Australian Aboriginal sweet foods

Australian Aboriginal people have many ways to source sweet foods. The four main types of sweet foods gathered – apart from ripe fruit – were:^[1]

honey from ants and bees (sugarbag, see below)
leaf scale (honeydew – lerps)
tree sap
flower nectar

In some parts of Australia, these customs are still used today, particularly in Central Australia. Foods collected can be eaten directly as a sweet or made into a sweet drink.

^ Turner, Margaret-Mary, Arrernte Foods: Foods from Central Australia, IAD Press, Alice Springs, 1994, ISBN 0-949659-76-2, pp1-10.

[1] Turner, Margaret-Mary, Arrernte Foods: Foods from Central Australia, IAD Press, Alice Springs, 1994, ISBN 0-949659-76-2, pp1-10.

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