Clarence Slockee catches up with his two friends, both trailblazers and educators with all three bonding over bushfood. Subscribe http://ab.co/GAsubscribe
Gamilaroi elder and educator Aunty Beryl VanOploo has been an advocate for bushfoods for more than half a century, paving the way for many others.

When chef, author and television presenter Kylie Kwong first discovered Australian native produce it proved a ‘major light bulb moment’, and her determination to learn from the best First Australians led her to Aunty Beryl.

The two first met at the Carriageworks Farmers Market in Sydney where Aunty Beryl was selling her produce including the irresistible lemon myrtle butter biscuits.

“They were so good, and those beautiful jams and sauces,” Kylie said.

Kylie credits the elder with teaching her all about preparing and cooking native ingredients traditionally, including how to steam fish wrapped in saltbush leaves and using the everversatile lemon myrtle in both savoury and sweet dishes.

Then when Kylie tracked down Clarence at Sydney’s Royal Botanical Garden who was looking after the native plants, her life changed.

“The last ten years since I met the both of you, my life has become so much richer, I’m just so blessed,” she said.

Despite the different cultural differences, Kylie’s eatery at a new development near Redfern station, integrates native ingredients into Cantonese style cuisine. Many of those ingredients have been freshlypicked from the nearby roof garden Clarence helped design, such as the versatile saltbush that can be used in salads or chopped up and put in meat dishes, finger lime for both sweet and savoury dishes and the intensely flavoured bush mint.

With both First Nations and Cantonese sharing a love of a sweet and sour taste Kylie described using bush ingredients in her cooking as a “natural simpatico.” Combining ingredients such as the sweetness of the sugarbag honey with one of Kylie's favourite ingredients, the sour acidic flavour of the Davidson Plum, seems to work.

“We love the sweet and sour,” Kylie said.

These increasingly popular ingredients were always a part of Aunty Beryl’s upbringing on the riverbank of the Namoi, Darling and Barwon Rivers in Walgett NSW, and helped inform her extensive Indigenous plant knowledge.

“Everything was done on the river, so that’s how I learnt to find the plants with my elders,” she said.

“We just lived so healthily because we caught the fish in the river, we cooked on the river in an open fire … it was just amazing.”

For the elder National Reconciliation Week is a chance to share her culture and particularly food with others.

“That’s what it’s all about, sharing and caring,” said Aunty Beryl.

“It’s always food that brings us all together,” said Kylie.

“Everybody has to eat,” said Aunty Beryl.

Kylie Kwong’s stirfried Australian native greens with ginger recipe.

What you need:
• 60 ml vegetable oil (¼ cup)
• 3 x small slices ginger
• 50 gm saltbush leaves (see note)
• 50 gm warrigal green leaves (see note)
• 2 tbsp tamari
• 50 gm karkalla leaves (see note)
• 50 gm bower spinach leaves (see note)
• ½ tsp sesame oil

What to do:

Heat oil in a wok over high heat until shimmering, then add ginger and stirfry until fragrant (5 seconds).
Add saltbush and warrigal greens and stirfry until just wilting (2 minutes).
Add tamari and reduce slightly (30 seconds to 1 minute)
Then add 60ml water and stirfry for another 30 seconds to reduce.
Add karkalla, bower spinach and sesame oil, and stirfry to combine (30 seconds), then serve immediately.

Notes:
Saltbush, warrigal greens, karkalla and bower spinach are available from select specialist greengrocers, farmers' markets and nurseries.

Featured Plants:
OLD MAN SALTBUSH  Atriplex nummularia 
BUSH MINT  Prostanthera sp. 
FINGER LIME  Citrus australasica 

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