Course description

The Australian environment houses a wealth of food that has been able to feed and sustain Indigenous people since time immemorial. Australia has many animals and plants that are unique and therefore many of the food plants and animals are unique, and present the food industry with opportunities to find new flavours and functional foods. Many of the plants in the Australian environment also contain compounds that are used to treat illness in Indigenous communities, providing a second important reason for understanding these foods. The first module will explore different bush foods, investigate food safety and processing, and explore unique flavours. The second module will discuss issues around other values of bush foods such as nutrition, medical and preservative value. In the third module, we will investigate issues around commercialisation and equitable benefit sharing for bush foods brought into mainstream cuisine. The practicals will align with the lectures, and in the last two practicals you will have the opportunity to use bush foods to create a new food product. At each lecture, we will spend some time tasting a bushfood. The minimum enrolment for this course is 15 to be offered.

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