Truly local: Flavours of Chittering 2010

On September 18, 2010, in the nose, by Matt
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TASTING Rocco and Connie Zampogna’s cara cara navel orange was one of the many delicious moments of Slow Food Perth’s participation in Flavours of Chittering 2010 on 12 September.

Flavours of Chittering achieves ‘truly local’ – having only those local producers, or makers using local products, participating in the market at ‘the hub’ at the lower Chittering village hall. It is one of those things which often might be difficult to ‘sell’ to backers and committees of a festival like this but which is critical to the event’s integrity. This is what sets Flavours of Chittering apart from all other food ‘events’. It’s held on for a single day, but packs in a diverse range of produce, people and activities.

There was farmer Dominic Augustin and his ‘square meaters’ – a reversion to the beef animal of a size more like the murray grey as it was originally bred on the upper Murray river in New South Wales in the 1920s – together with his Australian game bird hen and her surrogate chicks. Biblical Fruits was offering tastings and sales of its fig jam. Maggie Edmonds was promoting her Swan Valley marketplace, Sid and Edith de Burgh were offering tastings of their biodynamic Baramba beef cuts, and Alix Frew from Heirloom Farm seedlings at Gingin did a roaring trade in heritage salad and vegetable seedlings.

In the lower Chittering hall, Emmanuel Mollois from Choux demonstrated his pastry-making skills before a packed audience, and the local progress association members manned a bookstall featuring, among others on sale, editions of American author Michael Pollan’s Food Rules. Outside, kids and their parents participated in Slow Food Perth food-finders’ food-gardening tool quiz. Ten-year-old Georgina Versteeg from Beckenham won a Twigz long-handled tool set. Bindoon Bakehaus did a very brisk trade in coffee.

But back to the orange. The Zampognas – their surname means ‘bagpipes’ in the Italian Calabrese dialect – own Golden Grove orchard in lower Chittering. Rocco shed electrical contracting for farming in 1978.

The lower Chittering valley is renowned for its citrus, and Rocco and Connie took over a neglected orchard which today has been transformed into a thriving farm that, as Rocco says, has ‘gone beyond organic’. ‘(We) decided to change orchard practices and move away from chemicals wherever possible, going beyond organic and replacing lost nutrients that have been depleted from the soil after many years of production.’

The cara cara was discovered in 1976, growing as a ‘sport’, or natural cross, between a washington and brazilian bahia navel orange at hacienda de Cara Cara near Valencia in Venezeula.

Taste its sweet, near-red, juicy flesh and you’ll wonder why the cara cara is not more widely available in the fruit market. The next time you shop, ask your fruiterer or grocer to see if they can get it in.

Watch our ‘slow short’
Flavours of Chittering: 12 Sep 2010

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‘The new biodiversity’: Carlo Petrini sets a challenge

On November 10, 2009, in event archive, the nose, by Matt
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Carlo Petrini presented with a traditional 'coolamon', used by Aboriginal people to carry food, made by a Tanami desert community on the Western Australia-Northern Territory border. Image: Matt O'Donohue / Abstract Gourmet

SLOW Food international president and founder Carlo Petrini encouraged Australians to create ‘a new biodiversity’ during his Sydney Opera House presentation on 18 Oct 2009. The charismatic Italian – a former radio journalist – said that while Europeans had to defend historical biodiversity, Australians had to create a diverse food heritage. ‘Let the producers create this new biodiversity,’ Petrini said. ‘Let Australians use their creativity and become the protagonists of the future, as it happened with wine, as must happen with cheese, with beer, with tomatoes, and animal breeds. In this way you can defend your identity. In this way we can defend the future to be handed over to future generations.’

Video
Carlo Petrini at the Sydney Opera House [18 Oct 2009] 120 minutes

Transcript
Full presentation transcript [English]

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Biodynamic festival at High Vale orchard: Sun 22 Nov 2009

On November 10, 2009, in event archive, the nose, by Matt
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Join us for the High Vale biodynamic festival on 22 Nov 2009. Image: Chas Hauxby

Join the Della France family, Slow Food Perth and some of Western Australia’s finest local producers at the second biodynamic festival in High Vale’s beautiful apple, pear and stonefruit orchard at Pickering Brook on Sunday 22 November. Cider and wine tastings, small, slow food, orchard tours and conviviality. Information.

