Bunawlbu Cafe

About

The Chefs at Bunawlbu Cafe: Cedrick Walker and Fred Binge

We first began talking about the  idea of running a Bushfood Cafe about 8 years ago. It was a combination of things. There was a growing interest in bushfoods in Australia and we thought it would be a good thing for the community and the  areas surrounding Bonalbo.

Bonalbo is a meeting place and the place where Aboriginal people from surrounding communities come to to see the doctor or go to the hospital. Articles were starting to be published on the health benefits of bush foods, especially how they could effect diabetes and kidney disease. Both of these are common ailments amongst our people.

Cedrick  grew up in Tabulam and his family settled in Bonalbo in 1969. ” As a child we went hunting, fishing and gathering  food in the bush. Every afternoon we’d go down with our fishing lines to Peacock Creek. My mother always cooked traditionally for the 12 of us, porcupine (buning), turtle (binging), witchetty grubs (jubul) dampers or fried scones and roo. People were healthier then. ”

His partner in the business, Fred  grew up on Toomala Mission at Boggabilla. He moved to Bonalbo in 2001. “I grew up like Cedrick collecting wild berries and fishing and hunting. We all ate bush food on the mission. It was a time of rationing and what we were being given was just a bit of flour, rice, tea and sugar. If we tried to survive on that we would’ve been in trouble. So that’s why we all gathered our food from the bush. We knew we’d stay healthy then.”