Chef on a mission to spread the word about native foods
Keira Jenkins |
While vegemite, meat pies and sausage rolls might be synonymous with Australian cuisine, chef Mindy Woods is advocating for it to be so much more.
Ms Woods, a Bundjalung woman from the NSW north coast, counts herself lucky to have grown up on Country surrounded by native foods.
She fondly remembers childhood days with her nan, collecting and cooking with ingredients on the beach.
Since entering the sector professionally in her 30s and opening her own restaurant in Byron Bay, Ms Woods has made it her mission to raise the profile of native foods and showcase locally sourced and Indigenous produce.
“As a modern Australia we don’t really have a sense of what our food identity or food culture is,” she told AAP.
When she first opened the doors at Karkalla, she realised there was a huge appetite to know more about and taste distinctly Australian flavours first discovered more than 65,000 years ago.
Yet there are still many Australians who have misconstrued ideas about what native food means, perhaps visualising witchetty grubs or kangaroo rather than the many thousands of plants grown throughout 250 Indigenous nations across the country.
“A lot of people don’t realise that when we walk out on Country and we’ve have the privilege of learning about these foods, it’s like our own grocery store sitting all around us,” Ms Woods said.
Every meal is an opportunity for reconciliation and to learn more about Australia’s unique food landscape.
Heading to the NSW southern Highlands for Horizontal food and wine festival, Ms Woods said she was excited to further share the power of native foods with punters.
Through her masterclass ‘ancient flavours, modern tables: a native food journey’, she wants to encourage people to learn about the ingredients local to their region and think about how to incorporate them into their favourite dishes.
“The most powerful decisions we can be making for our environment and for our future is how we eat and where we source food from,” she said.
“Native foods are such a force in protecting Country and providing food for the kinship system and food security for the future.”
But as interest grows in Australia’s first foods, Ms Woods feels the industry needs to be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Currently they represent less than one per cent of food growers, producers and suppliers, and it’s something she wants to shift.
“Without our ancestors and our Aboriginal communities looking after these foods and understanding these foods intricately, they can’t move with integrity into the marketplace,” she said.
Horizontal Festival is being held on October 4 and 5.
AAP