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Terra Madre Day: Swan Valley food traditions

On November 10, 2009, in event archive, the nose, by Matt
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TMD logo jpg TMD world

SLOW Food Perth regrets that this event has been cancelled because of a shortage of bookings [24 Nov 2009].

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Carlo Petrini to deliver public lecture in Perth

On October 7, 2009, in event archive, the nose, by Matt
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carlo petrini 2009 medium

CARLO Petrini, Slow Food founder and international president, will deliver a free public lecture at the University of Western Australia on Wed 14 Oct 2009 as a highlight of his first visit to Perth. It will be hosted by UWA Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences professor Willy Erskine.

Petrini, who in 1986 launched the protest movement that became Slow Food in 1989, was named last year by British newspaper The Guardian as one of ‘The 50 people who could save the planet’ and ‘European hero’ by Time magazine in 2004. The organisation he leads today has more than 100,000 members in 150 countries, including six branches in Western Australia. It works to counteract the disappearance of local food traditions, people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how individual food choices affect the rest of the world.

Petrini’s theoretical approach to agriculture, food production and gastronomy is based on three principles –‘good, clean and fair’ – that Slow Food has turned to reality through more than 300 small-scale projects across the world that protect traditional food production methods by supporting producers in their communities and helping them to build markets for their products.

This work extends from farmers and fishermen to cooks, chefs, academics, young people and consumers. It led Slow Food to establish in 2004 a biennial event called Terra Madre that has evolved into a network of more than 2000 food communities throughout the world working to maintain truly local food systems and traditions.

Petrini, a charismatic Italian and former radio journalist, champions the Slow Food tenet that food should taste good and be nutritious, produced in ways that respect the environment, animals, and people’s health, and yield fair rewards for producers.

Using this theme, his University of Western Australia lecture will discuss ‘Good, clean and fair: small, slow food in a big food nation’.

He will also launch in Perth a collaborative project between Slow Food Perth and the children’s environment awareness organisation, Millennium Kids, that aims to encourage children to learn about food production and food security and experience and appreciate indigenous food cultures.

After his Perth visit, Petrini will travel to Sydney where he will speak at the Sydney Opera House in one of the key events of the 2009 Sydney International Food Festival.

Free public lecture
Time: 5:00pm for 5:15pm
University of Western Australia
MCS Lecture Theatre [nearest carpark No. 14, off Fairway or Myers Street]
Molecular & Chemical Sciences Building
Crawley WA 6009

Please RSVP your attendance by email or T 08 6488 1141.

The lecture will conclude at 6:15pm.

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Vineyard bounty: Sun 18 Oct 2009

On September 9, 2009, in event archive, by Matt
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Cosham vineyard and dogs. Image: Jane Edinger 2008
ROMAN emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius encouraged people to do good ‘as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne’. Slow Food Perth invites you to experience ‘ the good’ and to join us to celebrate the bounty of the vine at Cosham Wines, Carmel – in the run of the Bickley Valley – on Sunday 18 October 2009.

Cosham Wines epitomises ‘small, slow wine’. The two-and-a-half hectare vineyard nestles in an east-west fork of the beautiful Bickley-Carmel valley complex, where the soil comprises typical Darling Range gravelly loam with some clay. The vines yield from a well-drained sloping aspect watered by good rainfall. Chilling winter days are plentiful, followed by clear, warm ripening weather in summer.

Maxinne, Rod and Anto Sclanders tend the vines and pick and vintage the grapes by hand, managing without insecticides, chemical fertilisers or any synthetic pesticides. Cosham’s exceptional sparkling wine is bottle-fermented and made by the traditional methode champenoise using only whole bunch-pressed pinot noir grapes grown in the vineyard. Maxinne, Rod and Anto also produce chardonnay, dry red pinot noir, shiraz and a cabernet merlot blend.

Slow Food Perth’s vineyard bounty picnic menu will include local, seasonal produce prepared for lunch by our committee members. This will be partnered by some heritage wines which the Sclanders are planning to offer from their cellar, together with more recent vintages. We look forward to your company. Fee: $35 members, $45 guests, includes lunch. Wine available for purchase. Children under 12 free. Booking form: Word version or PDF version. Information: email Slow Food Perth.

IMPORTANT note: Cosham estate includes unfenced open water – parents are asked to take direct responsibility for children. Cosham Wines and Slow Food Perth accept no liability.

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‘Butter works’ – Slow Food Perth event

On July 18, 2009, in event archive, by Matt
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HERODOTUS described butter as one of ‘the oddities of the Scythians’ who lived in the Black Sea littoral. The Greeks called it boutyron, apparently a literal translation of ‘cow+cheese’. In France today, distinctive regional butters are part of the defining food culture of the country. Slow Food Perth will host ‘Butter works’, a tasting of Australian and New Zealand, European and locally home-made butters, on Sat 25 July 2009. The workshop has been inspired by Trudy Parker’s trip to Japan earlier this year where she attended a butter-making course at a Hokkaido dairy. Venue: 36a Gardiner Street (rear house), East Perth. Time: 2:00-4:00pm. Fee: $15 members, $20 friends. Information: Pauline Tresise email or T 08 9381 4519. Booking form.

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Southern Forests convivium launch

On July 17, 2009, in event archive, by Matt
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SLOW Food Southern Forests – Western Australia’s newest, and fifth, Slow Food convivium – will be launched at a special long table lunch at Pemberton’s Lost Lake Winery on Sun 26 July 2009. Convivium leader and Terra Madre 2008 chef-delegate Sophie Zalokar has invited the Manjimup and Pemberton communities to join convivium members and enjoy local food and wine. ‘We’re celebrating the beginning of a local organisation that recognises and promotes the cultural importance of food in our community,’ Sophie says. The menu will include pasta e fagioli, a hearty soup of Manjimup white beans, local vegetables and pasta with parmesan, local olive oil and crusty bread, juniper-brined free-range chicken with braised cabbage and apple, and buckwheat cake with karri honey-poached local persimmons and Bannister Downs’ dairy’s double cream. This dessert is a unique Italian-style buckwheat and almond cake. Buckwheat was introduced to Italy and France via Russia and south-eastern Europe by Crusaders, who got it from the Saracens, and it was given an Arabic-derived name, ‘saracen corn’. Lunch booking fee: $55 Slow Food members, $60 friends. For bookings please contact Lost Lake Winery T 08 9776 1251. Information flyer

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Tea and terroir

On July 6, 2009, in event archive, by Matt
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Pauline Tresise reports on a ‘tea sampling’ held by Slow Food Perth in conjunction with Melbourne tea merchant David Thompson in Northbridge.

SFP larsen thompson tea tasting

LU Yu, a respected Chinese tea ‘sage’, said in the eighth century BC: ‘Tea is especially fitting for persons of self restraint and inner worth.’

It is acknowledged by the Chinese that superior tea is grown in high mountain areas. Altitude slows growth and shields tea plants from extreme sunlight. As with wine and other agricultural products, the quality and taste of tea is influenced by soil, climate and altitude. Tea gardeners ultimately decide which leaves to pluck and how best to process that leaf to optimise flavour and quality inherent in the green leaf. Distinguished Melbourne tea merchant David Thompson, of Larsen & Thompson, held a tutored tea tasting for Slow Food Perth at Rochelle Adonis’ Northbridge studio on Friday 3 July 2009.

Nine teas were tasted. These included examples of each of the main types of tea:
• China white tea
• China green tea
• China oolong
• Burma oolong
• India high-grown black tea
• India low-grown black tea
• Commercial teabag tea
• India ‘breakfast’ blend
• China ‘post-fermented’ tea

Each participant spooned a sample of the brewed tea from china tasting cups into a glass. The infused leaf of each tea was displayed on the inverted lid of the tasting cups for us to observe.

The intricacies of tea production, including plucking, withering, rolling, drying and grading, were discussed, and each tea was then sampled.

All main types of tea – white, green, oolong and black – are derived from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. The distinct difference in taste and appearance in each of these tea types is determined by how the leaf is treated during the process of ‘manufacture’. Tea is native to parts of China, India, Cambodia and Burma. It is ideally grown in a temperature range of 10 to 30 degrees celsius, with an average yearly rainfall of 2000 millimetres, at altitudes of 600-2000 metres above sea level. In the wild, the plant can reach heights of 20 metres, but in commercial gardens, tea plants are regularly pruned and shaped to a height and size that encourages leaf growth and assists the tea plucker.

White tea
White teas are the least processed of teas. Traditionally this style of China tea is processed for a very short time at the start of the spring growing season. The name ‘white’ tea is derived from the white ‘pubescence’ on the unopened leaf buds. Only certain leaves are selected. White tea is neither rolled nor withered. Style tasted: Bai mu dan from Fujian province.

Green tea
Green teas are traditionally produced in China and Japan. Green tea leaf is steamed to retard enzyme action and this process prevents oxidation. Styled tasted: Yunnan green.

Oolong
Oolong teas are traditionally produced in China and Taiwan. They differ from other tea types because the leaves are partially oxidised. Styles tasted: Tie guan yin from China and Shan plateau from Burma.

Black tea
India is the world’s largest producer of black tea. Black tea manufacture comprises five processes: withering, rolling, oxidising, drying and grading. During withering, moisture is removed from the leaves. The leaves are then rolled to facilitate the process of oxidation. During oxidation, often referred to as ‘fermentation’, the leaves are exposed to conditioned air to develop the leaf’s ‘liquoring’ properties. Oxidation is halted by the ‘firing’ (drying) process, which seals in the flavours that have developed.

India Darjeeling black tea
India Darjeeling tea is grown, cultivated and processed in strictly demarcated areas of ‘high country’ in West Bengal. Type tasted: Sungma single estate organic.

India Assam black tea
Assam is a tea-growing region in the plains of north-east India. It is the world’s largest tea growing area and is renowned for malty, full bodied, robust-flavoured teas. Type tasted: India Assam tea blend ‘Good Morning’.

China ‘post-fermented’ tea
Puerh tea is neither white, green, oolong nor black. The method for processing this tea type is complex and little-known. Post-fermented teas differ from other types because they can improve with age. This tea style originated in China’s Yunnan province. Early references to Puerh tea date back to the Han dynasty BC. The best quality is produced from wild tea-trees. Puerh tea was originally known as a ‘tribute’ tea. It was an early form of imperial taxation.

Our thanks to David Thompson for his time and expertise and for guiding us through this informative tasting. For further information go to Larsen & Thompson

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A slurp of real milk

On June 16, 2009, in event archive, by Matt
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A SLURP of real milk – do different white milks taste different? Try your palate at Slow Food Perth’s good, clean and fair food marquee at this year’s Mundaring truffle festival on Sun 09 Aug. Can you taste the difference between supermarket home-brand milk and the real thing? Like a calf, suckle up and test your tasting skills against our panel’s – including a wine judge, an olive oil judge and a cheesemaker.

This is just one of Slow Food Perth’s activities at the 2009 festival. There will also be kids’ blindfold food tastings, our ‘brainfood’ memory tunnel, the Country Women’s Association’s classic sponge cakes, wood-fired pizza, wonderful coffee, and fascinating Slow Food information. Do you know what an ‘ort’ is?

Or come and participate in a debate: ‘Is it smarter for us to eat an organic orange from Spain or a conventionally-farmed orange from Chittering?’ Hear a discussion on food miles, genetic modification and what we eat. Participants will include Slow Food Perth co-leaders Pauline Tresise and Jamie Kronborg, organic farmer Annie Kavanagh and author Jude Bleureau in Mundaring old hall on Sun 09 Aug at 12:30pm.

More information
Mundaring truffle festival web
Slow Food Perth flyer

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