Aboriginal people ate a large variety of plant foods such as fruits, nuts, roots, vegetables, grasses and seeds, as well as different meats such as kangaroos, 'porcupine'7, emus, possums, goannas, turtles, shellfish and fish.
One of the most well known traditional Aboriginal foods is the Australian witchetty grub, which is actually native to central Australia where the Watarrka region is located. The Witchetty grub remains a common snack or meal addition in Australia, and is high in protein and nutrition.
Everything on an animal carcass was eaten, including the small fat depots and organ meats (which were highly prized), bone marrow, some stomach contents, peritoneal fluid and blood. A wide variety of uncultivated plant foods was eaten in the traditional diet: roots, starchy tubers, seeds, fruits and nuts.
Along with potatoes, many other foods—including corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes, yams, peanuts, wild rice, chocolate, pineapples, avocados, papayas, pecans, strawberries, cranberries, and blueberries, to name a few, are indigenous to the Americas.
Their plant menu included fruits such as the native cherry, native currant and kangaroo apple, and vegetables such as the native potato and native carrot. (The adjective 'native' emphasises that these were quite different species from their European namesakes.)
In the past, Aboriginal people tapped the trees to allow the sap, resembling maple syrup, to collect in hollows in the bark or at the base of the tree. Ever-present yeast would ferment the liquid to an alcoholic, cider-like beverage that the local Aboriginal people referred to as Way-a-linah.
These were Amaranthus, Cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata), African nightshade (Solanum species), spider plant (Cleome gynandra) and Ethiopian kale (Brassica carinata).
“First Foods are the foods that were eaten pre-contact, and are still eaten now to this day,” said Valerie Segrest, a Native Foods Educator and Muckleshoot tribal member. “They're foods we've organized our lives around for 14,000 years—or as an Elder might say, since time began.” A Muckleshoot Traditional Food Map.
Even though meat may have been a major part of the diet of most Native Americans for only a couple hundred years, they apparently had no reluctance to include meat in their diets wherever and whenever it was practical for them to do so.
Indigenous cuisine is a type of cuisine that is based on the preparation of cooking recipes with products obtained from native species of a specific area. Indigenous cuisine is prepared using indigenous ingredients of vegetable or animal origin in traditional recipes of the typical cuisine of a place.
Of these species, 11 native fruits including bush tomato, Davidson's plum, desert lime, finger lime, Kakadu plum, lemon aspen, muntries, quandong, Tasmanian pepperberry, and Illawarra plum (Podocarpus elatus) have been commercially produced in Australia (Richmond, Bowyer, and Vuong 2019.
The traditional Koori diet was high in dietary fibre, unrefined carbohydrates, and protein, with adequate vitamins and minerals, and low in total fat and saturated fat, sucrose, salt, and without alcohol. Their lifestyle also dictated a high level of physical activity resulting in a reduced likelihood of overweight.
'ENTOMOPHAGY', OR EATING insects, is also already practiced by 2 billion people. Aboriginal groups across Australia still eat bush tucker that includes larvae, honey ants, scale insects, lerps and Bogong moths, and New Zealand's huhu grub reportedly tastes like peanut butter.
In the past, kangaroo meat was more widely accepted. It was always eaten by aboriginal Australians, for whom the succulent tail, roasted in a pitful of embers, is a particular delicacy.
About 80% of First Nations children living off reserve and Métis children ate meat, fish or eggs at least once a day. Close to 90% of First Nations children living off reserve and Métis children consumed fruit at least once a day, and more than 80% consumed vegetables at least once a day.
Aboriginal people ate a large variety of plant foods such as fruits, nuts, roots, vegetables, grasses and seeds, as well as different meats such as kangaroos, 'porcupine'7, emus, possums, goannas, turtles, shellfish and fish.
For northern Native Americans, wild rice is more than a staple food. It is a gift from the Great Spirit and a sacred component of their culture, honored in their history, tradition, ceremony, and way of life. Wild rice is vital to the ecology of thousands of northern lakes, streams, and rivers.
Corn was the most important staple food grown by Native Americans, but corn stalks also provided a pole for beans to climb and the shade from the corn benefited squash that grew under the leaves.
Roasting on hot coals: The basic technique for cooking flesh, including most meats, fish and small turtles. A further slow roasting, involving covering with coals and ashes may have then been employed to thoroughly cook the meat or to soften an otherwise tough meat. After cooking, the meat would be quickly consumed.
Bush tucker, also called bush food, is any food native to Australia and used as sustenance by Indigenous Australians, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but it can also describe any native flora or fauna used for culinary or medicinal purposes, regardless of the continent or culture.
Indigenous fruits are those which are native to Africa, where they have originated and evolved over centuries. These are different to exotic fruits, such as citrus and even mango, which have been imported from other continents, although they may now be quite commonly grown in many areas.