Issue 1 Regional Food Australia by Regional Food Australia

PL AC E S

PE O P L E

P RODUCE

REGIONAL FOOD AUSTRALIA ISSUE ONE

Are you ready for this?

*Australian Residents only

KING ISLAND ~ CHEESE ~ BEEF ~ SEAFOOD ~ KELP ~ LOVE STORIES

ISSN 1832-6781

King Island Love, seachange and other stories

The ultimate guide to King Island cheese. How to eat locally and seasonally Australia-wide. Win a $5,000 Gourmet Safari for two . Plus events, markets and more *

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“…you can sit and watch the waves that come all the way from South America” page 21 2

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“Because you’re on an island… you can’t easily bring more milk in or sell your excess to another factory. We have to handle it ourselves.” Cheese-maker Ueli Berger, page 72 6

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;I picked some fresh pine mushrooms, will roast them with garlic & olive oil to go with the roast rump with beetroot salad.â&#x20AC;? Chef Stephen Russell, page 80

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“I know what it costs per cray just to turn that key and start my boat. There are lots here who don’t and they’re doing it tough.” Cray ﬁsherman John Mauric, page 66

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C O N T E NT S

Issue 1: King Island LAUNCH

ISSUE

50 Selling the sizzle Was that really King Island beef you had for dinner? Did you have to chew?

73 The King Island Cheese Compendium The deﬁnitive guide, with complete tasting notes from the cheese-maker.

Amazing crays And oysters, and abalone, and octopus… King Island’s clear waters produce spectacular seafood.

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People laugh and suggest that they’re “stuck in the eighties,” although it seems less ‘stuck’ than holding on to values that small towns on the mainland have lost and would envy. 16

If this is pizza, it must be Friday The bakery does pizza on Friday nights, but you won’t ﬁnd a McDonalds anywhere. It’s that kind of place.

Fast food for a slow island How many bakery pie cabinets offer crayﬁsh, shark and wallaby alongside the steak and kidney?

Cloudjuice Water so pure, it’s worth bottling. To each his eggs As the number of people taking someone

Harvesting the storm

The originals

King Island’s kelpers have a reputation for being nearly as wild as the storms that provide their livelihood.

From the trenches to King Island: soldier settlers were battlers from the beginning.

else’s eggs from her mailbox grew, Sandy Holloway decided she needed name tags.

Home sweet (honey) home There’s plenty of milk on the island, but where’s the honey?

032

Preserving tradition On an island of experienced home jam makers, picking favourites is a religious experience.

A taste for solitude King Island Dairy’s cheese-maker Ueli Berger has wild bears in his house, and he couldn’t be happier.

84 Island spirit

42 Grassy Established when mining was more important than milk, a town looks forward to a food-led recovery.

Potter, entrepreneur and Citizen of the Year, Caroline Kinimonth is a fervent promoter of the island and its produce.

A King Island love story

Guide to King Island

How a local lass fell in love with someone on the telly and lived happily ever after.

Why you’ll want to go, what to expect when you get there and your essential contact list.

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REGULAR SECTIONS 96 107

Harvest We’ve gathered together the goods on products,

Our Cover: Peter Bailey, one of Australia’s top food photographers and

places and experiences to check out this winter.

food stylist Theresa Stastny had no trouble interpreting ourr ‘Are you ready for this?’ brief. Falling Tazziberries are heading for King Island Dairy’s Ashed Blue Brie cheese from their Discovery range. We’re ready, are you?

What’s happening? A national round up of events with a food and wine focus.

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Farmers’ markets Previewing the 2nd National Conference, plus a listing of markets Australia-wide.

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Not a wine story So far, no-one’s successfully produced a King Island wine. But it’s not for want of trying.

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Wine with Christina Tulloch Don’t be snobby, just drink your Chardonnay.

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Reviews Gina Mallet bemoans the loss of taste, Australian

Illustration by Tom Samiek, ‘Before We Eat’ Page 116

books with a regional ﬂavour and a critical eye on food TV.

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Those hyperactive red berries on the cover are sold as Tazziberries.

Where to from here? Websites and links for more info on stories, products and our advertisers.

