UNIQUELY AUSTRALIAN

The beginnings of an Australian bushfood cuisine

by VIC CHERIKOFF

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Large hardcover book in excellent condition, 208 pages, superb full-colour photography. Published 1994.

This cookery book is the first of its kind. It is a fusion of Aboriginal preparative techniques, Australian bush foods and contemporary cooking methods. These are the beginnings of an Australian culinary tradition which is unique to this country because it is based on indigenous ingredients and identifiably Australian flavours.

The dishes presented have been designed to introduce a range of bushfoods to Australians cooking at home for a backyard barbeque, or for that special dinner. The recipes have all been tested and are easily reproducible or can be used as ideas for your own bush food creations. The ingredients used are those more commonly available through a wide and growing range of retail outlets.

For the bush cook, the use of an open fire for cooking with hot ash, hot sand, live coals and heated rocks can simplify the range of tools that need to be taken on camping trips. The convenience and the range of flavours imparted by these cooking methods should change the way you cook outside. The backyard barbie may never be the same again!

In the home kitchen, recipes such as Nyngan mud cake, quandong pie and kangaroo tail stew may become more widely synonymous with Australian culture than the American-owned Vegemite and the non-indigenous meat pie.

For the restauranteur, bush foods open up a whole new world of cooking and provide a vehicle for creative chefs to make chauvinistic statements of fine dining. Many international chefs have already taken up the challenge. Growth in the bush food industry will urge the preservation of wild areas as sources of genetic material for planting into Enrichland Polyculture systems of agriculture. This is the potential of Australia's remaining bushland and a cuisine which is Uniquely Australian

All recipe measurements are in metric and imperial.

Wikipedia has an excellent article on bushfood - click here

About the author

Vic Cherikoff describes himself as Australia's first bushfood consultant. He has been foraging since his high school yeasr when most of his spare time was spent bushwalking in urban Sydney's bushland and National Parks throughout New South Wales. After graduating with a Bachelor of Applied Science from the then NSW Institute of Technology, he further developed his appreciation of the Australian environment.

Vic is regarded as an authority on Australian native foods and its associated industry, having been involved in the selection and commercialization of many of the 35 or so indigenous Australian plant foods now in the market place.

He is an author of three books and a number of scientific papers. He promotes Australian cuisine through his cooking show, Dining Downunder, which has screened in 48 countries. He funded, produced, and hosted this TV show, along with chefs, Benjamin Christie and Mark McCluskey. Together with Christie, Cherikoff also runs Australian cuisine promotions around the world, often working together with Austrade and international hotels.

In the 1980s, Cherikoff worked in the Human Nutrition Unit of the University of Sydney researching the nutritional value of Australian native foods with Professor Jennie Brand-Miller. Cherikoff has a Bachelor degree in Applied Science from the University of Technology and a background in research in clinical pharmacology as well as nutritional science.

In the mid-1980s he started Bush Tucker Supply Pty Ltd, which later became a division of Vic Cherikoff Food Services Pty Ltd. This wholesaling, and product development, business markets indigenous ingredients to chefs, provides ingredients to manufacturers of food and beverage, the cosmetic industry, and is involved in publishing and television. As a wholesaler, Cherikoff played a role in the early development of the Australian native foods industry by connecting the regional native foods movement with the market place; networking with Aboriginal communities for supply and working with other bushfood industry pioneers.

Cherikoff has authored several books on Australian native food, including The Bushfood Handbook. His next book was a cookbook, Uniquely Australian, a wildfood cookbook, and Dining Downunder Cookbook, co-authored with Benjamin Christie.

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Uniquely Australian by Vic Cherikoff