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A History of Australian Native Foods with Recipes
‘This is a book about Australian food, not the foods that European Australians cooked from ingredients they brought with them, but the flora and fauna that nourished the Aboriginal peoples for over 50,000 years. It is because European Australians have hardly touched these foods for over 200 years that I am writing it.
We celebrate cultural and culinary diversity, yet shun foods that grew here before white settlers arrived. We love ‘superfoods’ from exotic locations, yet reject those that grow here. We say we revere sustainable local produce, yet ignore Australian native plants and animals that are better for the land than those European ones.
In this, the most important of his books, John Newton boils down these paradoxes by arguing that if ‘you are what you eat’, we need to eat different foods: foods that will help to reconcile us with the land and its first inhabitants.
But the tide is turning. European Australians are beginning to accept and relish the flavours of Australia, everything from kangaroo to quandongs, from fresh muntries to the latest addition, magpie goose.
With recipes from chefs such as Peter Gilmore, Maggie Beer, and René Redzepi’s sous chef Beau Clugston, The Oldest Foods on Earth will convince you that this is one food revolution that really matters.
John Newton is a freelance writer, journalist and novelist. He writes on food, eating, travel, farming and associated environmental issues. His most recent books are The Getting of Garlic (2018), The Oldest Foods on Earth (2016) which won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best Culinary History Book, Grazing: The ramblings and recipes of a man who gets paid to eat (2010) and A Savage History: Whaling in the Pacific and Southern Oceans (2013). In 2005 he won the Gold Ladle for Best Food Journalist in the World Food Media Awards.
4.1 rating based on 80 ratings (all editions)
ISBN-10: 1742234372
ISBN-13: 9781742234373
Goodreads: 28592734
Author(s): Publisher: NewSouth
Published: 2/1/2016
‘This is a book about Australian food, the unique flora and fauna that nourished the Aboriginal peoples of this land for over 50 000 years. It is because European Australians have hardly ever touched these foods for over 200 years that I am writing this book.’ We celebrate cultural and culinary diversity, yet shun the foods that grew here before white settlers arrived. We love superfoods from remote, exotic locations, yet reject those that grow in our own land. In this, the most important of his books, John Newton boils down these paradoxes by arguing that if we are what you eat, we need to eat different foods, foods that will attune us to the this land.
