When it comes to outback food, things are often not what they seem. Thanks to rich local slang, many dishes have picked up names that are downright misleading.

In 1945, The Sun News Pictorial of Melbourne published a story by A. Thornton under the headline “Damper and Cockatoo Pie”. It supposedly detailed the menu proposed for a gathering of Australian bushmen. “They dined well – and cheaply – in the bush in the old days,” Thornton wrote. Although probably apocryphal, the menu highlighted many of the legendary dishes, real and imagined, of the Australian bush. City dwellers certainly required the explanations that followed.

A retired shearers’ cook recently showed me the menu of a banquet he had prepared for a group of Australian bushmen who had come back to the Murrumbidgee River for a reunion. This banquet had quality and was truly Australian. The menu read:

HORS D’OEUVRES.
Murrumbidgee Oysters.
SOUPS
Kangaroo Tail.  Cockatoo.
ENTREE
Gundaroo Bullock.  Station Jack.
Banjo.   Underground Mutton
POULTRY
Cockatoo Pie with Dog’s Jew’s Harps
Satin Bird Pie.
Burdekin Duck. Snorkers
VEGETABLES
Blue Bush.  Yams.  Nettles.
SWEETS
Prickly Pear Pie. Quandong Pie.
Wild Raspberries and Cream
DESSERT
Damper with Cocky’s Joy.
Leatherjacket.  Flapjacks.
BEVERAGES
Bombo. Domain Cocktail. Stringybark.
Band of Hope.
MY LADY NICOTINE
Banksia Cigars

Everything on that menu was understood by the men who were to enjoy the feast. Indeed, they enjoyed it more than a Lord Mayor’s dinner.

The Murrumbidgee Oyster was simply a raw egg with vinegar, pepper and salt.

Kangaroo tail soup and Cockatoo soup are soups made from kangaroo tail and cockatoo, the former being much richer. White cockatoos were plentiful in the early days and soup made from the birds was good.

Cockatoo Pie was made out of white cockatoos, but in some places galahs were substituted for cockatoos. The Dog’s Jew’s Harps were dumplings. Satin-bird Pie was a delicious pie made from satin bower birds, but if none of these birds was available, parrots were just as good. Settlers liked to see both the satin-bower-birds and the parrots destroyed, because they ate a lot of maize.

Burdekin Duck was in the wrong place on the menu. It is slices of beef fried in batter, and very nice, too.

Gundaroo Bullock was the name given by some early German gold miners about the town of Gundaroo to koala bears. When there was a shortage of beef or mutton, these Germans killed the koalas, which were plentiful in the district, and salted them down to be eaten later. Gundaroo Bullock appeared on the menu more as a joke. No bushman would ever think of eating our native bears, even in the early days.

Station Jack was a kind of boiled meat pudding. Beef was cut up and rolled in a dough which was boiled in a big billy-can. Banjo was a shoulder of mutton, the usual part of the sheep given to swagmen, while Underground Mutton was simply rabbit served in a variety of ways. Snorkers were sausages, but there were many other bush names for sausages.

Blue Bush was a popular bush vegetable and took the place of cabbage. Some bushmen reckoned that they preferred Blue Bush to any other green vegetable, and even when cabbage and other garden vegetables were plentiful they went out into the bush to get some Blue Bush.

Yams were a substitute for potatoes, and stinging nettles were as good as spinach if they were picked young and tender.

Prickly Pear Pie was really delicious, made from the ripe fruit of the prickly pear, which was once such a pest in parts of the bush. Quandong Pie was even nicer, made from the fruit with the pretty pitted and wrinkled seeds. After eating the pie you kept the seeds and made them into necklets for some barmaid.

Wild Raspberries and cream were delicious, too. The wild raspberries were almost as plentiful as blackberries and they had a better flavour than the blackberries.

Damper with Cocky’s Joy was a standard outback food. The damper was, of course, made from flour, baking powder, a pinch of salt and water, while Cocky’s Joy was merely one of the many names for golden syrup.

Flapjacks were a type of fried scones, often with raisins in them.

Not the least interesting menu items were the drinks. Bombo was an outback drink made from rum, sugar and water; Domain Cocktail was a mixture of methylated spirit, tan boot polish and lemon juice; Stringybark was a kind of bush whisky, said to have been made by many of the bush publicans, especially for serving to nuisances after they had passed their cheque over the bar.

Band of Hope was especially on the menu for the tee-totallers. It was good home-made lemon syrup. It was also used for mixing with Bombo and Stringybark.

Banksia Cigars were the dried stems of the flowers of the Banksia.

There were a few notable omissions from the menu. Colonial Goose, for example, which is a roasted leg of lamb or mutton dressed to look a bit like a goose. Or Flyswisher Stew, otherwise known as oxtail stew. Murrumbidgee Jam was brown sugar moistened with cold tea and spread on damper, while Grabben Gullen pie has been variously described as a baked pumpkin stuffed with possum meat, a pumpkin stuffed with potatoes, or even a large goanna stuffed with smaller goannas and roasted on the fire.

Bush cooking today is likely to be a little more conventional, but there are still plenty of Aussies who pride themselves on their damper. Cockatoo pie and salted koala meat, not so much.