range from huevos rancheros to Turkish-style plates) and wholesome lunch platters.South AustraliaTandanya Cafe: this 100-seat cafe is located in Tandanya, an Aboriginal-owned and managed cultural institute and arts centre. Native produce stars on the menu, courtesy of Indigenous-owned food businesses. There's even a 'roo pastrami sandwich.

DRINK Mount Yengo Wines: based in the Hunter Valley with estate-grown chardonnay; Riverina sparkling, shiraz and pinot grigio; and new-release premium Barossa Valley shiraz and McLaren Vale cabernet sauvignon.SPINIFEX Brewing Co.: Aboriginal and veteran-owned craft beer infused with native ingredients SOBAH: non-alcoholic, small-batch beers like lemon aspen pilsner and boab and wild ginger lager. Waddi Springs Specialty Coffee: 1kg bags, Nespresso-compatible coffee pods, tea, drinking chocolate and syrups available online.

SHOP Something Wild: buy Green Ant Gin, native game meat and more at the store in Adelaide Central Market. Enquire for online sales. Game Enough: this small shop opened in Banyo, Brisbane, in December 2019 selling raw game meats, pre-cooked meals like crocodile meatballs and wattle sticky date puddings and more. Visit the Native Food Pantry section to buy products online.The Unexpected Guest: muesli bars, granolas, health bars and pancake mix spiked with ingredients like wattleseed and lemon myrtle, available online.Goanna Hut: native teas and spices available to purchase online. Maningrida Wild Foods:
sells native food and seafood at the Maningrida market and neighbouring communities, as well as to restaurants and wholesalers. If you're too far to order fish, buy kakadu plum powder or spice mix online.First Food Co.: a wide selection of spices, herbs, jams, relishes and more sold online. Go straight for the all-encompassing spice kit.IndigiEarth: spice blends, chutneys, dukkah, condiments, native herbs, hampers soaps and even hand sanitiser available online, all sourced from First Nations communities. Native Oz Bushfoods: jams, syrups and bush blends including fresh mountain pepper and more at this online store. Mr Wagyu: Australian wagyu beef usually found in fine dining establishments, now sent to your door in Sydney and Melbourne. Use “seasonedtraveller20” for 20% off.  GROW YOUR OWNPlant some native herbs, root vegetables and fruits instead of carrots and tomatoes this year. You can buy bush food plants and native Australian fruiting trees from nurseries like IndigiGrow
 (NSW), Bili Nursery, VINC and CERES (VIC).

RECIPE » Lemon Myrtle Meringue Pie with Wattleseed & Macadamia Nut Base

A little bit of a native Australian ingredient goes a very long way. Lemon myrtle has a slight eucalyptus or menthol flavour and is great wherever you use lemon (dressings, baking or on chicken and fish), while wattleseed smells straight up like biscuits; toasty and nutty with chocolate and coffee notes – perfect for baking or rubbing on red meat.

To make the base1/2 cup macadamia nuts 1/2 cup almonds (or other) nuts1 cup shredded coconut  1 cup almond meal 6 moist dates (or soak 8 dry dates in hot water)3 tsp wattleseed powder1 tsp sea salt The filling 2 tsp dried lemon myrtleZest from 2 lemonsJuice from 2 lemons (120-140mls)100g caster sugar2 tbsp cornflour90g butter3 yolks1 eggThe meringue 5 room temperature egg whites 200g caster sugarGarnish: lemon myrtle or kakadu plum powderMethod1. Combine the macadamia nuts and almonds, 1/2 cup shredded coconut, dates and salt in a blender or NutriBullet and blend until smooth, like a thick paste.2. Place mixture in a bowl and gradually knead in the remaining coconut, wattleseed powder and almond meal.3. Grease a 20cm tart tin with a removable base and press the mixture in with your fingers. Cover and refrigerate. 4. To make the curd, add 100g caster sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice to a pot. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the sugar melts. Add 2 tbsp cornflour and whisk until smooth.5. Remove from heat and whisk in butter, an egg and 3 egg yolks (save the whites for the meringue). Return to the heat, add lemon myrtle, and whisk for a few more minutes until thick. Make sure it doesn't curdle.6. To make the meringue, whisk egg whites in a large bowl until peaks form, then slowly add the caster sugar a few spoonfuls at a time. The meringue should be glossy and luscious with stiff peaks. 7. Assemble by spooning the curd into the base, and then spooning or piping the meringue on top.8. To brown the meringue, either use a kitchen blow torch or place under the grill in the oven on 180°C until just brown (keep an eye on it!).9. Sprinkle with lemon myrtle or kakadu plum powder to finish. Serve cool or at room temperature.

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