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Glossary

Boab

There’s no more instantly recognisable symbol of the Kimberley than the beautiful boab – the latest “new” food discovery.

For thousands of years the Aborigines used every part of the tree – the bark for twine, the porous trunk for moisture and the fruit for medicine. The hard fruit pods are also useful as bowls and utensils. The thick, furry pod containing dry segments of fruit, a little like dried apple in texture. The fruit is very high in vitamin C (10 times that of an orange, it’s believed) and has an almost citrussy flavour. Now some enterprising locals in the Kimberley town of Kununurra are developing it as a mainstream food.

Melissa Boot has spent the last couple of years collecting boab fruit … visiting some of the most picturesque parts of the far north of Western Australia to harvest it. At first Melissa used the pod to make decorations. Then she decided to try and use the fruit commercially. To do this, though, she needed to get it formally accredited as a food, despite its traditional indigenous uses.

It’s also incredibly healthy, as she explains. “Our Kimberley Indigenous people have been eating boab for centuries. They comment on how the fruit can help when you are feeling crook in the tummy. The Aboriginal people would grind the fruit into a flour like powder and make a pancake which they cooked on rocks, add water and bush honey to make a delicious dessert and even the seeds inside are said to make a coffee-like brew when boiled. Today the boab fruit has been used in many adventurous cooks’ kitchens. With the unique citrus flavour and the dry texture, boab fruit has been turned into an interesting array of culinary delights such as boab chocolate, boab bread, boab muffins and cakes and even as dry-roasted chunks sprinkled on a salad.”

Principally, Melissa uses the fruit in chocolate and has built up a successful business. See contacts for product purchase information.

On the outskirts of Kununurra, another boab food product is being cultivated from boab seedlings. The Western Australian Agriculture Department, in conjunction with two local growers, Peter Fox and Denise Hales, has been trialling young boab plants as a new vegetable. The Department’s researchers believe the boab root is very easy to grow and has great potential to be accepted as a conventional vegetable rather than branded as exotic “bush food”. So far they are selling about 30 bunches a week through local fruit shops and off the farm. The juicy roots taste a little like a radish or water chestnut, while the leaves have a pleasant peppery taste.

Kununurra chef Richard Horan has been experimenting with the young boab plants – boiling, pureeing and roasting them. He says the root when roasted has a sweet parsnip-like flavour. He also uses sliced boab root in a paperbark parcel to top steamed fresh barramundi, and some fresh boab diced with mango and doused with Bacardi for an accompanying salsa.

The boab tree flowers in the wet season. The flowers only open at night and look like a large tulip. This tree is also well known on other continents – Africa and India, for example. Its botanical name is Adansonia, while the Kimberley or Australian variety is Adansonia Gibbosa and Greggerii. Common names also include baobab, bottle tree, monkey fruit tree, cream of tartar tree, sour gourd tree and upside-down tree.

The earliest recorded consumption of the fruit dates back to the ancient Egyptians. Although the tree is not native to Egypt, the fruit has been reported to have been found in Egyptian tombs.

On Australian soil the boab has been used for many uses with the Aborigines. The tree itself is remarked as a traditional sacred tree. It has brought its people.

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