Aboriginal elder Aunty Beryl Hospitality School

Aunty Beryl Passes it On

An Aboriginal elder shares nutrition wisdom and inspiration at a pioneering hospitality school.

By Carla Capalbo | Wednesday, 09 February 2011 | 10:40

Aunty-Beryl-aboriginal-nutritionist

They're preparing kangaroo pies in the sunny kitchen at Yaama Dhiyaan Hospitality Training College when I first visit Aunty Beryl Van Oploo. It's a warm summer day in Sydney, Australia, and raucous cockatoos screech outside. Aunty Beryl's training college for young indigenous women and men is in Redfern, in a converted industrial building in the train-carriage works complex. These lofty warehouses have recently become an arts center, with a stylish cafe and theatre. The weekly Eveleigh farmers market, one of Sydney's most colorful, is held here.

This neighborhood has not always been so gentrified. It's on the edge of a rougher part of town that includes "the Block," a key Aboriginal city stronghold that has seen its share of triumphs and troubles. From here, Charles Perkins and other activists led the freedom ride in 1965 that raised public awareness about racial intolerance in rural Australia and triggered the 1967 referendum that finally brought the vote to Aboriginal people. The densely populated area afforded low-cost housing to some of the city's most disadvantaged residents. It represents a spiritual home for the Aboriginal communities of New South Wales, so it's no coincidence that Aunty Beryl's pioneering project is located nearby.

"My aim is to train young people from my community – as cooks, waiters, or bartenders – so they can acquire hospitality skills and find work," says the soft-spoken Aunty Beryl. Her quiet and shy exterior belies the strong determination she has needed to pursue her mission. Most of her trainees have difficult beginnings, and their new start with Yaama Dhiyaan helps them move beyond drugs, alcohol or prison spells. It reinstates a sense of family, putting the sharing and preparing of healthy food at the center of their daily lives.

Aunty Beryl, 68, is an Aboriginal elder. For an Aboriginal woman, that's exceptional; their average life expectancy is just 50 years, decades less than other Australian women. "Many have lost touch with the idea of food as nutrition," she says. "Junk food, addiction, and the lack of structured meals have taken their toll on our health. In our courses we start from the beginning, teaching about fresh foods and how to cook them. That already constitutes the first step towards a better life."

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Bush crocodile puffs before baking

In this government-sponsored program, students sign up for a nine-week course. Some need to improve their reading levels before tackling the theory. "Ninety percent of our teaching is practical, and we adapt to fit each individual. Lots of our youngsters have had so much taken away from them they must learn to trust before they can work, to sit down together at each meal and learn respect. We elders need to be here physically to inspire them," she says.

aunty-beryl-making-kangaroo-pies

Aunty Beryl's story is itself inspiring. She was born in Walgett, New South Wales, a descendant of the Gamillaroi nation. "We used to live off the land," she recalls. "My father was a sheep shearer and my uncles farmers. As kids we learned to fish in the nearby river. Our family was large, and we grew vegetables and foraged for wild berries and plants. We made flour and water bread, baked on an open fire. Our elders told us to maintain our culture; I've stayed true to that concept and can still cook traditionally."

Beryl's early life was similar to that of her contemporaries. At 16 she left her rural homeland to seek work in Sydney. "In those days, young Aboriginal women could only aspire to be cleaners or nannies. We had no rights whatsoever and little enough education. Traditionally our women stayed home, but when we started joining the workforce, it was 10 times harder for Aboriginal women to find employment," she says. Beryl found work as a nanny in a welcoming family that helped further her education. "Other friends of mine got stuck in menial roles."

Aunty Beryl was a pioneer, studying nutritional science in college and becoming one of the first 10 Aboriginal women teachers to graduate from Tafe Technical College. "They offered me teaching work but I doubted I could do it. I was no academic. They said I had common sense and life experience and that counted for more." Her husband, a Dutch engineer, was supportive of her career. She taught nutrition, toddler through adulthood, for decades. In 2010, she was a keynote speaker at the opening ceremony of Slow Food's Terra Madre in Turin, Italy, an inspiring representative of a native food culture in danger of extinction.

When Aunty Beryl retired several years ago, the local government enlisted her to run Yaama Dhiyaan Hospitality Training College and provided the modern space which doubles as a dining room for catering functions and as classrooms and a kitchen for student training. Aunty Beryl's catering company offers a non-threatening atmosphere in which students can practice and learn.

Beryl and her chefs, led by Mathew Cribb, focus on plants that were once staples of the Aboriginal bush: aromatic lemon myrtle, bitter saltbush, fiery river mint. They use traditional ingredients – including crocodile, which "tastes just like chicken" – in dishes that reflect Sydney's multiculturalism, such as Thai kangaroo curry. Bottled Aunty Beryl condiments are sold at the market alongside hot kangaroo pies. The group practices sustainability and is setting up an organic farm to produce vegetables and rare native varieties, like finger limes and bush tomato.

Beryl remains true to the values and beliefs that Aboriginal groups have always lived by. Dallas Dodd, an elder and a cooking teacher who collaborates with Beryl, explains: "Each Aboriginal group has foods that were used for ceremonial and seasonal gatherings. The kangaroo and emu are our two main totems and feature as reconciliation foods. We always pay tribute to these animals as they were here long before us and taught us how to find food and live with nature.

"We are very peaceful peoples, each in our own lands. We foster people and give them water. Our main role as human beings is to look after mother earth. The Earth is our mother and the sky our father, who loves Mother Earth. The sun is our grandfather and the moon our grandmother. The stars are our sisters and the clouds our brothers. Mother is the core of all family unity, the life of our culture. Our plants and animals are also our brothers and sisters. They each have a spirit. We have respect laws for ourselves and for animals and plants. Me and Aunty Beryl are at a stage of our lives where we are helping young people. It all goes back to sharing and caring. We give these young people hope."

Aunty Beryl concludes: "If you turn one person's life around, you turn their families around too. That's a good start."

Carla Capalbo is an award-winning food, wine and travel writer based in Italy for more than 20 years. Her book, "Collio: Fine Wines and Foods from Italy's Northeast" recently won the André Simon prize for best wine book. This is the first of several articles for Zester about the food scene in Sydney.

Photos from top: Aunty Beryl Van Oploo

Aunty Beryl making kangaroo pies