Curry and Rice, Keens Curry Powder and Lysinema ciliatum
Day 17, a plant a day, Lowlands Reserve, Lysinema ciliatum, 10 November 2020
Curry and Rice, the curry-scented Lysinema ciliatum, is a ubiquitous plant of the Lowlands Reserve which is very familiar to us locals.
Keens Curry powder, is an Australian pantry staple, much loved in contemporary Aboriginal food culture in the 20th and 21st centuries.
So cold and wet today, AND its NAIDOC week, so I was inspired to make warming lentil soup, with Keens curry powder as my secret ingredient ( be very generous with the olive oil too), as well as choosing the aromatic curry-scented Lysinema ciliatum as my plant of the day of Lowlands Reserve. I didn’t add any Lysinema to the soup, I haven’t found any reference to this plant being used as a flavouring. The native plant Haemodorum spicatum (or Meen) is spicy and edible, but I’ll leave Haemodorum for another day.
Curry and Rice (Lysinema), Foxtails (Andersonia yet to be featured)and Pimelias (see Day 9) , are for me, the iconic heath plants of the Lowlands Reserve. These are the plants whose names I first learned on arriving here over 30 years ago. Possibly because Lowlands coastal heath bears a slight resemblance to Scottish heather moorlands.
Keens curry powder, I discovered while helping cook at a bush camp at Nanga almost 30 years ago, where we had Aboriginal elders as guests.
Djirra in Victoria are asking for food donations for Aboriginal families — the №1 item to include is Keen’s curry powder.
Djirra
Looking for a new Christmas tradition? Join us this November for our reverse advent calendar!
Simply place an item in a box each day to create your own hamper to be donated to an Aboriginal mum and her children doing it tough this Christmas.
Items are a suggestion only and you can mix it up but all goods must be non-perishable (gotta include that Keens curry though)
Hampers can be dropped off to Djirra in Abbotsford during the first week of December (in a covid safe way).
Contact Casey at cwilliams@djirra.org.au to let us know you’re joining in.
As always, we really appreciate your support.
Big love and stay deadly!!
If, like me, you are not in Victoria, you can donate money to our own Southern Aboriginal Corporation in Albany, to show your support and celebrate NAIDOC week. Details below:
Donate
Your support is crucial to sustain the many programs and projects that are being conducted in your community. Whether you can give a little or a lot, every donation to this organisation makes a significant difference to the lives of families and individuals.
Donations over $2.00 are 100% tax deductible. A tax receipt will be issued to the address you provide when you email or contact us.
To pay money directly into our bank account, please use the following details:
Name of Account: Southern Aboriginal Corporation
BSB Number: 036–168
Account Number: 439 476
Bank details:
Name: Westpac Bank
Address: 281 York Street, Albany 6330, Western Australia
SWIFT Code: WPACAU2S
Thank you for your support.
And check out this deadly Keens Curry black T Shirt here https://www.gamminthreads.com/products/keens-curry-tee-black
I’m also following the totally loveable @Murrigellas on twitter, here is one of their tweets on Keen’s curry powder
Also for NAIDOC week, I was excited to see today (10 November 2020), that a new Species named after respected Noongar Ecologist, Dr Stephen Van Leeuwen. Leeuwen’s Lily Arthropodium vanleeuwenii . https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/science/nuytsia/963.pdf . Coincidentally, I was just recently musing and hoping that taxonomists would name new species to celebrate our Aborigonal elders and/or Aboriginal languages — see my Day 6 and Day 14 blog entries.
Anyway to get back to Lysinema ciliatum, the flowers are curry scented when the weather is warm, and are less strongly scented on cold wet days. Perhaps the scent attracts the moth pollinators, who are mostly around when its warmer! I don’t know of any research on this, the research I came across was about how the seeds germinate more easily when treated with smoked water and the unusual fungal associations of its fine hair like roots. This could be an adaptation to eking out water resources in dry sandy heathlands
And for Pauly, who always asks “Do they come in other colours?” Yes we also see pink ones, here are some from 1 November 2020
Lowlands Reserve is on Menang Boodja — country. I celebrate the strength, resilience and capacity of the Menang Noongar people who are the traditional owners of the land.
Follow me on instagram and twitter @lowlandsbeach . https://www.instagram.com/lowlandsbeach/
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and on Linked in https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheila-murray-2730491bb/
