In the preparation and cooking of their food, and in the extent to which this is carried, there are almost as many differences as there are varieties of food.  Having no vessels capable of resisting the action of fire, the natives are unacquainted with the simple process of boiling.  Their culinary operations are therefore confined to broiling on the hot coals, baking in hot ashes, and roasting, or steaming in ovens.  The native oven is made by digging a circular hole in the ground, of a size corresponding to the quantity of food to be cooked.  It is then lined with stones in the bottom, and a strong fire made over them, so as to heat them thoroughly, and dry the hole.  As soon as the stones are judged to be sufficiently hot, the fire is removed, and a few of the stones taken, and put inside the animal to be roasted if it be a large one.  A few leaves, or a handful of grass, are then sprinkled over the stones in the bottom of the oven, on which the animal is deposited, generally whole, with hot stones, which had been kept for that purpose, laid upon the top of it.  It is covered with grass, or leaves, and then thickly coated over with earth, which effectually prevents the heat from escaping.  Bark is sometimes used to cover the meat, instead of grass or leaves, and is in some respects better adapted for that purpose, being less liable to let dirt into the oven.  I have seen meat cooked by the natives in this manner, which, when taken out, looked as clean and nicely roasted as any I ever saw from the best managed kitchen.

If the oven is required for steaming food, a process principally applied to vegetables and some kinds of fruits, the fire is in the same way removed from the heated stones, but instead of putting on dry grass or leaves, wet grass or water weeds are spread over them.  The vegetables tied up in small bundles are piled over this in the central part of the oven, wet grass being placed above them again, dry grass or weeds upon the wet, and earth over all.  In putting the earth over the heap, the natives commence around the base, gradually filling it upwards.  When about two-thirds covered up all round, they force a strong sharp-pointed stick in three or four different places through the whole mass of grass weeds and vegetables, to the bottom of the oven.  Upon withdrawing the stick, water is poured through the holes thus made upon the hissing stones below, the top grass is hastily closed over the apertures and the whole pile as rapidly covered up as possible to keep in the steam.  The gathering vegetable food, and in fact the cooking and preparing of food generally, devolves upon the women, except in the case of an emu or a kangaroo, or some of the larger and more valuable animals, when the men take this duty upon themselves.