by Andrea Ball

How much do you know about Australian native foods? Are they something you reach for in your everyday cooking?

Like most Australians, I suspect, I knew embarrassingly little about these fascinating foods until Slow Food South Australia’s recent visit to Footeside Farm.

Located about 90 minutes north of Adelaide in Neales Flat, Footeside Farm is owned by amiable and knowledgeable Peter and Linda Hoffman. Peter’s father purchased the farm in the 1940s when it was a mixed cereal and sheep farm. In the difficult rural and financial time of the 1990s, Peter and Linda began researching farming options that would develop their business and reduce long-term impact on the environment and the need for supplemental water in dry years. Well ahead of their time, they decided to diversify into Native Australian foods.

Today, the farm specialises in growing, harvesting, processing, wholesaling and retailing semi-arid Australian native food plants and regularly host paddock tours and cater for groups of up to 30 people with dishes featuring their native foods. On the day Slow Food South Australia visited, we enjoyed an informative talk about Australian native foods, a generous lunch which incorporated the foods in ingenious ways, and a walking tour of the property.

Four native foods are grown on the farm: saltbush, bush tomato, wattle seed and quandongs. All of the seedlings in the nursery are watered with rainwater, and once established, need very little water.

Each of these foods has a rich history of traditional indigenous use and is well-suited to contemporary cooking. Like most of the world’s traditional foods, they are also nutrient-dense.

Saltbush (Atriplex nummalaria) is a sprawling greyish-green shrub that grows 1–3 metres high and tolerates extreme drought. While its leaves are mainly known for providing tasty animal fodder, Footeside Farm harvests and dehydrates the leaves as a wonderful addition to human diets. Saltbush leaves contain an impressive 28 percent protein. Think of using saltbush anywhere you would normally enjoy herbal flavours such as oregano and thyme.

In the past few weeks, we have enjoyed saltbush:

• stirred through a cauliflower pizza crust (if you haven’t made a cauliflower pizza crust, do a quick Google search to find out how)
• sprinkled on roast asparagus after tossing with lemon olive oil
• mixed with bush tomato and then tossed cubes of goats cheese through the mixture
• added to vinaigrette to dress a puy lentil salad.

Bush tomato (Solanum central) is also known as the desert raisin, as it resembles a raisin when dried on the bush. This fruit has a rich, caramelised tomato flavour and is high in vitamin C. Australian Indigenous people traditionally dried and carried bush tomatoes with them to use as trading currency.

Bush tomato works well in savoury dishes and enhances the flavours of mushrooms, pumpkin, capsicum and tomatoes themselves. Bush tomato works well anywhere you would usually think of using sumac or Turkish chilli flakes.

Our kitchen experiments have included:

• scattering it over a mushroom and walnut topping on that cauliflower-crust pizza
• sprinkling it on poached eggs
• mixing it with saltbush and tossing the mixture through cubes of roast pumpkin and potato.

Remember to go easy when using bush tomato, as using too much can result in a bitter flavour, but just the right amount is delicious.

Wattle seed (Acacia victorae) will surprise you with its nutty, creamy flavour with mocha tones. The longer the seeds are roasted, the more intense the mocha flavour becomes. Grinding the seeds then releases its unique flavours.

The seeds contain 20 percent protein and low GI carbohydrates. They provided a valuable food source for Australian Indigenous people, especially during times of drought. Because the seeds have very hard husks, when they fall to the ground they will last for up to 20 years. In times of drought, seeds were collected and crushed into flour between flat grinding stones and then cooked into damper or cakes.

In modern kitchens, wattle seed makes a subtly delicious addition to dairy products, cakes, muffins and breads. Moisture will release and infuse the wattle seed’s flavour, so when adding it to yoghurt or batters, leave the mixture to stand and increase the flavour.

Renmark’s Woolshed Brewery has created a dark ale with wattle seed, which is roasted extra dark to order for them by Footeside Farm. Called Judas the Dark, it’s definitely worth trying for its unique wattle seed flavours of toffee, hazelnut and coffee.

At home, you might like to try:

• folding a teaspoon of wattle seed through natural yoghurt (we used Island Pure’s Sheeps Milk Yoghurt)
• stirring through cake, muffin, pancake or biscuit batters
• adding it to your Bircher muesli before soaking overnight.

We are also keen to try wattle seed as a caffeine-free coffee substitute. You simply add two tablespoons to a coffee plunger and then brew and serve just like coffee.

The quandong bush (Santalum acuminatum) looks like the quintessential Australian Christmas tree with its bright scarlet fruits hanging like baubles surrounded by shimmering green leaves.

A rich source of vitamin C and antioxidants, the fruit is an important Indigenous Australian food source, while the oil from the seed was traditionally applied to the skin for sun protection and to prevent skin infections. The oil is a rich source of vitamin B17 and is currently being studied for potential medicinal uses.

With a tart berry flavour a little like a cross between apricot and rhubarb, you can use the fruit anywhere you would normally use berries or a combination of berries and stone fruit. Quandongs also make a sweet-tart glaze for roast meats and combine well with chillies in savoury sauces.

Footeside Farm sells the dried fruits, which you can easily rehydrate at home. They also sell the seeds for jewellery making.

We rehydrated our quandongs in orange juice for a few hours and then added them to Bircher muesli before soaking it overnight along with the wattle seed: a truly native Australian muesli.

In order to recognise and preserve the significance of these foods, Slow Food South Australia is currently putting together applications to have a number of South Australian native foods added to The Ark of Taste.

It’s been a fascinating to learn about and experiment with Australian native foods. Thank you to everyone who joined us for a deliciously informative afternoon, and especially to Peter and Linda for sharing their knowledge and hospitality.

Footeside Farm products are available online at www.footesidefarm.com and from GD Wholesale Fruit & Veg in Hawthorndene. For more information and recipe ideas, visit the Footeside Farm website or their Facebook page.

Have you tried cooking with Australian native foods?

What are your favourite ways to use them?