A friend introduced me to bunya nuts. They were a traditional food of Aborigines living in South East Queensland, especially in the Bunya Mountains National Park. The nuts mature in summer and hostilities between tribes were suspended, as aborigines travelled long distances to feast on the nuts. When the white man came, many of the trees were cleared, but some white farmers learned to value bunya nuts.

The nuts come from a conifer which dates back to the Jurassic (180 million years ago). When Gondwana separated into different land masses 45 million years ago, Bunya pines continued to grow in parts of Australia while its relative, the Monkey Puzzle tree, continued to grow in South America. Bunya pines are towering trees that produce enormous green pine cones. They weigh 5-10 kg each and contain from 30 to 100 nuts. The nuts are shaped like tear drops, with hard wooden shells. They weigh about 15gm each.

 “Can you write me something about them,” I said to my friend. I was running a food magazine at the time and always needed articles. He sent me a list of websites. So, I switched to plan B.

First, I bought some bunya nuts. They sat in my fridge for a week or two while I wondered what to do with them. The websites had various suggestions. Boil the nuts in their shells in salted water for half an hour, suggested one site. But slit the shell first so they don’t explode. You can use a microwave too but they will probably explode. I had visions of flying nuts, exploding all over my kitchen, staining the walls and strafing marauding cockroaches. Ultimate pest control.

The shells are very hard to remove, said another website. Buy secateurs (small garden shears) to cut the shells and use needle nose pliers to peel them back. People have been known to hack them with machetes. Or you can roast them in hot coals, the shells are reputedly easier to remove afterwards. Note, the use of ‘reputedly’, the website author hadn’t actually tried this. I would probably burn my fingers removing them from the hot coals. If I didn’t cut them on the exploding shells. My fingers, that is.

I spent another four weeks debating stove or hot coals. I didn’t have any hot coals but I would source them from somewhere. I was definitely sure I wasn’t using a microwave. I bought secateurs and another set of needle nose pliers, so I wouldn’t get my other ones covered in hard nut shells. Then I ran into my friend again picking up veggies. “I just bake them in the oven for about an hour,” he said, “with soy sauce and ginger.”

“Don’t they explode,” I asked.

“You have to slit the shell open first,” he said. A use, at least, for the secateurs.

So I slit the shell and cooked them for an hour at around 180 degrees C. I ditched the ginger because I don’t like ginger but I suspect that was a bad idea. The nuts are a little bland, they taste similar to chestnuts so they need something to spice the flavour a little. I spent a good hour peeling off the wooden shells and the inner brown peel. The nuts themselves are the sort of light tan/beige colour. Cooking them in soy sauce made for sticky fingers when peeling them.

They keep well in the fridge, at least another week or so. You can recook, I roasted mine again with lemon chicken and used them in a stir fry but when I took the roasted nuts to work and reheated them in the microwave, they became hard and chewy. But I still managed a fair amount of use.