Recently I sat down and watched a few episodes of The Bush Tucker Man with Les Hiddens on DVD from the ABC shop. There is no doubt that the Bush Tucker Man series really put native foods on the map for most people including myself and was one of the first TV shows to give a glimpse of some of the foods in northern Australia which provided sustenance for the Aborigines of the Top End. The series was extremely successful with 3 series being produced by the ABC in the 1980’s. Interestingly, the first series was funded by the Army as a recruitment drive. With my Australian cooking and recipes heavily featuring native flavours, I am often asked about The Bush Tucker Man series and if I use ingredients which were featured on the show.

For those who don’t know, Les Hidden or the Bush Tucker Man as he is fondly known was a major in the Australian Army and explored the Top End researching native foods to identify native foods in Australia’s top end. He produced ‘Snack Maps’ as a guide for Norforce troops to live off the land although these were ultimately withdrawn from circulation as a few inaccuracies caused a few cases of poisoning, one of them involved foraging soldiers eating candle nuts without roasting them thoroughly. This oversight was probably due to his working with men rather than women who were the providers of all of the non-animal foods and a lot of the meats too. Unfortunately, many of the foods presented in the series were also not fully ripe so use the shows as a foraging guide only at your own risk.

Many of the foods featured in the series Bush Tucker Man are not available commercially as they are only found in the wild and were intended as part of a supplementary food survival strategy.

The native food industry has really come a huge distance from Les Hidden’s Bush Tucker Man series. For example, the term “bush tucker” and “bush food” have been dropped and replaced with the terms such as “Australian ingredients” or “indigenous ingredients”. The name change is from the fact that the majority of the foods are equal if not better than cultivated ingredients in terms of flavour and nutrition and their use is generally in more sophisticated outlets run by innovative and creative chefs.

Prior to Les Hiddens undertaking this research specifically for the army, Australian native foods pioneer,
Vic Cherikoff was already researching the nutritional value of Aboriginal foods across the country. Some of Vic’s research uncovered high protein seeds, high vitamin fruits, bioactive herbs and spices and more. He then worked with chefs around the world developing advanced products which are perfectly suited to the modern kitchen, both commercial and domestic. Many manufacturers are also using specialized ingredients such as selected blends and encapsulated essential oils, concentrates and extracts and our Australian food and medicine) resources are now migrating into global brands of foods, beverages, cosmetics and functional products (antioxidants, facial mists etc).

Vic Cherikoff now exports his range of native Australian ingredients to 28 countries and supplies more online from his online store (an order recently got shipped to Alaska). If you are interested in cooking the flavours of Australia, then why not start off with one of his Native Australian hamper packages.