It isn’t often that Charles Darwin University lecturers are able to launch a top quality coffee table book about their experiences.
But that is the case with VTE cookery lecturer Steve Sunk, whose first major publication was launched last week by Administrator Ted Egan at the Karawa training restaurant on the CDU campus at Palmerston.
Sunk’s book, entitled Walkabout Chefs, details his experiences taking his Back to Basics cookery courses into remote Aboriginal communities over the past decade.
His first cookery courses were with the women of the Daly River community, where he was dubbed the Walkabout Chef for his tendency to move from one community to another – each time bringing the message that simple but delicious meals with high nutritional value could be created with bush tucker.
Walkabout Chefs contains more than 40 recipes based on Sunk’s encounters with bush tucker – such delicacies as Dugong Steaks with Bush Fruits, Sea Turtle Panfried in Wild Pepper Berry, Stingray Balls, Chargilled Crocodile Tail and Bush Tomato Chutney and Pan-Fried Magpie Goose Breast with a Bush Peach Glaze.
Each recipe comes complete with photographs of the dish by David Hancock, who produced the book in partnership with Sunk.
Walkabout Chefs is more than a compilation of exotic recipes, however; Sunk and Hancock both write about the coastal and inland regions of their travels, with Hancock’s images capturing the life of each community with a sense of their individual richness.
‘I hope the book will give an insight into Indigenous culture and the important role that plants, animals and country play in Aboriginal life,’ says Sunk.
Walkabout Chefs is published by Skyscans Australia, now available at major retailers.