KURRAJONG

PLANT OF THE MONTH

 

KURRAJONG: 

Widely introduced as an ornamental tree, the seeds make good food

Where I grew up in Pasadena, our street was lined with stately and aromatic camphor trees, with their oval-shaped leaves that perfumed the air with camphor when you crushed them.  The fruits were little globose fleshy fruits about a quarter inch in diameter, with one seed inside. There was one tree, however, whose leaves looked like the camphor, but the fruit did not.  It had a  hard little pod that looked like a miniature wooden canoe. Inside the pod were about a dozen orange seeds.  I’d assumed it was a type of a camphor, or just one of those ornamentals from somewhere else with no practical uses at all.

I eventually learned that this tree is from Australia, where it is called  a kurrajong, and called bottle tree in the United States. The Latin name is Brachychiton populneus.

As far as I knew, this was one of those many inappropriately transplanted trees into Southern California and the Southwest from Australia, trees that were brought here as ornamentals or perhaps lumber, such as Eucalyptus, or Acacia.   Those have some good food and medicinal values, but I’d assumed that the Brachychiton was somewhat useless. It was just that odd tree with the hard canoe-shaped pod.

It’s been planted in South Africa, in the United States from Californian and Arizona down into the Southern states, and throughout the Mediterranean regions of the world. In fact, though certainly not as widespread as the eucalyptus trees, kurrajongs will grow wherever eucalyptus can grow.

After I learned this seed was edible, I obtained a bag of the pods.  Several of us then tried the raw seeds. They’re hard at first, but they softened up in our mouths.  They become chewy, with a flavor reminiscent of corn.  Everyone was surprised that these odd fruits had a good-tasting seed.

I learned from Daniel Sainty (who is from Australia) that the use of these seeds as a coffee substitute has been well known in Australia.  They first require a light roasting,  following by a pounding or grinding and brief boiling; as you’d do with regular coffee.

FOOD

Daniel also shared a reference to the fact that the young plants of the kurrajong  have a yam-like tuberous root, often considerably broader than the stem above, and this was a popular item of food with the Aborigines.  It is not clear whether or not they cooked or prepared it in any way before eating.

Daniel confirmed that the seeds were commonly eaten raw or roasted, or made into coffee, and that he enjoys the roasted seed.

I took my cleaned seeds, bright yellow, and placed them in a cast iron skillet over the fire and roasted them.  I didn’t use oil, but just shook the skillet from time to time over an approximately 15 minute period.  I heard some seeds pop, but mostly they just faded from a bright yellow to a dull yellow bordering on brown.  I did this during an outdoor class I was conducting, and I let 8 students taste the roasted seeds. Everyone thought the seeds had been  good raw, but they were very much improved when they were roasted, again tasting even more like corn.  At least two thought that the flavor of the seeds was more like sunflower seeds.

Next, I took the roasted seeds and ground them in a coffee grinder. This produced an obviously oily golden flour, that would cake up in some places.

I put two heaping teaspoons of the golden flour into my drip coffee filter and produced a somewhat opaque goldenish beverage.  The fragrance is somewhat like burnt corn, and the flavor is reminiscent of a grain beverage.  It produced a pleasant drink, not strongly flavored one way or the other.  I would not compare it to coffee, except that both are warm beverages.  Kurrajong drink has none of the bitterness of coffee, though I could detect a slight astringent undertaste.  The flavor is very much enhanced with a sweetener, like honey. I think that anyone you served this to would find it at least acceptable, and probably enjoyable.  I can see using this alone, or as a coffee extender, in much the same way that chicory is used.

I then took some of the ground up kurrajong seed flour, and mixed it half-and-half with some wheat flour.  I blended it well, and then cooked it like damper in a hot skillet.  The batter had that dark golden color of the seed, and it had texture.  We cooked them well, and five of us tried them without honey or topping.  Everyone like them, even the children.  There was an initial burnt corn flavor, and just a very slight astringency in the mouth. As you chewed, it seemed almost oily, like eating peanut butter. I could see that some people might not care for the flavor, as it was distinctive, not bland like a wheat flour pancake. To me, the flavor was reminiscent of burnt corn, and was actually very tasty to my palate. 

We made a batch of several damper-pancakes, and we ate them all!  That says it all.  I believe that the flavor would be greatly enhanced with a jelly or butter topping.  I plan to experiment more with this food, and believe it can still be a very important modern-day bush food.

NUTRITION

The seeds were eaten by the Aboriginals, and they are quite nutritious. According to a study by the University of Sydney, these seeds contain about 25% fat and about 18% protein.  The study also stated that 100 grams of the seed contains about 348 calories.  (Peanuts, by contrast, contain about 567 calories per 100 grams.)

CAUTIONS

I learned  — the hard way – that you need to be careful when you clean each seed of the outer coating, which is covered in a very fine fuzz. When I first processed some of these seeds, I just rubbed them between my hands in order to remove the fuzzy chaff.  The fuzz is very fine and it’s not a serious irritant, but I did feel it, and afterwards,  I needed to wash my hands, as well as my clothes.  The seed coating also imparted a yellowish pigment to my skin, which  washed off readily.

I recommend wearing dish washing gloves when you process the seeds, or find a way to remove the fuzz without having to touch the seeds.

OTHER USES

Aborigines were known to  burn down the tree in the belief that this would drive water into the roots. They would then put one end of the roots into the coals of a fire, and the other end  into a container to catch water slowly dripping out.  This would be a good way to get water – if you’re in the Australian bush.

In fact, it turns out that two species of Brachychiton (B. rupestre  or bottle tree,  and B. populneum, kurrajong) are known to be good water trees, and probably other members of the genus also would have roots worth tapping.  There were reports that the Aborigines had subsisted in some areas almost wholly on water  from kurrajong roots.  One report on the kurrajong tree stated that “water gushes out rapidly when the pieces of root are set on end, the roots of a tree yielding gallons in quantity.”  Wow! 

REFERENCES:

Personal contact: Daniel Sainty, Australia

“Bush Foods: Aboriginal Food and Herbal Medicine” by Jennifer Isaacs. Lansdowne Publishing, 1987.

“Wild Food Plants of Australia” by Tim Low, Angus and Robertson Publishers, 1988.