SLOW Food international president and founder Carlo Petrini visited Perth on 14 Oct 2009, launching a collaborative food garden project, presenting a lecture to a packed audience at the University of Western Australia, meeting parliamentarians and Slow Food Western Australian convivia members and attending a Slow Food Perth reception in the heart of the city.

At Lathlain primary school in Perth’s eastern suburbs, the charismatic Italian – a former radio journalist – talked with children about understanding the earth and food plants and animals sustained by it. He was speaking at the launch of a project – Food with latitude – led jointly by Slow Food Perth and the children’s environment awareness organisation Millennium Kids. Its aim is to enable children, through food knowledge, to ‘orbit in two worlds’ – as Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson describes it – and come to know and respect the foods of their own culture and those of indigenous cultures.

Petrini later met rural parliamentarian and Slow Food supporter Max Trenorden MLC, Member for the Agricultural Region, before addressing a standing room-only lecture at the University of Western Australia. The lecture venue was moved at the last minute to accommodate the 250 students, academics and Slow Food members who attended. The lecture was hosted by faculty of natural and agricultural sciences’ Professor Willy Erskine.

Petrini later attended a Slow Food Perth reception at the Old Brewery where he received a traditional welcome to Perth from Noonagr elder Mingli McGlade, and where Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman launched the Slow Food Perth’s Western Australia small food awards.

See Matt O’Donohue’s complete photostream from the reception.