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Refrigerate after opening Jan O’Connell’s kitchen lament.

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Real food Guest columnist Gawen Rudder.

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What’s coming up next issue. Competition small print and colophon.

A trademarked name, they’re actually a Chilean guava and are just starting to reach the markets here and be propagated around the country. They taste a bit like a blueberry, with some tropical overtones and we all thought they had a herb ﬁnish, a bit oregano. Treated as both savoury and sweet, they go nicely with cheese. Tas Myrtus Berries P/L. Burnie, Tasmania. Phone: 03 6433 1456 www.tazziberry.com * The Gourmet Safaris competition is open to Australian residents only.

The average Tazziberry is slightly smaller than a Blueberry. 12

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You are where you eat.

H EN WE D I N E out or cook at home we increasingly want to know more about the ingredients that we use. Where did it come from? Who grows it? Did they make or grow it with care? Do they like their work? Is the food covered with chemicals? What is its history? What other variations of the product are there I could try? This is a considerable change to how we’ve thought about our food in the past. Supermarkets did their best and gave us everything we wanted, year round, whenever we wanted it. But they never expected we’d get suspicious about those big red strawberries out of season and want to know what country they came from. How could they know that we’d start to worry about the pesticides that keep our fruit looking perfect, or despair about the lack of taste in our tomatoes?

Wanting to know more about our food is like developing an interest in wine. As with that process, we need help to know what tastes to look for, and how to distinguish the good from bad. We also want the best we can afford, even on a budget. We see Regional Food Australia as part of that learning process. We’ll take you exploring our country by way of its food and wine. We’ll tell you how to pick the best quality and its right season. Whether you’re planning a weekend break, or just happy to be an armchair traveler, we’ll introduce you to Australian food in all its regional varieties. Along the way we’ll ask you to consider how taste and tradition have been lost. And we will show you how to get them back. Fred Harden and Mark Kelly

The contributors in this issue. Jackie Cooper Jackie worked with Fred Harden (and designer Chris Waller) on a small (but stylish) magazine called Australian MultiMedia that was published by Murdoch Magazines a long time ago. She went on to work for the Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian. She is now freelance and has been writing great stories about real people for a variety of magazines. She grew up in Mildura. Christina Tulloch is the Operations Manager of Tulloch Wines Cellar Door at Pokolbin and is a freelance wine writer. The surname gives away a background of long experience in the wine industry. You’ll see her, not so serious but knowledgeable pieces in each issue. She grew up in the Hunter Valley. Photography credits: Would you believe the old joke about all the good pictures being mine, and the others being taken by someone who just looks like me? I felt I needed to set a style and hopefully next issue I can be mostly ‘editor’. That said, there are also good photographs from John Stokes (additional King Island material throughout The Guide), Aurore Harden photographed the main portrait of Jamie Roebuck, Jackie Cooper took Caroline’s pepper picking and others. Thanks go to Kate O’Connell who researched the Christmas in July story, and of course to all the King Islanders who shared their stories with strangers. We hope we’ve given back more than we took from your time.

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INTRODUCTION

If this is pizza, it must be Friday. WHILE COMMERCIALISM CAN HITCH a ride into mainland country towns, where townies and truckies are forever passing through, on King Island it has to come by sea or by air. And, so far, it hasn’t made the effort.

T’S THE ISLAND EFFECT. You won’t ﬁnd a Macca’s, KFC or Pizza Hut. The nearest equivalent for an evening takeaway on King Island is the bakery’s fresh-made pizza—and they only do it on Friday nights. There’s not a billboard to be seen. The businesses still carry the names of local people, not national chains. And when you drop off your rental car at the airport, you leave the keys in the ignition. After all, why steal a car when there’s nowhere to hide? Islanders talk about going ‘up north’ or ‘down south’ in tones that suggest untold distances, but the island is just 64km from north to south and 27km from side to side. Criss-crossed with narrow roads lined with hedgerows, its scenery is more intimate than grand. Think undulations, not mountains; glimpses, not panoramas.

