Authentic Australian native ingredients were once only eaten by Australia's indigenous peoples (600 discrete clans, in fact) who gained their sustenance from a wide variety of plants and plant products and game meats. Our rainforests provided tree nuts, of which the macadamia nut is now the best known and fully commercialised species. In fact, nuts were traditionally a more important protein source than meats for rainforest people even though the daily focus, for the men at least, was probably on the results of a hunt.

In our woodlands, local Aborigines used seeds from trees and tuberous plants as staple foods and flavoured meats and sea or river foods with herbs and even spices. They effectively managed the ecology to maintain the various systems in their most productive stages of growth in terms of biodiversity and food species. This was the real 'fresh food used simply' concept of Australian cuisine. But make no mistake, Aborigines had their own cuisine too. Pairings of meats and fruits or dried wild tomatoes stored for celebratory occasions and used almost as the equivalent of sauce or ketchup on red meat. Meats were cooked wrapped in paperbark or smoked with particular timbers for the taste.

In our deserts survival got tricky and in some places the density of the population was down around one person per 100 square miles (160km). While this average probably held in bad years, the good times allowed their rich culture to grow with a more than adequate food supply of extremely high quality ingredients.

Across the country, protein sources were complemented and flavoured with herbs such as lemon myrtle, forest anise, thyme, mintbush and peppermint; spices including mountain pepper, pepperberries and akudjura (a Solanaceous spice); and fruits such as wild limes, riberries and lemon aspen, to mention only a few of the three dozen or so species now available.

Some products have evolved from their traditional uses, for example, the seeds from species of Acacia were once parched with hot coals to make them brittle so that they could be milled into a coarse flour and then baked into seed cakes. However, during a nutritional study of Acacia seeds, an accident resulted in the development of a brand new flavour. In my home kitchen in September of 1984, I was preparing some seeds by toasting them to the traditional brittle stage before taking them for analysis of their nutritional contents. Inadvertently over-roasting the seeds, resulted in a totally new coffee substitute.

In this way, Wattleseed was born as a new product and its coffee, chocolate and hazelnut-like notes are perfect in desserts like ice cream or pavlova.

The fruits, herbs, spices, nuts, seeds and food adjuncts (like the paperbark which is used as a food wrap and flavouring) are all different to conventional, more familiar ingredients in their taste and appearance. New ways of cooking are part of this exciting world of Australian flavours.

Nutritionally, native foods are also distinctive.

The Kakadu plum is found in Australia's tropical north and is the world's highest fruit source of vitamin C which I proved analytically at the University of Sydney where I began my professional interest in native foods. The vitamin C discovery was published in The Lancet in 1983 and was even reported on the front page of the Wall Street Journal shortly afterwards.

There were other finds too. Wattle seeds and the product we call Wattleseed are high in proteins, unsaturated fats and complex carbohydrates. This latter nutrient group appears to offer a protective role against diabetes and other diseases of civilization.

Many foods of plant origin contain anti-oxidants which inhibit the action of reactive free-radicals (chemicals which can damage DNA and cause cancers, tumors and cell mutations).

Many herbs have significant and practical functional effects such as being emulsifiers, stabilisers or anti-oxidant. Some contain compounds which are tonic, relaxing, restorative, phytoestrogenic, anti-microbial or anti-arthritic and more.

These ingredients are already finding their way into manufactured products as functional foods and flavourings and some, along with selected bush medicines, are even being used in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Yes, foods that were once only used by Australian Aborigines have come a long way.

Written by Vic Cherikoff

Vic Cherikoff is an Australian native foods expert. For more on native foods and Vic's work, see http://www.cherikoff.net and http://www.dining-downunder.com