One Indigenous community has invited self-proclaimed revolutionary foodie and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to bring his Ministry of Food to their Northern Territory community.
Taking to Facebook on Friday 8 April, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) shared an open letter to Oliver from a woman named Julie Bangun, who hopes Oliver will travel to Wadeye to spend time sharing his cooking skills with the community and learn more about bush tucker in return.
Julie Bangun. Source: Facebook / NACCHO Aboriginal Health.
The letter to Oliver reads:
Dear Jamie,
My name is Julie Bangun and I live in the Aboriginal community of Wadeye, in Northern Territory. I speak the Murrinh Patha language, one of Wadeye’s many Aboriginal languages. I have one of your books that I really like to cook from here in Wadeye, called Jamie’s Comfort Food. I also have some of your DVDs.
I am a big fan of your cooking, but at our Wadeye community store there are not many ingredients, as all things are shipped in. I sometimes go to Darwin (a long way and expensive trip) and there I try to buy different and interesting ingredients.
Wadeye is in the tropical Daly River region, and there is lots of bush tucker we traditionally eat- like turtle’s eggs and meat, coconuts, crabs, bush nuts, Kakadu plums and wild fruits.
On behalf of the Wadeye community, I invite you to visit us and teach us to understand healthy eating and nutritious food. Our community would be pleased take you collecting bush tucker traditional way, and you can teach us new skills.
Being healthy means our kids have a better chance in life, and your visit would help make our community strong for the future and ensure our kids to grow up healthy and deadly.
Hope to hear from you soon,
From Julie
Oliver, who has largely dedicated his career to championing home cooking and better health, originally launched the Ministry of Food schools in the UK with the aim to teach attendees how to cook and equip them with the skills to create healthy meals for themselves, families and friends.
Source: Facebook / Jamie Oliver.
According to Oliver, "Jamie's Ministry of Food is simple in what it does, its all about getting everyone cooking again by teaching people the basics: how to grocery shop, how to cook and how to enjoy food in a way that benefits them and their families. It aims to give as many people as possible the tools and information they need to make better food choices."
There are currently Ministry of Food centres in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
While there's been no word from Team Oliver yet, we think collaborating with an organisation named after one of the greatest food dishes of all time is an opportunity that's too good to pass up.
See what Oliver has to say on the newly imposed UK sugar tax below.