GRAINS

Long before local authorities tried to ban sliced bread, Australia was home to the world’s first bakers. Grindstones, some 65,000 years old, suggest Indigenous communities have been baking for millennia and there’s an amazing effort to bring back this cultural knowledge and revive Indigenous grains. While Australia has had a fraught relationship with locally grown wheat, there’s a growing movement to embrace Australian heritage grains, backed by open-minded chefs who want to knead such enduring flour into ultra-local pasta, pizza and bread. 

This episode features Jacob Birch, Gamilaraay mari and researcher; Aunty Bernadette Duncan, Kamilaroy woman and coordinator of the Garragal Women's Language and Culture Network; Dr Angela Pattison, lead researcher on Indigenous Grasslands for Grains; Kerrie Saunders, Gomeroi woman and technician on Indigenous Grasslands for Grains; Paul Farag, executive chef of Nour and AALIA; Luke Finlay, Operations Manager of  Wholegrain Milling Co; and Paul van Reyk, author of True to the Land: A History of Food in Australia. 

Image: Alana Dimou.