Spices
- Acacia victoriae , Gundabluey, Wattleseed
- Alpinia caerulea , Native Ginger [1]
- Tasmannia lanceolata , Mountain Pepper [2]
- Tasmannia stipitata , Dorrigo Pepper [2]
- Tasmannia insipida , Brush Pepper Bush
- Tasmannia xerophila , Alpine Pepperbush
Australian herbs and spices were used by Aboriginal peoples to flavour food in ground ovens. [1] The term "spice" is applied generally to the non-leafy range of strongly flavoured dried Australian bushfoods. They mainly consist of aromatic fruits and seed products, although Australian wild peppers also have spicy leaves. There are also a few aromatic leaves but unlike culinary herbs from other cultures which often come from small soft-stemmed forbs, the Australian herb species are generally trees from rainforests, open forests and woodlands.
Australian herbs and spices are generally dried and ground to produce a powdered or flaked spice, either used as a single ingredient or in blends.
They were used to a limited extent by colonists in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some extracts were used as flavouring during the 20th century. Australian native spices have become more widely recognized and used by non-Indigenous people since the early 1980s as part of the bushfood industry, with increasing gourmet use and export. [2] [3]
They can also be used as a fresh product. Leaves can be used whole, like a bay-leaf in cooking, or spicy fruits are added to various dishes for flavour.
The distilled essential oils from leaves and twigs are also used as flavouring products.
Citrus hystrix, called the kaffir lime or makrut lime, is a citrus fruit native to tropical Southeast Asia.
Tasmannia is a genus of woody, evergreen flowering plants of the family Winteraceae. The 40 species of Tasmannia are native to Australia, New Guinea, Sulawesi, Borneo, and the Philippines. The Winteraceae are magnoliids, and are associated with the humid Antarctic flora of the Southern Hemisphere. The members of the family generally have aromatic bark and leaves, and some are used to extract essential oils. The peppery-flavoured fruits and leaves of this genus are increasingly used as a condiment in Australia. The peppery flavour can be attributed to polygodial.
Backhousia citriodora is a flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae, genus Backhousia. It is endemic to subtropical rainforests of central and south-eastern Queensland, Australia, with a natural distribution from Mackay to Brisbane.
Bush tucker, also called bush food, is any food native to Australia and historically eaten by Indigenous Australians, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but it can also describe any native flora, fauna, or funga used for culinary or medicinal purposes, regardless of the continent or culture. Animal native foods include kangaroo, emu, witchetty grubs and crocodile, and plant foods include fruits such as quandong, kutjera, spices such as lemon myrtle and vegetables such as warrigal greens and various native yams.
Tasmannia lanceolata, commonly known as Tasmanian pepperberry or mountain pepper, is a shrub native to woodlands and cool temperate rainforest of south-eastern Australia. The shrub varies from 2–10 metres (6.6–32.8 ft) high. The aromatic leaves are lanceolate to narrow-elliptic or oblanceolate, 4–12 cm long, and 0.7–2.0 cm wide, with a distinctly pale undersurface. Stems are quite red in colour. The small cream or white flowers appear in summer and are followed by black, globose, two-lobed berries 5–8 mm wide, which appear in autumn. There are separate male and female plants.
Syzygium anisatum, with common names ringwood and aniseed tree, is a rare Australian rainforest tree with an aromatic leaf that has an essential oil profile comparable to true aniseed.
Eucalyptus olida, commonly known as strawberry gum or sometimes as forest berry, is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to a restricted area of New South Wales, Australia. It has rough, flaky and fibrous bark on the trunk and larger branches, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven to fifteen or more, white flowers and barrel-shaped or bell-shaped fruit.
Citrus glauca, commonly known as the desert lime, is a thorny shrub or small tree native to Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia. The 1889 book The Useful Native Plants of Australia records common names native kumquat and desert lemon.
Prostanthera incisa, commonly known as cut-leaf mint-bush or native thyme, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is an erect, strongly aromatic, openly branched shrub with hairy, densely glandular branches, egg-shaped to oblong leaves, and pale mauve to mauve flowers.
The modern Australian native food industry, also called the bushfood industry, had its initial beginnings in the 1970s and early 1980s, when regional enthusiasts and researchers started to target local native species for use as food. Indigenous Australians had been harvesting many species for use as food and medicines for millennia. In the mid 1970s Brian Powell recognised the commercial potential of quangdong fruit and began its cultivation in orchards. Following this, the CSIRO became involved in quangdong research.
Peter Hardwick is an Australian food horticulturist and environmentalist, recognized as an early pioneer of the Australian bushfood industry. He publicly challenged the established belief that native Australian food plants were not suitable for cropping; conceived the commercial strategy of processing strong flavored native food plants; and, developed the use of wild and seedling genetic diversity to overcome the lack of domesticated varieties previously considered a limitation with Australian native food plants.
The greater Brisbane area of Queensland Australia, has many species of indigenous flora. This article links the flora to its geography with:
Austromyrtus dulcis is a species of plant native to eastern Australia. It grows as a small spreading shrub and is easily recognised by its characteristic berries that usually ripen in summer and autumn. Common names include the midgen berry, midyim, and silky myrtle.
Tasmannia insipida, the brush pepperbush, is a shrub native to Australia that can grow 1 to 3 metres high with reddish stems.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to herbs and spices:
Sambal is an Indonesian chili sauce or paste, typically made from a mixture of a variety of chilli peppers with secondary ingredients such as shrimp paste, garlic, ginger, shallot, scallion, palm sugar, and lime juice. Sambal is an Indonesian loanword of Javanese origin. It originated from the culinary traditions of Indonesia and is also an integral part of the cuisines of Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, and Sri Lanka. It has also spread through overseas Indonesian populations to the Netherlands and Suriname.
