There’s a lot of talk these days about Australian Bush Foods. These foods come from plants or animals which are native to Australia. Whilst most of the focus is on a few ‘gourmet’ products which can be found in retail outlets, there are many native bush foods which can be found all around us in Australia. Here in Melbourne a particularly ‘weedy’ and prevalent native plant is Prickly Current Bush. I have several in my yard. Recently on an Edible Weeds Walk at Organic Empire we spotted a number of these plants, Members of the group were fascinated to be able to sample these delicious little berries.
I found a whole bunch of these bushes last evening and assumed that they were UK Hawthorn bushes. I ate one of the berries and was surprised how nice it was. I then looked up the Hawthorn bush prevalent in my old country where the fruit is like apple but pointless because they as so small and there is a big pip in the middle. They are used prolifically for farm fencing (hedgerows) which provide nature in the otherwie highly modified farm fields. I was horrified to read that they contained cyanide but I was lucky. The location was near to the Kororoit Creek in Sunshine Victoria where also, hundreds of Ibis were starting to roost.