ING ISLAND SITS ASTRIDE Latitude 40ºS, directly in the path of the ‘roaring forties’. That makes wind one of the deﬁning features of the island. The spindly, mop-topped paperbarks have a characteristic lean and the kelp-strewn headlands speak volumes about the storms that pound this rugged coastline. Those storms have taken their toll on shipping. After George Bass and Matthew Flinders charted Bass Strait in 1798, many a ship’s captain took this ‘fast route’ to Sydney. The unlucky ones ended their journeys on the reefs surrounding King Island. Australia’s worst civil disaster remains the wrecking of the Cataraqui in 1845, when 400 people drowned just 100 metres from shore. You can follow the shipwreck EGIONAL

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trail along the coast, where memorials tell stories of heroism and heartbreak. Today, the Cape Wickham lighthouse guards the western entrance to Bass Strait while, further south, the Currie Light looms above the harbour of the island’s main town. Grassy, in the south east, has a half-forgotten look. The single men’s quarters that used to house workers at the now-abandoned scheelite mine is a graveyard of asbestos cement sheeting and gaping window frames.

ING ISLAND is not a cosmopolitan place. After a while, you become disconcertingly aware of all those clear blue eyes. Most of the surnames have a distinctly English ring to them. Many are preserved in unlikely memorials, like the somewhat featureless stretch of grass that rejoices in the name of Eleanor Snodgrass Park. People laugh and suggest that they’re “stuck in the eighties”, although it seems less ‘stuck’ than holding onto values that small towns on the mainland have lost and would envy... King Island has its share of sea-changers—refugees from high stress lifestyles elsewhere—and you sense that the yesteryear feeling is more a result of conscious choice than isolation. If you’re a resort-goer, look elsewhere. There are no ﬁve-star facilities here, no designer boutiques, no in-crowd to impress. Service comes with genuine warmth and concern for your comfort, not professional polish. There are a few restaurants, and they feature the spectacular island produce, but how many times do you want to eat deep fried camembert with plum sauce? If you’re a serious foodie, you might suffer restaurant withdrawal. But this is more than compensated for by the sheer quality of the produce available on your doorstep. Of course, there’s also the ‘restaurant with no food’, Caroline Kinimonth’s restored boathouse that nestles beneath the lighthouse on Currie harbour. Bring your own champagne, wine, beer, food—what

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the boathouse supplies is atmosphere, as you watch the light change on the harbour and the ﬁshing boats coming and going from the wharf opposite.

O WHY WOULD YOU go to King Island? Remember your childhood holidays down (or up) the coast? Before real estate prices went ballistic and the fibro shacks were replaced by neo Italianate fantasies with vast decks and six bedrooms? You can recapture that feeling on the Island. Rent a cottage with a view of the ocean; buy your produce fresh off the boat or straight from the dairy. Cook it the simple way, on the barbecue, maybe with a touch of the local mountain pepper. Sit by a driftwood fire and watch the waves that come all the way from South America Obviously, King Island is a place people come back to. We heard lots of stories of going and returning. In Caroline’s visitors’ book is a note from a group who had just fulfilled their final obligation to a deceased relative. She’d expressed a desire to return, “in powder form” to the island of her birth. To float away with the gulls on the winds of the roaring forties…that’s not such a bad way to go. R F

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PRODUCERS

Fast Food for a Slow Island B A K E R I E S I N S M A L L T O W N S always become a community focus. Much of the reason is that they always open earlier than other businesses. The baker is usually still easing food from the ovens, it’s also the time for bread deliveries to the restaurants and motels, for last minute school and work lunches to be organised. Then as the day progresses the doorway is the place for conversations and gossip with loaves of fresh bread in hand.

KING ISLAND BAKERY’S famous crayﬁsh pie.

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“We do supply direct... We actually have customers in Melbourne who order pies from us and we tell them how much it will be, and they collect them from the airport in Moorabbin. Fresh from the oven and same day delivery!”

HE KING I SLAND BAKERY in Currie, is just such a place and obviously a successful business for Wayne and Audrey Hamer. The face of the business is Audrey. You’ll almost never see Wayne who comes to work before midnight and bakes through the night. The doors open at around 5.30am and they make up salad rolls and sandwiches for a steady stream of customers. There might be a cray fishermen stocking up, but it’s more likely to be the workers on the first shift at the cheese factory or at the abattoirs. As Wayne left, Audrey sat for a moment to talk. Audrey’s parents came to the island to farm when she was two. She grew up riding horses and the idea of losing that life was why she didn’t leave the island for further schooling. The other reason was Wayne. “Wayne lived on the farm next door,” Audrey said with a smile. “I’d left, but he was still at school when we got together. His parents owned the old bakery here, (the building still stands in Currie) and they baked with a wood fired oven. In 1981 they built these two shops together with the butcher at the time. Wayne worked with his parents and in 1985 Wayne and I took over the business. Since then, we’ve found time to have four children. Our eldest son Trevor, has been working here in the shop since he was little and is doing his Certificate 3 training with us. The others are grown up and off the island.”

“We said one night, ‘why don’t we make crayﬁsh pies?’

N 1986 NOTICING that tourists were just sitting outside on the kerb, they renovated the shop, adding the seats and tables out front and inside. In the long display cases there are always fresh cakes, slices, sticky pastries, bread and pies. It’s the pies that stand out from the rest as being special. “When we came there were only plain pies, pasties and sausage rolls,” Audrey said, warming to my praise of the crayfish pie. “We added new ones slowly, like the King Island beef and mushroom. Wayne likes diving and catching crays and we’d have them at home as crayfish mornay. We said one night, ‘why don’t we make crayfish pies?’ They were an immediate success. When we couldn’t get crayfish, we made a seafood pie with the local shark. We wanted to use our Island cheese so we added some cheese ones, then we started the wallaby pies when Gary Alexander began supplying the meat commercially. It’s nice meat.”

AUDREY & WAYNE HAMER caught in a rare moment together.

HE OTHER PREMIUM items that the bakery is known for are their shortbread and the Christmas puddings. “We had someone making the shortbread with the King Island butter. (The factory stopped making butter in 1989). We’ve kept the shortbreads going using Tasmanian butter now. Our daughter is selling our biscuits at the Penguin Market in Tasmania on a Sunday.” The Bakery has always sold more of the shortbread and puddings off the island, and they sell through Helen Waterworth’s Regional Australian Produce. The puddings were added Audrey said, just because “someone asked us if we’d make puddings. Our contact was then asked if they could supply promotional puddings for ‘The Magic Pudding’ animated movie (released in 2000). We did about 20,000 puddings that year, that’s a lot by hand. We worked long hours, employed extra people and we used the space at the back of the butchers shop to do the cryovac packing.” On our last visit to the Bakery we were surprised to see the counter space dwarfed by a huge heated display case of ‘Gourmet Fried Chicken’. That addition hasn’t been welcomed by everyone (there’s already ‘Country Fried Chicken’ available in the café f across the road). We did overhear someone say “But it doesn’t smell nice like a bakery in here anymore.” So, buy one of Wayne’s crayﬁsh pies, sit outside in the fresh air, and eat it as Currie life goes by. They’re good pies. R F

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PRODUCERS

Collecting the Cloud Juice T H E R E I S S O M E T H I N G V E R Y S E I N F E L D about Cloud Juice founder Duncan McFie - the unruly dark brown hair; the neat and tidy clothes; the fast-paced monologues; the latest modern gadgets; and a heightened sense of the ridiculous. Catching rain water as a business seems to ﬁt.

DUNCAN MCFIE checks his purpose built rainwater collecting roof.

UNCAN ARRIVED ON THE ISLAND in the early ‘90s. “I was sent out as a teacher against my will 14 years ago – and seriously, against my will. I knocked back the job three times. A mate and I were doing up a house in Launceston. I had lots of friends – this meant starting all over again!” “I gave myself ﬁve years in teaching – I’m not one of those guys who would want a job for life.” A decade and a half on, Duncan is still teaching at the King Island District High and is well entrenched in a number of extra-curricular activities. He talks with pride of the ‘substantial community music program’,

of teaching video production and the Vocational Education Training (VET) program. It was also due King Island District High that he came across the Cloud Juice idea. “So I’m here, teaching at the school, and the teacher’s hostel had rainwater tanks and people would come in with their bottles and ask for them to be ﬁlled.” Most of the reticulated water on King Island is ground water, readily available from bores. It tastes ok, but rainwater isn’t as mineralised and is softer, less alkaline. A business was born. One of the few bottled rainwater products available in Australia, Cloud Juice is captured on two very expensive purpose-

