Aotearoa and Australia · Volume 01, Fire, the Stone Trap and the Reef Garden · Cooked by cue
Cycad bread or paste
Coastal New South Wales and Queensland, and, using a different method, the southwest
Illustration
- Researched
- 22 sources cited
Cycad seed, ground and processed by ageing, prolonged water-leaching or, in the southwest, pit fermentation, to remove the toxin cycasin before being ground into bread or paste and baked in ash. The danger is stated above: raw or under-processed seed causes severe poisoning, and the specific, expert knowledge that makes it safe is not replaced here with a home recipe.
As tradition built it
Reported in outline only, deliberately; no quantities or timings given.
Ingredients
No written recipe exists for cycad bread: the leaching that makes it safe runs by days and by taste, not by clock or weight, and the method is given as it is told on country.
- cycad seed, processed only by someone holding the expert knowledge to do so safely
Method
- As documented in outline only, deliberately: seed leached in running water over multiple days, or aged, or pit-fermented, by someone holding the specific knowledge to do so safely, then ground and baked in ash.
- This chapter will not give quantities or timings for this process, because doing so responsibly would require expertise this research does not hold, and because publishing an approximate version of a genuinely dangerous technique is worse than publishing none.
What a modern chef changes
The leaching principle, demonstrated on a genuinely safe substitute
Rung 5
Ingredients
- acorns, or another genuinely safe, UK-available bitter or tannic seed
Method
- Take a genuinely safe, UK-available bitter or tannic seed, such as acorn, which needs the same principle of leaching to remove bitter, water-soluble tannins before it is usable.
- Soak, changing the water regularly, over several days, reproducing the mechanism, not the specific danger, of cycad's own prolonged leach.
- Dry the leached flour in a dehydrator at a low, controlled temperature, for a more even, stable result than open-air drying gives, then grind and bake as damper is baked.
Notes
Instead: the leaching principle, demonstrated on a safe substitute.