Terra Firmer

The protection of our soil is grounds for putting native fauna on our plates

- Paulette Whitney

Sometimes I consider geophagy. My soil of choice would be Permian mudstone, the creamy, 250 million-year-old clay of both the hills where I grew up, and of Neika where we now farm. My blood is Dutch and half murkily charted white Australian and New Zealander, and perhaps this lack of belonging to any particular land drives my daydreams of eating earth. I long for the connection Indigenous Tasmanians feel with the land, of blood and earth being one, neither owning the other.

Perhaps it’s these cravings that drive me to sink my hands into the dirt, and perhaps it’s the craving to belong to the land that also drives my desire to be kind to it.

Australian soils are fragile. Before the introduction of hoofed animals the hardest impact on our earth was the soft pad of a kangaroo’s foot. I love lamb chops as much as the next omnivore, but I wonder why my idea for a soft-footed national dish has thus far remained unheeded?