Tuesday 26 January 2010

Bunya Nuts for Australia Day

Sadly, my computer power cable broke, so I'm temporarily crippled without my beloved laptop. Thankfully, I was able to borrow an old one from Purple, which is great, but it's a bit of a crap computer, even compared to mine.

Anyways, our wonderful Bunya Nut tree started fruiting and Purple managed to find a big store of nuts
 
The cones were really well camouflaged at the bottom of the tree, but in the end he found about 20 of them

We hadn't had any plans for Invasion Day (aka Australia Day), but our neighbours dropped by spontaneously, and it seemed like an appropriate moment to sit together opening and shelling the nuts

We had a great time, pulling them apart - it's a bit tricky to get them started

But then it's just a matter of pulling the segments apart to find the nuts. Of course, they're sharp and prickly, and filled with very sticky sap, which makes it all the more fun

At the end we were left with a whole wheel barrow full of empty shells and the stalks from inside the cones

and best of all... a big bowl of bunya nuts! YUM

We roasted a bunch of them, and they're so good.


I thought Bunya Nuts are totally appropriate, being that it's a traditional Australian food, and a symbol of peace for the local tribes who used to put aside their tribal differences and fights during Bunya season so they could all come together to harvest and feast on Bunyas :)

1 comment:

  1. Yum. We just collected a whole bunch of them too. Yet to cook them up, but I want to try making some bunya nut humos, had some at a friends house last year and it was delish!

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