PRODUCE

Native plants are about history, culture and responsibility as much as flavour, writes PAULETTE WHITNEY.

Paulette Whitney on native Australian plants.

This will be the hardest thing I’ve written so far. Because I know I’ll get it wrong, but to not try is perhaps worse, so open your mind, please forgive my missteps, and join this conversation.

I began my career growing Tasmania’s wild plants, and, having a penchant for novel ingredients, I was fascinated by them. Later I worked with chefs whose search for new flavours created demand for my knowledge, and I was off – finding wild plants for dinners on remote islands, working on a documentary about foraging chefs, and selling Tasmanian edible plants at my market stall.

Then I started learning about cultural appropriation. First it was seed savers in North America, acknowledging custodians of particular strains of maize, then it was Toni Burnett-Rands, a heritage chef and activist working here in Tasmania, filling my Facebook feed with articles about foodways and the gentrification of traditional dishes such as hot chicken and barbecue. Finally, it was NAIDOC Week at my children’s school that helped me begin to see. And that, says Trish Hodge, a Palawa woman and the director of Nita Education, a Tasmanian Aboriginal education group, is the plan.

Children are unburdened by the prejudice that was once ingrained in education about Tasmania’s history, and by the guilt that many non-Aboriginal Australians carry about awkwardly. They happily join their school NAIDOC celebration of living culture, while learning of past wrongs and sharing the path forward.

I’ve been watching the growing relationship between Trish and her colleague Craig Everett, and Asher Gilding and Franca Zingler of the

Port Cygnet Catering Company.

The first I saw of their collaboration was a picture on the Port Cygnet Catering Company’s Instagram of bower spinach, Tetragonia implexicoma, that they were tasting together while harvesting on Aboriginal land for a Slow Food dinner. They described the scent and flavour of the flowers as being like leatherwood honey, and acknowledged Trish as having shared the plant with them. It was a respectful and generous exchange of learning that I’ve rarely seen. This led to further dinners at Asher and Franca’s Cygnet kitchen – interactive events where people came not only to eat the food, but to learn from Trish about culture – and then to Palawa Fire Pit, an event held over six nights as part of the Dark Mofo festival. Asher describes many native-food experiences in Australia as fine dining, but this event, with barbecues, and flatbreads stuffed with wallaby seasoned with native herbs, was accessible for everyone.

Trish and Craig take schoolchildren with them when they harvest, sharing the value of finding food on country and the philosophy of taking only what you need, a vital part of traditional practice, to ensure future harvests and to pass knowledge on to younger generations. Trish says that children and international tourists are particularly receptive. Franca, for example, is relatively new to Tasmania, having trained as a pastry chef in Germany, and brings an open mind; perhaps this is part of what makes the collaboration work so well. She loves the intensity of many indigenous herbs, and uses small amounts as flavouring and seasoning: she describes pepperberry meringues, alpine-mint jelly and cumbungi with oyster mousse. She finds secret foraging spots with Trish, often places where native plants are grown to beautify public land by councils unaware of their tasty, traditional utility.

Trish talks of her joy of working with chefs who are receptive, who want to learn and acknowledge the story of where the food comes from. She sees it as making a difference, and as a pathway to reconciliation. Her work is generous and inclusive, and she quotes Craig Everett, saying “culture is sacred, not secret”.

Trish talks of her joy of working with chefs who want to learn, and who acknowledge the story of where the food comes from.