Aboriginal Cooking MethodsThe traditional ways to cook for aboriginals used to involve roasting their food on hot coals, baking in the ashes & steaming in ground ovens. But today theses things have changed & the aboriginals have easier ways to cook using 'technology' from today. They have adapted to make the process easier by boiling & barbequing.Roasting;When cooking meat, this was the basic technique, which was almost always used. They cooked most meat, fish & small turtles.To make sure the meat was cooked through, it was also covered by ashes & coals, which also made tough meat softer. The meat would be eaten quickly after roasting.Shellfish were also cooked on ...view middle of the document...
The clay would then be removed with tongs. The pit would be swept out & then lined with still green leaves & grass. Then meat such as possums (because they were small enough) would be lain inside, covered with more leaves & then the clay would be placed on top.To stop the steam escaping, the ground that was originally taken out when the hole was dug covers the clay.Wrapping;Wrapping is still used in places like Arnhem Land. Vegetables are wrapped in the moist paper bark from Melaleuca trees & then placed in ground ovens.Today Aboriginals use more advanced methods of cooking. They have adapted their old ways to make them easier.Boiling;Aboriginals have now learned to boil foods in galvanized cans, tins, steel drums or whatever items are available. Because of this, ground ovens are being used less & less.Barbequing;Although the Aboriginals don't have top of the range barbeques, they have got their own version. It is simply a piece of wire to hole pieces of meat or dough over red coals.Aboriginal DreamingAlthough the Dreamtime was in the past, it is the Aborigines religion & culture that rules them today. The saying, 'As it was done in the Dreamtime, so it must be done today,' dominates all aspects of the Aboriginals lifestyle & actions. According to some Aboriginals, the Rainbow Serpent made the world. It is their belief that that is true. Religion is some peoples' way, spiritualism is theirs.The Rainbow Serpent came from the Northern Territory while Australia was still in its dreaming stage. It traveled over the country, creating the mountainous locations by pushing the land into many ranges & isolated areas.The Great Dividing Range is a creation of the rainbow serpents movements. Throughout its journey over & under the land, it created rivers, valleys, & lakes. It was also careful to leave many areas flat.Once it was satisfied with its creation of Australia, spirit people came from inside it & moved all over the country to form many different lifestyles, languages & different stories.When the land was finally finished, it was ready for people, but there were none .Walya-Nam-Adiki was the woman who walked out of the sea & met up with a tribal man. Seen as there were no people, they talked about the problem with having such a wonderful land, but no people to live there. To fix this problem, they had many spirit children together. Walya-Nam-Adiki told all her children to go to all different places across the country & to speak new languages, make & keep land & water management. They were to stay in their chosen areas, & to make social & kinship systems which would make sure that there would always be people within their tribal boundaries.Other Aboriginals believe that when the world first existed, that giant semi-mortal beings that resembled plants & animals rose up from the flat land where they had been sleeping for countless ages.These beings wandered the land aimless...
