Is it the Queensland Nut, Macadamia Nut or Bauple Nut?
WHEN I was a boy, we’d occasionally get a treat that we knew as a Queensland nut. I was amazed to learn a few years later that they came from Hawaii.
That’s only part of the story, though and, as with many stories, it involves bias and inaccuracies.
The nut was indeed a native product of Queensland, but could also be found in parts of northern NSW.
I wonder if the “Queensland nut” label was just a case of state rivalry and one-upmanship.
Other names used for the nut include Macadamia Nut, Maroochi and Gympie.
More recently, I learned the nut was known, perhaps, as the Bopple (or Baupal or Bauple) to the indigenous people of the Wide Bay hinterland, where it was first recorded by Europeans; to wit, Allan Cunningham.
I say perhaps because, as with any translation or appropriation from the native tongue to another language, there are many pitfalls.
Indeed, at the turn of the 20th Century, in the closest European settlement to the locale of Cunningham’s “discovery”, all three spellings were used in the town; the Post Office was called Baupal PO, the school and the mountain were Bopple, and the sugar mill was Bauple.
This wasn’t settled until 1913, though the decision to go with Bauple seems rather arbitrary.
There was, for a time, a coastal trading vessel, the SS Bopple, registered in Maryborough, that plied the waters between Wide Bay and Grafton in NSW.
Four native species — and the history behind Australia’s macadamia nut
I have also discovered, latterly, that there are four native species of the nut.
Interestingly, one species, M. jansenii, is quite poisonous, releasing a cyanide compound that can kill.
The Hawaiian connection arose from the fact that the trees were first imported to Hawaii to act as windbreaks for sugar cane and were later successfully commercially grown there.
Currently, South Africa holds the distinction for the largest commercial production of “our” nut.
Bopple Maryborough, from the State Library of Qld and John Oxley Library.
A note on nourishment
Nourishment isn’t always about what’s on the plate. Sometimes it’s memory, language, and the stories we inherit — and how they shift over time. This piece reflects a curiosity about food, place and naming, rather than certainty or conclusion. If it sent you down a rabbit hole of your own, it’s done what it needed to do.
This content is for general interest only and reflects personal experience rather than professional dietary advice.
This piece was first published in the Maryborough Herald in 2020, when Jocelyn was editor. Following the closure of the paper, the original article is now available via The Courier Mail’s site. It has been lightly edited for Jocelyn Magazine.
About the author
Peter Woodland is a contributor to Jocelyn Magazine. A former teacher and school librarian, his interests include computing, geography, palaeontology and good food.