The push to put native grains on the menu

July 20, 2024 11:10 AM

This superfood has been around for 60,000 years, so why don't we use it more? A group of First Nations Australians is leading the push to put native grains on the menu, foster an industry that stays in Indigenous hands, create employment, and improve health.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (4 comments total)

Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man Bruce Pascoe is a farmer and the author of Dark Emu.

Mr Pascoe said there was no shortage of interest in bush food.

"We're keen to share the knowledge of that food and share the food itself, of course," he said.

"The problem is to make sure that Aboriginal people benefit from that interest because, otherwise, it will just be another dispossession."

i just saw Dark Emu [guardian], on a bookshelf at a friend's house! i think this means i am going to have to explore the book further. thanks!
posted by HearHere at 4:44 PM on July 20

I don't really get a sense from the article about how these grains taste. I eat wild rice (which is of course not actually a kind of rice), and I find it much tastier than white or brown oryza sativa. Less versatile, because it actually has a flavor of its own. I guess price is the reason it's not more widely eaten. Or maybe nobody knows about it, or maybe it's just got too much flavor? Hard to say.

I would definitely like to try native Australian grains.
posted by novalis_dt at 5:47 PM on July 20

Iirc novalis_dt, wild rice is difficult to cultivate and harvest in volumes large enough for it to have a cheap enough price to be a staple crop. It has to be in fairly deep non-stagnant water and has unpredictable germination. I’m sure we could develop a strain eventually that would compensate but it would probably lose a lot of the deliciousness, like tomatoes being grown for how well they ship rather than taste.

I too would love to know what these Australian grains taste like. I only see millet and one other kind of grass specifically referenced in the article through an image caption. Everything else is just “grains”, with some vague health claims about some of them. I hope they work with some of the incredible indigenous cooks in the different regions of the continent to develop descriptions of taste, texture, and culinary uses to share with the world.
posted by Mizu at 7:38 PM on July 20

Australian native grains are definitely extremely expensive and with limited availability right now.

The only place I've seen them publicly for sale is Black Duck Foods with prices from $180 to $220 per kilogram.

That's out of reach except for a few exhibition and demonstration dishes.
posted by other barry at 8:02 PM on July 20