Historians refer to middens as waste dumps and while this is partly true, it ignores the sophisticated cooking techniques of Australian Aboriginal people. Midden is a Scottish word which means literally, rubbish heap, but in Aboriginal communities these dumps were associated with large communal ovens.

Wathaurong people, like most indigenous people in Australia, constructed a pit lined with stones to retain and radiate the heat of the cooking fire. When the fire burnt down to glowing coals food baskets woven from green rushes (e.g. sword sedge and mat rush) were filled with murnong (yam potatoes), meat (possum, wallaby, duck, fish), leaf vegetables etc, sewn up tightly and covered with more hot stones and coals and left to bake slowly.

The food from these parcels retained a lot of moisture and sweetness thanks to the green rushes.

A good way to tell if a collection of shells is a midden, or just a natural collection built up on the tide line, is to look closely at the shell types. If there are only a few different types e.g. abalone, mussels, oysters, limpets, periwinkle, pippis etc. and there is evidence of burning or even pieces of charcoal, then you’re looking at a midden, but if the heap comprises all sorts of shells and there’s no burnt or black soil then it’s probably a natural collection.  

The Wathaurong called their ovens minne and that is the word we prefer to use. Why use a Scottish word when a perfectly good Australian Wathaurong word already exists 

Bruce Pascoe
Wathaurong Co-operative