Photos from the REAL Australia

Aboriginal Bushtucker in the Northern Territory

For thousands of years Aboriginal people throughout Australia have lived by hunting and gathering various wild foods (also known as "bushtucker"). Recently non-Aboriginal people too have started to discover these fruits and vegetables. Tests have proved the nutritional value of these foods; many fruits are rich in vitamines, among other things.

Although there are now supermarkets in most Aboriginal communities, gathering bushtucker is still very popular, especially among children, who always know exactly when and where to go. These photos were taken in various communities in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Children especially love to get the wild fruits, like the stems of water lillies, tasting a bit like celery or various berries, like "pikiki", bushberries that may only be collected by throwing a rock against the tree. Some trees ooze an edible gum and in the desert regions witchetty grubs, the larvae of a large moth, are extracted from the roots of certain shrubs and lightly roasted.

In coastal regions gathering turtle eggs is a yearly treat and large crabs can be found in the mangroves. All these foods have excellent value. And what's more, they're free!

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Witchetty grubs	Cooking witchetty grubs	Wild watermelon	Honey from flowers	Catching a snake
Bush banana	Eating "yuparli"	Showing bush banana	Cooking bush bean	Getting bushberries
Collecting wild nuts	Collecting edible gum	Longneck tortoise	Getting bushtucker	Edible waterlilies
Collecting waterlily stems	Edible gum	Eating bush gum	Boys with waterlilies	Turtle eggs
Eating carpet snake	Butchering a possum	Cooking crabs	Collecting cockle-berries	Picking berries
Cooking small birds	Getting turtle eggs	Collecting turtle eggs	Spearing crabs	A mud crab

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