Aboriginal people ate a large variety of plant foods such as fruits, nuts, roots, vegetables, grasses and seeds, as well as different meats such as kangaroos, 'porcupine'7, emus, possums, goannas, turtles, shellfish and fish.
One of the most well known traditional Aboriginal foods is the Australian witchetty grub, which is actually native to central Australia where the Watarrka region is located. The Witchetty grub remains a common snack or meal addition in Australia, and is high in protein and nutrition.
Aboriginal food and diets before European settlement
The men hunted large animals like kangaroos and emus. Insects such as honey ants and wild bees provided honey that was and still is popular in remote areas—this was an important carbohydrate source.
Roasting on hot coals: The basic technique for cooking flesh, including most meats, fish and small turtles. A further slow roasting, involving covering with coals and ashes may have then been employed to thoroughly cook the meat or to soften an otherwise tough meat. After cooking, the meat would be quickly consumed.
The Australian Aboriginals used the environment around them for generations, living off a diet high in protein, fibre, and micronutrients, and low in sugars. Much of the bush tucker eaten then is still available and eaten today.
Before white settlement, Koalas were hunted by Aboriginal Australians for food. They were also regarded as totems by some tribes. Widespread clearing of their forest habitat did not occur, and there was probably no threat to their survival as a species.
Animal native foods include kangaroo, emu, witchetty grubs and crocodile, and plant foods include fruits such as quandong, kutjera, spices such as lemon myrtle and vegetables such as warrigal greens and various native yams. Bush tucker.
Their plant menu included fruits such as the native cherry, native currant and kangaroo apple, and vegetables such as the native potato and native carrot.
Prior to colonisation, the Kuku-Yalanji Peoples of the rainforest region of far north Queensland used large bailer (melon) shells or bark troughs for boiling water over a fire.
Yet for more than 50,000 years Aboriginal Australians cultivated and domesticated crops that were native to the continent, and therefore better adapted to its temperature and environmental pressures, providing great abundance, nutrition and diversity of food to Indigenous communities.
The First Australians were iconic hunters. An extreme theory makes them even responsible for exterminating giant prehistoric animals. Yet, they spent a good part of their time baking bread.
From our present knowledge of the fauna and flora of the south-west area of Western Australia, the sources of food most readily available to the Aborigines would have been mammals, birds and their eggs, most reptiles, some frogs, fish (where there was adequate water, especially in marine inlets) and some invertebrates ...
In the past, Aboriginal people tapped the trees to allow the sap, resembling maple syrup, to collect in hollows in the bark or at the base of the tree. Ever-present yeast would ferment the liquid to an alcoholic, cider-like beverage that the local Aboriginal people referred to as Way-a-linah.
There is evidence of yabbies being eaten at least 28,000 years ago by Aboriginal people, but the first record of them in colonial times was made by the explorer Thomas Mitchell during an expedition to northern New South Wales.
These include indigenous fruits, vegetables, tubers and roots.
Aboriginal origins
Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.
In Central Australia, the Arrernte people call kangaroo Kere aherre, and remove the milk guts, and singe the hair in the fire before skinning it and placing the carcass in a hole in the ground that is covered with hot earth and coals. Before cooking the carcass, they remove both the tail.
Many natural resources were adapted to carry water by Aboriginal people. The skins of kangaroos, wallabies, possums, bandicoots and other small mammals were used because they are waterproof. Near the sea, kelp - a form of seaweed - and large shells were used to carry water.
The study concluded that over 3.3 million aquatic animals were harvested from the waters of northern Australia alone and included finfish, shellfish, small baitfish, mullet, catfish, sea perch/snappers, bream, barramundi, mussels, cherabin, other bivalves, prawns, oysters and mud crabs (DAFF 2001).
'ENTOMOPHAGY', OR EATING insects, is also already practiced by 2 billion people. Aboriginal groups across Australia still eat bush tucker that includes larvae, honey ants, scale insects, lerps and Bogong moths, and New Zealand's huhu grub reportedly tastes like peanut butter.
Buroinjin. This was a ball game played by the Kabi Kabi people of south Queensland. The game was played with a ball made of kangaroo skin, which was called a Buroinjin. The aim is for a player of one team to run as far as possible with the ball and cross over a line at the other end of the field.
A prominent food for the Australian Aboriginals is the bunya nut. Similar to a chestnut (in both taste and appearance) this nut can be eaten raw or cooked. Traditionally, the Aboriginal people have been known to turn this nut into a paste to be eaten, or cooked on hot coals making bread.
Apart from the Emu mentioned earlier, Aboriginal people have and continue to eat many other types of birds. Some of the more popular birds include Magpie Geese, Fruit Bats and smaller mutton type birds. Did you know Aboriginal people in southern areas of Australia once ate penguins? So there you have it.
The popular Australian native fruits include Davidson Plum, Kakadu Plum, Illawarra Plum, Finger Lime, Sunrise Lime, Lemon Aspen, Outback Lime, Muntries and Quandong.