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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Peter (left) and Harvest executive chef Bret
Cameron discuss ingredients for the Wild Harvest dinner; A few sprigs of foraged
sea rocket, which is found on the beach.OPPOSITE PAGE:Seablite is used as
a garnish and can also be pan-fried and served with seafood; Peter out foraging.INTERVIEW: LARA PICONE; PHOTOGRAPHY: DEMETRE MINCHEV
Who would say that? But this was 1977 and that was the mindset
then. I thought, ‘that’s not true!’ I’d been fascinated with bush
foods since I was four years old, but at that point, I said to myself
‘OK, this is it’. I decided to make it my life’s task to research native
foods to counter that argument and show people there is something
of value in the native bush. And, at the same time, try to encourage
people to regenerate these native food plants in ecosystems.
It was an interesting epiphany to have as a
teenager. But it wasn’t until 10 years later in my late twenties
that I had encounters with Indigenous elders on the north coast
about bush foods. It was amazing and doors opened. My approach
was more to inform the elders about what I was doing rather than
to pick their brains. If information was offered then that was great,
but I always felt obliged not to use that information because any
cultural knowledge given to me by an elder shouldn’t be used
without their permission. My aim was more to just hang out.
Mass producing a new food crop takes a true
entrepreneur. Some bush foods are mass produced, of
course, but it’s still hard to get hold of fresh native produce. True
entrepreneurs in a new field are always thin on the ground. It does
require someone to have the vision and then be able to make that
happen in the marketplace. That skillset isn’t that common.
Foraging opens the door. We’re able to make an
assessment of a particular plant’s culinary qualities and try it out
in a real-life restaurant situation, feed it to people and get their
reactions. But the next job is to get the ones that look promising
into cultivation. That’s the logical step, because if you were only
to expect that foraging alone would meet all the needs of every
restaurant in Australia, then it could be a problem.
I came up with the name for warrigal greens in
the 1980s. I initially foraged the greens near Ballina, NSW, for a
restaurant in Sydney. I came up with that name because it sounded
better than New Zealand spinach, which everyone was calling it at
that stage, ironically. We hybridised two words: warrigal cabbage,
an old colonial name for the plant, and Botany Bay greens, which
also sounded too colonial.
foraging is an important part of being human on
this planet. It’s an important part of having a relationship with
nature. It’s nice to think we’re able to forage some of our food.
We’re a little cheeky with what we serve at our
Wild Harvest sessions. There’s a plant called farmer’s friend
and everyone hates it. They know it for its seeds sticking in your
socks. I harvest the top 10 centimetres of stem and new growth,
boil it and ferment it then turn it into a kimchi with spices and our
in-house vinegars – it’s very tasty. It just blows people away because
you’re turning something totally on its head. There’s this nuisance
weed that everyone’s pulling up and you turn around and say, “Hey,
you can eat this and we can turn it into something really tasty.”I love that whole thing of turning things on
their heads. Another edible weed we serve is stinking roger.
It has a very strong smell. It’s a culinary herb in Peru but it’s a
common weed around here. We serve a stinking roger sorbet.
You dilute the flavour right down and put it into a sorbet; it’s bright
green and it has quite a lovely flavour. When you tell the old farmers
who come in that it’s stinking roger they just can’t believe it.
There’s no such thing as an overnight
professional forager. It takes a long time to acquire that
skillset. It’s such unforgiving territory. When you’re doing it for other
people you have to cross your ‘t’s and dot your ‘i’s. Most people who
are foraging are pretty sensible. There was one guy a few years ago
who was saying he was a bush food expert and he obviously wasn’t.
He was out there telling people what they could eat, but he didn’t
know what he was talking about and it was dangerous. You need to
know that the person giving you information is a reliable source.
working with bush foods enables an exciting
exchange between cultures. We did a Wild Harvest
fundraiser for the Boomerang Festival [an Indigenous cultural
festival] at Harvest restaurant. It was all about acknowledging the
traditional culinary heritage that’s existed here for thousands of years.
We created a menu of native ingredients inspired by that. It was a lot
of fun, and there was a wonderful sense of sharing at the event.
Acknowledging native foods is inherently an act
of reconciliation. Because it recognises the quality of
Indigenous food culture. It’s like, let’s just get in there and share
this wonderful food, but at the same time it’s inherently respectful.
How can one eat native food and not recognise its origin? That’s
my argument, anyway. But some people might exploit Indigenous
culture so we need to be aware; we need to have a sensitivity and
respect towards traditional cuisine.
If I wasn’t a forager I’d be a street performer. In my
twenties I had a choice between doing street performance (I wanted
to do clowning and poetry) in Adelaide or coming here and starting
up a bush food industry. In the end I decided to come up here.
Catch Peter’s foraged finds at Harvest’s Wild Harvest four-course
dinners every Wednesday. harvestnewrybar.com.au/wild-harvest