Bush Tucker

by Evelyn, writing from Australia

A sandwich made of kangaroo meat is a little weird for me to think about but being in Australia, I suppose it’s not all that odd. A sandwich with kangaroo meat, wattle seed bush tomatoes, witchetty grubs, emu, and countless other ingredients is a whole lot more bizarre.

Welcome to my very first “bush tucker”—a lunch straight from the Australian wild. Back before grocery stores, this is how people ate. They plucked fruit straight from the trees, they pulled grasses right out of the ground, they shot wild game in the field, and then they devoured it all with gusto.

Being from a town with not just one, but two grocery stores and countless restaurants and other shops that sell food, I didn’t know the first thing about scavenging from the wild. Luckily, all I needed was complete trust in my Aussie guide. He was the one who knew what was poisonous, what tasted good, what tasted bad, ad what would completely disagree with any stomach. And I had to hope like mad that he didn’t dislike me.

I was with a group of other people just as ignorant about Australian delicacies as myself, so our guide started us off by passing around various fruits and nuts so we could acclimatize our taste buds. Most of them weren’t bad (by which I mean I was able to swallow them), but one particular fruit that tasted like rotten sawdust made me gag a little.

After the appetizers, we got down to the main lunch. I watched in silent awe as the food was laid out on a colourful blanket. Quaint wooden bowls held the fixings for my sandwich. Everything was so foreign, I wondered how my stomach and my taste buds would react.

Our guide made the first sandwich, explaining everything as he went along.

“This honey is straight from a beehive. This is a paste we make from squashed-up grubs. This seed is so hot it goes right through you.”

Once he had assembled a sandwich containing every ingredient possible, he looked around the gathered crowd. “Who wants this one?” He offered it as if it was a normal old P&J. Everyone shrank away, not daring to be a pioneer.

Finally one brave soul stretched out his hand. “I’m hungry. I’ll eat it.”

We watched closely to see what would happen when he took his first bite. “Not bad.” He took another bite and still didn’t keel over, so then we all hunkered down and made our own sandwiches.

It was surprisingly good! The honey was sweet, the meat tasted normal, the various leaves were just like lettuce, and the grubs were… Well you can’t expect a lot from grubs.

I went back for seconds.