Kakadu plum

What it is

The fruit is egg-shaped, like a little unripe olive, with a woody stone in the centre. The flesh is fibrous, tart and bitter, sometimes salty. Its tree, Terminalia ferdinandiana, belongs to the Combretaceae family. Around Broome the fruit goes by Gubinge; at Wadeye, MiMarrarl is another name for it.

Where it comes from

Its range reaches across northern Australia, from the Kimberley in Western Australia to Darwin and into Queensland. In Kakadu it grows in open tropical woodland. For many remote Aboriginal communities the harvest matters socially and economically, bringing different clans and Traditional Owner groups together in one shared enterprise.

How it's eaten where it grows

In Kakadu, Bininj/Mungguy usually eat the ripe fruit raw and also turn it into jam. In 2018, Some Wild Australia, a South Australian company, launched a Kakadu plum yogurt using fruit from the Thamarrurr Plum Enterprise.

Powder gives cooks another way to use it. It can be added to smoothies, sprinkled on yogurt or porridge, or used in a salad dressing.

How it's grown

Most Kakadu plum is gathered from wild trees, while Indigenous and non-Indigenous growers are also establishing orchards. In Kakadu, the trees carry large, rounded leaves and spikes of cream-coloured flowers. They drop their leaves in the dry season, then flower on bare branches before the next fruit crop.

When and where you'll find it

In Kakadu National Park, fruit usually appears from March to May, near the end of the tropical summer. Kakadu Plum Co., in Mordialloc, Victoria, makes a Kakadu plum (Gubinge) powder from the whole fruit, seed and flesh, freeze-dried and then milled.