And here I thought our West Coast sugar and digger pine cones were big.


https://www.atlasobscura.com/a...a0&mc_eid=8e1b7aaa56

They are available at some health shops but I've never tasted them. I don't believe they are grown commercially.

We used to break and eat all stones in fruits.

Like mango and others.

Something that did not seem to be emphasised in that article is that the fleshy parts must ferment pleasantly. Lacking vessels to make and store liquid products, it seems that about the only time pre-European Australians experienced alcohol was when the bunya fruit was ripe.

This helps explain why some indigenous peoples are more susceptible to drink than 'whites' - Europeans had 10,000 years to get used it and those that didn't were less likely to leave surviving descendents.

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This helps explain why some indigenous peoples are more susceptible to drink than 'whites'

And the Inuit mate?

They are an impressive tree. I'd like to plant one but would be long dead before it sets a cone I think. I may still do it down the back, I do have the space.

quote:

Originally posted by gryphon1:

quote:

This helps explain why some indigenous peoples are more susceptible to drink than 'whites'

And the Inuit mate?

That's why I said non-specifically 'some indigenous peoples', as many of the social problems we see here are reflected in Canada and other places. Having just been, I have seen evidence of the damage that fire-water drummers did to the first nations over there, too.

One of the things I love about traveling the world.

The different flora and Fauna is amazing.

Yeah, I've tried them. I just grilled them over some charcoal in the Weber bbq. They were okay I guess but quite dry and woody in texture. Perhaps if one had more culinary skill than I posses you could do something nice with them.
The cones that guy is holding in the picture in the link there are actually quite small. They get waaay bigger than that.
When the cone dries out it all just falls to pieces and just leaves the woody core intact.
I think it's the same tree as the monkeypuzzle tree.

Avatar, I just looked this up, and bunya is in the same genus as the monkeypuzzle, different species. I would hate to be standing under a bunya when it was dropping 4.5-kilo cones!

https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.as...=Araucaria+bidwillii

There are a number araucaria species that look similar. At a glance I find it hard to tell the bunya, hoop pine and (South American?) monkeypuzzles apart but the Norfolk Island pine is easy to spot because of its neat conical shape. I wonder if there is a single coastal town on the SE seaboard that does not have them lining the beach roads.

Paul, the Norfolks are popular here as "living" Christmas trees.

Now you mention it, Bill, I think I saw some in San Diego a couple of months ago.

I've eaten them. People used to make a big fuss about them.

Apparently the aborigines used to travel great distances to eat them during the season.

I wouldn't walk across the road to eat another one...……...but that's just me.

I reckon they're abit like a boiled peanut.

Sambarman,

I believe they're a araucaria bidwilli.

Bakes,

The Bunya Mtns are in my work area. If you want one I'll get you one when I'm there.

Which ones twobob ...? The link says that name applies to the bunya pine.

While it says their range is just Queensland, I remember a couple of enormous ones outside the township of Moonambel in central Victoria, obviously planted by a settler. I recall large cones on the ground but it did not occur to my father or yours truly to pick one up to eat.

We have them here in north QLD. The trees like many pines don't handle cyclones on the coast well but 40 miles inland they are quite common. They are considered a delicacy, quite a few blokes go out and retrieve them when in season.
The best cooking is separating the nuts and boiling them in pots. The shells soften and once they can be split open along the nuts seam with a knife they are ready to eat, some butter on them is nice. Very moist and nutty and filling.

Remember to look up when harvesting them and don't picnic underneath them, a falling bunya can kill.

My neighbour across the road has a Bunya pine growing in the front yard.
it threw cones this summer , about 30 of them, from a height of 80 ft.
very very dangerous for both humans & vehicles.
They are so dangerous local councils maintain a register of bunya pines & usually fence off the area around them temporarily till all the cones have fallen.

The Bunya pine typically only has a crop of cones every 3-5 years.......apparently due to the level of nutrients the tree needs to store to create those huge cones.

There are only 3 Bunya pines registered in the Shellharbour Local Government district ( about an hour & a half drive south of Sydney NSW ) .
I collected 6 of the cones & they were transported to a Koori lady on the mid-NSW north coast.

In earlier times the Koori roasted the nut after removing the husk ( leaving the tough skin on until after cooking). These days the preferred method of cooking is to boil the nut after removing the husk & then peeling the skin .
The nut flesh from ripe Bunya has a texture like a Jelly Bean........ roasts to a dry hard texture .........boils to a softer more flavoursome texture.

I extracted a few of the nuts ........ rather difficult to remove the husk from the pinecone flakes..... & I quickly concluded it was too much trouble & one would need a considerable fetish for them to go to the trouble of extracting the nuts.

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I extracted a few of the nuts ........ rather difficult to remove the husk from the pinecone flakes..... & I quickly concluded it was too much trouble & one would need a considerable fetish for them to go to the trouble of extracting the nuts.

They might have been too green. The nut is easily pushed out of the flake, less than a few seconds.It takes us only a few minutes to pull a cone into into pieces.

Ripe enough that the cones were falling apart into flakes......... just found it hard going.