Come on, all you independent spirits,
who would be beholden to no-one for your
creature comforts. Get
you out into the
lonely bush, and along the desolate
sea-shore, and see how you fare when
there is none to provide
shelter for your head or food for your
stomach, away from
"That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul—the
dinner bell,"
and see if you can live as
the sparrows live—on just
what old Nature provides.
And what does she
provide?
It is said that all life
emerged from the sea, so let
us visit our ancient watery
home in search of
sustenance.
I had it (unofficially) from the Marine
Zoologist at the Museum, that everything
in the sea is edible;
nevertheless I would not recommend that any
aspiring devotee of Natural Living take
to eating clam-shells, even for
their lime content, nor sample the
succulent blue-bottle. However, practically all the
little shell-fish of our coast are edible. In
the Islands it is often found
that, whereas the natives of one island
consider a certain shell-fish poisonous, the
natives of another island include it as a
staple part of their dietary. The internal
portion of the sea-urchin is
said to be quite a
delicacy to the Italians, while the Chinese
revel in seaweed biscuits. These biscuits, though
resembling, in my opinion, nothing so much as a
sun-dried frog, are extremely appetising, but
all my efforts to manufacture a similar product from the sea-kale of Era
were futile. Perhaps there is some
secret
process used. However, sea-kale eaten raw is quite good.
There is no necessity
for
me to mention fish, oysters, crabs, lobsters, prawns or crayfish. Everyone
knows they are worth eating, but not everyone is familiar with eels as food.
Try them.
Suppose we
leave
the sea-shore and follow up
one of our rivers, right into the heart of the bushland. On such a river as
the Cox, watercress is very plentiful; dandelion leaves, used by the French
as a salad vegetable, are to be found, the root of same being valued for
medicinal purposes.
While on the subject of medicinal plants it might be as well to mention that
the liquid obtained from boiled blackberry leaves is frequently used by
herbalists as a blood purifier. The same applies to couch grass, while my
grandfather swears by milk thistles as a laxative. Says he, "They work you
like castor oil," which is well to know if one has indulged too freely in
the
wild Jack-apples obtainable in the Black
Gin 'Creek thickets.
In the vegetable line, nettles can
be used for
soup; bracken tops have
been likened to asparagus, but
you needn't put much faith in
that being true. The
person who gave birth to that .statement was
probably delirious from starvation. The soft
white part of grass-tree shoots is quite
edible, and has been known to save an explorer
from starvation for some weeks.
One of the most delicate dishes I
can suggest,
in all truth, is mushrooms and periwinkles
cooked in sea-water. The beauty of this
mess is that it can't be spoilt, either in
taste or appearance, by the addition of anything else
you may care for.
Before I leave this fascinating subject of food I
must say a word or two
about our native fruits.
Perhaps the best known are
blackberries; but we also have
wild strawberries, which
thrive luxuriantly in National Park; wild raspberries—not
so plentiful, but possessing more flavour,
lillipillis, geebungs, five-corners,
ground-berries, and pigeon-berries, which
are parasitic growths of the ti-tree.
Dreams of childhood gastronomical happiness
invariably turn to pigeon-berries and plum-puddin'
grass, which we consumed in vast quantities,
spending half an afternoon gathering a
paperbag full that we might have half-an-hour's
gorgeous gorge in bed that night.
Ah well, a man is only as old
as his
stomach, and if he can still enjoy such
puerilities he is still
young. Here's hoping you all stay
young.
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