Wattleseed scones with rosella jam, or lemon myrtle and rainforest lime muffins? Double chocolate brownies with Indigenous berries or quandong cheesecake? Corn fritters with wildfire spices, or mini kangaroo pies?
These are the sort of delicious dilemmas facing those ordering from the menu of one of Australia’s leading bush food kitchens. NCIE Catering, based at the in Redfern, Sydney, caters for morning and afternoon tea, lunches and special events across the city, for businesses ranging from The Sydney Opera House to state government departments.
Almost every item on the has a bush food element: there’s native mint bush in the rice paper rolls, wild thyme in the pork, chorizo and fennel sausage rolls, bush chutney sauce with the kangaroo pies, Warrigal greens in the ricotta scrolls. On the sweet side, the shortbread biscuits get a touch of lemon myrtle, and the range of muffins also include chocolate and wattleseed, or coconut and quandong. There’s a lemon myrtle cake with lemon myrtle icing, and gluten-free raspberry and macadamia frangipani.
And alongside the scones, muffins and pies, NCIE Catering serves up something else: opportunity.
NCIE's sausage rolls. Source: National Centre of Indigenous Excellence
Wattleseend scones are the most popular sweet item on the menu. Source: National Centre of Indigenous Excellence
The catering business is one of the sites where participants in NCIE’s gain skills.
The program trains and mentors Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in courses including a Certificate II qualification in hospitality and a Certificate III in Fitness (the NCIE complex also includes a fitness centre).
The nine-week hospitality course runs four times a year, with 12-20 participants each time, but the support for students doesn’t end when the course does. “It’s not just coming to do a course,” says Gamilaroi elder Aunty Beryl Van Oploo, the driving force behind the Job Ready program since she co-founded it in 2006. “We support them in every way we can.”
The widely respected businesswoman and bush food expert serves as teacher, trainer and mentor for the students, who spend two days a week at TAFE and two days a week at NCIE during the course, learning skills and receiving job hunting assistance. They also complete work experience at sites including NCIE’s catering kitchen. Current students will be cooking for NCIE’s on July 12, which will celebrate 10 years of NAIDOC at NCIE, with performances, touch footy and basketball, story readings in language and more, and of course food.
“It's been very successful,” Aunty Beryl says of the Job Ready program, “because what it's all about is training young people and older people who want to come back and get some skills, or re-vamp their skills and get into the workforce,” she says. “What I say is, if you have education, you have a voice, you have a choice.”
Some graduates go on to other careers – participants in recent years are now working in areas from nursing to the defence forces and farming – while others are working in hospitality, some in Sydney and some back in the communities where they were living before coming to do the course.
Among the graduates is 21-year-old Rob Bridges, who finished the Job Ready program last year, and has since been working as a chef’s assistant in the NCIE kitchen.
Although he was interested in food, he says he wasn’t a great cook before starting the course. “I was horrible!” he says with a smile, when SBS Food chats with him and Aunty Beryl at NCIE. Now he loves it so much he’s hoping to secure an apprenticeship in the industry. The course, he says, has given him a lot. “Confidence and cooking skills…. I was very shy before I started here.”
Job Ready graduate Rob Bridges with Aunty Beryl Van Oploo, in front of 'Walking Together', an artwork created by children in an NCIE holiday program under the guidance of Kamilaroi artist Dennis Golding Source: National Centre of Indigenous Excellence
He’s also enjoyed learning about bush food flavours. “You can't find many places like this that cook with Indigenous ingredients. So it's really nice to learn how, and what to use them in, instead of just figuring out myself.”
NCIE chef Jaye Tyrrell has had a big hand in developing the catering menu over the past five years. The kitchen initially cooked for conferences at NCIE, but the food proved so popular that it sparked the expansion into outside catering.
Rob Bridges and Jaye Tyrrell in the NCIE Kitchen, with rice paper rolls ready to go to an event. Source: Kylie Walker
There’s a lot of experimentation to come up with a menu that appeals to a wide range of clients, he says. Some community elders and other clients don’t like to eat crocodile or kangaroo, for example, so the menu includes plenty of other options. “We play around with it to get a nice balance, so everyone likes it. Getting that kind of balance is important,” says Tyrrell, one of two permanent chefs at NCIE.
“I’ve learnt a lot from Aunty Beryl,” he says, of working with Indigenous flavours, which weren’t as common when he first started working at NCIE.
He and Aunty Beryl both say they are happy to see bush food ingredients becoming more mainstream, because the more they are used, the more affordable they will become, making it easier for everyone to use them. 
Bush food flavours are also a way for other people to learn about Indigenous culture. “Everybody sits around the table. Everybody has to eat. Food is life,” says Aunty Beryl.
NCIE's mini kangaoo pies, served with bush tomato sauce, are the most popular item on the menu. Source: National Centre of Indigenous Excellence
She’s very tactful when asked to pick a favourite from the catering menu. “I like all food, it doesn't matter whether it's bush tucker here or... I try anything, I'm just a foodie. Except for frog legs, I couldn't eat frog legs!”
For those in the Job Ready program, NCIE’s bush food flavours are part of an ongoing success story.
“This is a stepping stone,” Aunty Beryl says. “Some courses, it's like, ‘oh they've finished, then they get a job’.” But with Job Ready, she says, the team are always there, months or even years down the track, to help participants.
“And the other thing is, because of who we are and what we do in the community, it's very flexible because everybody's at a different stage or a different standard. “
“We support them, and we help them. It’s a confidence building course for the mob that comes through.”
Since it started, the Job Ready program has made a difference to thousands of participants.
Those wattleseed scones and kangaroo pies – the two most popular items on the menu – are making a real difference.
NCIE is a registered supplier with and a certified supplier. Find more information on NCIE’s conference and catering options .
National NAIDOC Week (8 – 15 Nov 2020) celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Join SBS and NITV for a full slate of . For more information about NAIDOC Week or this year’s theme, head to the . #NAIDOC2020 #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe
