The idea of witchetty grub soup is something of a challenge to white Australians. Since time immemorial, witchetty grubs have been eaten by Australia’s First Nations people, particularly in central Australia. These wriggly white grubs, about the size of your thumb, are the larvae of several species of moths and beetles and are found in the roots of certain shrubs and trees. They are traditionally eaten raw (and alive) or cooked in hot ashes.
Despite a colonial repugnance for eating insects, some brave white people also sampled witchetty grubs. Cookbook author Mary Rawson wrote in 1878:
Many people are disgusted at the mere idea of eating the white wood grub which the blacks are so fond of. As a matter of fact, there is nothing nasty or disgusting in these soft white morsels, any more than there is in an oyster. It is all a matter of taste…I have never tried them in a curry, but feel sure they would be excellent.
In 1984, The Sydney Morning Herald ran an article headlined “Waiter, there’s a grab in my soup”. The writer, Owen Craig, reported that witchetty grub soup, canned in Melbourne, was in high demand in South East Asia and America. The soup in question was an invention of “Captain” Peter Beattie, who ran the Riverboat Restaurant aboard the paddle steamer Gem, at Swan Hill’s Pioneer Village.
I can’t be definitive about when the soup was invented, although a 1976 article in the Australian Women’s Weekly has Beattie serving it at the restaurant “more than ten years ago”. As to when it was first canned, I discovered that the label for “Peter Beattie’s Witchety Grub Soup” was the work of the noted designer, Les Mason. A National Gallery of Victoria publication (sadly with no images) gives the date of the design as 1971.
To make the soup, the grubs were first fried in oil, then mixed with chicken stock, nuts, flour, eggs, carrots, skim milk, leeks, spices, onions and vegetable oil. The SMH quotes Beattie as saying, “Witchetty soup looks like pea soup or porridge, is high in protein and tastes like scorched almonds or peanuts.” The soup was canned by SPC at Monbulk, near Melbourne, with a production run of around 6,000 cans a year, and sold for $4.50 a can.
Articles about Beattie and his soup reported various sources for the witchetty grubs. The SMH article suggested they were gathered by local children, but a story in The Bulletin in 1978 reported that the grubs came live, packed in sawdust from a sawmill at Barham, a nearby town on the Murray River.
Before opening the Riverboat Restaurant in the 1960s, Peter Beattie had been a television chef in Melbourne. His menu aboard the PS Gem was tourist-oriented and ultra-Aussie. In addition to the witchetty grub soup, it featured yabbies, Murray crays, kangaroo and even, at least at one time, snake. More conventional dishes were poetically named: Jumbuk Loins (lamb with mint sauce) or Squatter’s Special (eye fillet served on damper with yabbies and oyster sauce). In 1980, The Age reviewer, Nancy Dexter, was unimpressed with the quality of the food but enjoyed the atmosphere.
Peter Beattie left Swan Hill in the 1990s to open a restaurant in Queensland. He died in Hervey Bay in 2022. SPC no longer makes the soup.
Canned witchetty grub soup may be difficult, or even impossible, to find these days, despite various Google searches assuring you that it’s available in Australian supermarkets. Of course, you could always make your own, providing you can get your hands on the grubs.