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Taste test “As soon as we put it into glass bottles, people took it seriously.”

built roofs, and collected on site in a series of food-grade tanks totalling 25,000 litres. After a prototype confirmed the capacity to collect 1 litre of water per 1 square metre, Duncan built a 100m2 angled roof on a patch of land on the south of the island, owned by King Island grazing clan, the Bowlings. “At first I couldn’t work out why we weren’t collecting a lot of water. We’d done the maths but weren’t collecting enough. Then we realised that the strong winds were blowing the water right off, so we just built another roof at the adjacent angle.”(The total roof size is now 400m2.) Launched in 1997, the business was built with the help of a number of friends on the island and the mainland. There’s the “fantastic” Brisbane-based ‘commercial manager’. A Sydneybased friend developed the savvy Cloud Juice branding and website. Then King Island Dairy invited Duncan to share their stand at the major marketing event – The Taste of Tasmania which gave it another push. Mum McFie, who Duncan claims ‘is great with words’, helped out with the tag-lines. Blatantly pitched at the dinnerset demographic, the description on a silver-capped bottle of ‘unbubbly’ Cloud Juice refers to ‘the most pristine rainwater in the world’ and ‘rainwater made in heaven’. “The people that own the facility where we bottle let us use it for the first year for free,” he says. It’s still a struggle hauling 3,000 litres of water 20 kilometres from the catchment roofs ‘down south’ to the factory, which is a small shed situated near the front gate of a dairy farm. “They were only bottling fresh milk three days a week. I was working five days a week, so I’d bottle on the weekend.” Offisland sales are now outstripping local sales which have maintained a healthy $25,000 a year. The biggest problem Duncan faces is ‘distribution, distribution, distribution’. After struggling for years to get produce into outlets in Tasmania and Australia, he is now “talking” to a local company about distribution solutions. “There are a lot of synergies,” he says, excitedly mentioning the potential of a national distribution deal. “Passion, persistence and product – that’s how to make it work.” R F Jackie Cooper

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King Island’s Cloud Juice is sweet. TO THIS ORDINARY bottled water consumer, this rainwater tastes a little nutty – quite possibly almond-like. There’s no metallic after-taste. And it feels heavier on the tongue than many of the other varieties in the market. Pointing out that “the mechanism of the tongue is almost certainly not understood”, ‘senses guru’ Professor Graham A Bell, who is the director of the University of New South Wales’s Centre for ChemoSensory Research, says that bottled water can retain the “characteristic qualities” from its source depending on level of ﬁltration during production. “Generally water has characteristic qualities depending on the soils, minerals (etc) in the catchment areas, or the geology of the rocks and minerals, if the water comes from an aquifer. If water vapour was inﬂuenced by environmental pollution it could end up tasting very sour - hence ‘acid rain’. “King Island may be getting clean Antarctic air and hence the water might be very pure - generally the cleaner the water the better it tastes.” Centre for ChemoSensory Research www.chem.unsw.edu.au/research/groups/esc/CCR/ccr.htm

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PRODUCERS

To each, his eggs O N E A R L I E R T R I P S to the Island we’d noted the signs in the shop windows promoting David and Sandy Holloway’s free range eggs, but I didn’t know how much this was part of the King Island food story until I visited the bakery, the butcher’s and the restaurants. Then I met Sandy in Russell’s the butchers making a delivery and her enthusiasm for her product encouraged me to follow it up.

THE LETTERBOX, the ideal place to start a small business.

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“I stopped to let a chicken cross the road and realized that I was outside the Holloway’s.”

