‘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.
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Part history, part cookbook, The Oldest Foods on Earth is all amazing. Newton effortlessly mixes cultural critique with poetry, botany and of course, mouthwatering descriptions of the food Indigenous Australians have been cooking and eating for 50,000 years. For those wishing to try for themselves, there's a section towards the back listing the botanical and common names, habitats and physical descriptions of the plants, which was what I was most excited for. The book is easy to read and very clever, and a must read for anyone interested in Australian cuisine or Indigenous history. - Shannon (QBD)
Guest, 28/02/2018
