From the west: a taste of Slow

TAKE fifteen kilograms of nougat, $70 worth of freshly-baked bread, jars and bottles of olives, biodynamic marmalade, pistachio nuts, Swan Valley preserved fruits, the country’s finest goat’s cheese, raw wandoo and jarrah honey, wheatbelt flour, four producers, one chef and two helpers and you have the ingredients of the Western Australian stand at A taste of Slow in Melbourne on 9-10 September 2006.

The weekend Slow Food exposition at St Helier’s Convent in suburban Abbotsford was the culmination of two weeks of myriad Slow Food events throughout regional and metropolitan Victoria, combined with the Mebourne Food & Wine festival.

More than 16,000 growers, food lovers, their kids and dogs visited the convent to taste foods produced by communities and growers throughout Australia.

Producers represented on the Western Australian stand included William and Kelly Newton-Wordsworth and their biodynamic Williams River pistachios, marmalade and olives from the Great Southern, Catherine Lee and her family’s Regan’s Ridge organic olives and oils, Terri and Dayle Lloyd and their Eden Valley biodynamic Dumbleyung flours, and Gabrielle Kervella and Alan Cockman with their renowned Gidegannup goats’ cheese.

Swan Valley chef Vincenzo Velletri – selected by Slow Food Perth convivium to demonstrate the use of Western Australian produce – used Eden Valley flour, Kervella cheese and Food Symphony port-soaked figs to create a dessert pizza in the convent’s wood-fired ovens.

Other Western Australian foods made available for tasting at A taste of Slow included Patricia Tew’s preserved fruits and dessert sauces from Bullsbrook, Rochelle Adonis’s superb white, dark and rose petal nougat, hand-made in North Perth, and Romy Surtees’ and Glenn Pattinson’s Elixir raw wandoo and jarrah honey.

The Western Australian stand also displayed Sue and Mike Daubney’s unique eco-friendly dairy packaging from their Northcliffe dairy.

Gabrielle Kervella and William Newton-Wordsworth participated in ‘spoken word’ forums, the Bunn family’s Redmond wines were entered in A Taste of Slow’s Australian wine library, and good, clean and fair food abounded.

We enjoyed an enormous response to the Western Australian stand and have attracted the interest of six Melbourne-based retailers in stocking Western Australian artisan food ranges.

In exchange for a much sought-after second taste of Patricia Tew’s Food Symphony chocolate, port & fig terrine, two Melbourne women of Italian descent have sent us their old Calabrese family’s much-prized recipe combining chocolate, boiled hog’s blood, red wine and cinnamon. We must try it!

Thanks to all producers who participated and to chef Vincenzo Velletri and budding new Riverina (NSW) convivium leader Helen Robb for their wonderful hard work.

Jamie Kronborg
Slow Food Perth events co-ordinator