U C A N ’ T M I S S U S , look for the chook on the “ Y Oletterbox” Sandy had said. Driving north towards

Cape Whickam and the appropriately named Egg Lagoon, I stopped to let a chicken cross the road and realized that I was outside the Holloway’s. Turning into a drive with windbreaks of pine trees, I was greeted by a few inquisitive chooks, a dog, and some cats. I walked past the obligatory rusting car body up on blocks, and knocked on the farm house door. Sandy had said that they would wait to feed the fowls until I came, as it would make ‘a good picture’. Within minutes of seeing the feed buckets, the hens started to come from everywhere. Streaming from behind the house, in two ﬂows down each side that met at the front yard, they were joined by small tributaries from roosts in the trees and under the car body. A feathered ﬂow of sprinting glossy brown fowls. There was no doubt these were free range chooks, and with a vengeance.

“You can’t miss us, look for the chook on the letterbox”

I K E M O S T P E O P L E who keep a few hens there is sometimes an excess, and Sandy started supplying the eggs to friends. Then for some extra income when David left his job on one of the dairy farms, they decided to treat it seriously. People would leave money in the mailbox as they drove past and pick their carton of eggs up on the return trip. It was another example of King Island honesty (no-one ever took the money) but with more customers the system began to falter. People would take another’s eggs and complaints started. Sandy’s solution was to provide bags with individual laminated name tags made on her computer. Sandy’s ‘real job’ involves working at home for various government departments on the mainland. She receives audio ﬁles and returns word processed transcripts, all via email. There’s no such thing as a remote island anymore and mixing email and eggs has made a comfortable home business. Now David is back working again there is more early morning work to manage, but the Holloways still offer a guaranteed supply of fresh eggs to all of the Island’s clubs, restaurants, to the Bakery, as well as delivering individual orders. People stop to say how good the eggs are. One reason could be the hen’s unique King Island diet. Along with store bought feed they get scraps from the Bakery and curd waste from the Cheese Factory. They’re also partial to

DAVID & SANDY’S hens are Hyline Brown fowls, a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a White Rock (or Leghorn). It’s a popular variety giving a brown egg.

some of the Island’s smaller and tender varieties of kelp. Along with the recycling of island waste food, the Holloway’s have experimented with recycling the droppings using worms, and are planning to start a worm farm. The manure is also used as a top dressing for the Currie golf course. Sandy’s customers are certainly loyal, she tells a story (obviously a favourite one as she has the accent down pat) of George, a Scottish-born island resident, now over eighty years old, who has bought eggs from her regularly for years. He has spent more time in hospital on the mainland recently but he always calls ahead of being discharged, sometimes sending a message from the plane, to make sure that there will be two dozen Holloway eggs waiting for him the day he gets home. “He has paid the same price for them for years” Sandy said with a smile, “but that’s ok, it’s how we do things here”. R F

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PRODUCERS

Home sweet (honey) home T H E R E ’ S S O M E T H I N G Q U I T E S W E E T about Sharon and Kevin Coates—and it’s not just the King Island honey they extract and bottle either. Theirs is a second time around, late-bloom romance, still warm after seven years, and nurtured by their rural common interests and lifestyle.

PURE LYMWOOD honey, cold extracted.

SHARON & KEVIN COATES in their “honey house” after a days work.

“W

Quinces, nectarines, cherries and plums – sit in almost straight rows and are pruned to perfection. An expansive net hangs over the nectarine tree to protect the ripe fruit from being sampled by local birds. A vegie patch sits it the back corner of the orchard “Sharon is the one who has put the time in here,” Kevin says with pride, tugging at the bottom rim of the tree netting to lodge it back into place after releasing a starling. “She has the imagination.” ––––– –

E REALLY L ENJOY our bit of paradise here on King Island, particularly after working at our petrol station all day,” says Sharon who is very Doris Day-pretty with her dewy skin and beautiful blue eyes and looks at least a decade younger than 48. It seems common on this island. Sharon has been on their property for 20 years – Kevin for seven. Sharon’s grandparents were original soldier settlers – Kevin was also born on the island but “I left and came back, left and came back,” he says. “There’s something about this place.” They were ‘just friends’ for a couple of decades. “We met through the Pony Club which our kids (all ﬁve) were attending. I was President and he was DC (District Commissioner).” Their ‘bit or paradise’ is a picture-perfect inland King Island hobby farm. A bump-free driveway leads to a white picket gate, which opens to a well-manicured garden to the front of the Coates’ expansive weatherboard homestead. “Our girls are lovely,” Sharon says as she closes the front gate as her ‘lovely’ chickens attempt to break through the homestead conﬁnes. Past the homestead, and past the ‘chook pen’, is the three year-old soft fruit orchard.

EHIND THE ORCHARD, through a back gate, under a sprawling thorn bush, and past a magnificent Buddleia tree, is where the Coates’ five home-based honeybee hives can be found. “We get a great (plant) pollination rate in the garden here – it’s great having five hives,” Sharon says, standing beside the sun-lit and solitary buddleia which is awash with purple flowers. “For some reason the bees like blue and purple flowers.” “We decided to get into bees because we had two empty bee boxes and we happened to notice a few bees hanging around,” Kevin says, walking past the homestead towards the farm’s half-

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Their ‘bit of paradise’ is a picture-perfect inland King Island hobby farm

acre produce patch. “If a box smells like honey and wax, and if a swarm of bees go past they’ll swing back and say ‘hey this smells like home’.” Like Sherlock Holmes, Aristotle, Leo Tolstoy and Winnie the Pooh (of course), Kevin is well-acquainted with part-time beekeeping. “I’ve always had a real interest and passion for them,” says the dark-haired, broad-shouldered petrol station manager, who doesn’t quite look the type to typically don the beekeeper’s net hat and coat. “When I was young there was an old guy who would work the hives here on the island. He got stung badly and went to hospital, and there was no-one else to look after them. A guy from the Department of Agriculture showed me how to do it. We got a new queen, and there we went. I took it on for 15 years.” ––––– –

Recipes Red Wine Jelly 1kg green apples 2 red apples 4 whole cloves 4 whole allspice (pimento) 500ml good quality red wine 1 tablespoon lemon juice 750 g castor sugar

Cut apples into quarters and place in large pan with allspice,

O DAY, T H E C OAT E S have around 50 hives placed around the island. “The islanders have been very generous to allow us to keep our hives on their land,” Kevin says. “They really look after us, – they slash the tracks for us to get access. We couldn’t produce the honey without their cooperation. So our first bottles go to the land suppliers.” “We’ve got a few beehives near a lavender patch in a place we call ‘Mum’s Place’. It’s a place where I lived – on Millwood Road – I was born there. We get lovely lavender honey when we take the honey from those extractions.” The aromatic purpose-built honey house, which Sharon says “nearly broke us”, is located between the homestead and the halfacre produce patch. With stark white walls and speckled blue floors, the honey house looks more like a sanitised science lab than the place where sticky honey is extracted, filtered and bottled by hand. “Once the honey is uncapped from the frames, it is extracted,” Kevin says. “We extract cold because heating takes the good qualities away and changes the taste. It then goes into a mechanical filter which takes all the fine particles out, like legs and wings.” Outside the filtering room, Sharon then flicks the honey tap on and pours the thick golden liquid into a jar. “Down the track we might put in an automatic bottler,” she says as she gently wraps a King Island Honey label around the front of a bottle of honey. Later, it will be sold in a local shop “where tourists might pop in”. They are content and invite us to share a dinner. “Try some brie with Sharon’s red wine jelly – it’s fantastic,” Kevin suggests, sitting at one corner of a massive square table by a bay window overlooking a sweet garden of purple and blue flowers. Sharon smiles as she drips the jelly onto the local cheese. “If you are going to make it, use a really good bottle of plonk!” R F

cloves and 1 litre of water. Bring slowly to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered for 40 minutes or until fruit is soft and pulpy. Strain the apple pulp through straining material over a large heatproof container. Do not push fruit through or this will make the jelly cloudy. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for 24 hours. Discard the pulp. Pour the liquid into a large pan. Add the wine, lemon juice and sugar. Stir over a low heat until sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly, stirring often for 40 minutes. Start testin for setting point. Pour immediately into clean warm jars. Keep in a cool, dark place for 6-12 months. Refrigerate after opening.

Grilled Necatrines 8 Nectarines halved and de-stoned2 tablespoons Marsala 1 tablespoon Benedictine 1–2 tablespoons Brown sugar (to preference)

Place nectarines in baking dish on baking paper. Mix

other ingredients and brush over fruit. Cook under grill on medium heat for 25-30 minutes or until soft and slightly caramalised. Serve with King Island yoghurt (delicious). Sharon adds “these are best if you can use freshly picked, tree ripened fruit.” Of course.

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PRODUCERS

Preserving tradition T H I N K C O U N T R Y . Think country women. Think self sufﬁciency and growing your own vegetables and fruit. That’s the way it is on King Island today, as it has been for over a hundred years. Oh those women also milked, delivered calves and worked on the properties as well, but the traditional home produce was made by King Island women.

MORNING TEA with plum mufﬁns and stirring conversation.

HEY PRODUCED IT for their families, their friends and on a Friday, at a stall outside the Post Ofﬁce, they still sell their jams, cakes and preserves for charity. Picking one representative Island jam maker proved to be a religious choice. You see, the stalls are run by the churches, the Catholic and Church of England. They take alternate Fridays and I’m sure ecumenically, they support each other. But you are warned to be early—the cakes had all sold in the ﬁrst hour on the day I was there, but there were only a few jams left. Sister Marlene’s jam.

Now, I knew about Sister Marlene’s jam, and had met her when on an earlier visit I had successfully bid for a box of assorted

preserves as a contribution to King Island’s Tsunami beneﬁt auction. I happily paid the excess baggage to bring them home. They were good preserves, with lots of variety, (even if there were doubts about some modern and ‘tropical’ sauce variations that included pineapple pieces). But as I asked around the advice was repeated, “for traditional jam, you have to talk to Mrs Perry. That’s ‘old’ Mrs Perry who makes her jam for the Church of England stall”. The Perry clan is one of the island originals and there’s more than one Mrs Perry. I ﬁnally negotiated an invitation to visit ‘old’ Mrs Perry through her granddaughter Janice, who was working for

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She slid a tray of muffins, heavy with large pieces of soft fruit, into the oven ...then began making a pot of tea and we started to talk jam. Stephen Russell at the Grassy Club. I picked Janice up from her home, and she tumbled into the car still half asleep, hair tousled. Janice called “Gran!” from outside at the homestead back door and we entered the darkened kitchen. Mrs Perry was creaming the butter in a bowl for some scones ready for our visit. “Oh, you’re here” she said, dusting off her hands, and without a moment’s hesitation switched tasks. “Well these won’t be ready for a while so what about I heat up some of these plum muffins?”. She slid a tray of muffins, heavy with large pieces of soft fruit, into the oven. She then began making a pot of tea and we started to talk jam.

––––– –

CAUTIOUSLY PROFESSED some jam making experience and was immediately interrogated “You don’t skim the froth off your jam do you?” No, I was lazy I said. “Good, that’s where the pectin goes. Do you add salt?” Er no, I replied. “Well you should, and a knob of butter”. “I like to weigh things carefully,” she went on, “you need extra sugar if the fruit is really wet. Do you stir?” Yes of course, I replied. Diligently. “Ha”, and there she had me. “I never stir, too much trouble. I just use this” and, handled as if it were some talisman, imbued with powerful kitchen spirits, Mrs Perry produced an old ceramic milk-saver. “I used to have a good metal one, but it’s lost somewhere” she said turning the tortoiseshell pattered disk in her hands. “Just put this in the bottom of the pan and you can forget stirring.”

As a child I remember my mother used a white ceramic milksaver. Placed in the bottom of a saucepan of milk, the ridges catch the heated bubbles and the heavy disk rocks around noisily, keeping the milk moving. But I’d never heard of it used for liquids as thick as jam. My raised eyebrow must have given me away because Mrs Perry went on as if to reinforce the argument, “My sister phoned one day as I was making laurel jam”, and in an aside “that’s the cherry laurel, we used to be able to buy the fruit for a penny ha’penny a pound back in Hobart. Well, I was chatting on to her and she asked what I was doing, I said I was making jam and she said, ‘oh, I’ll get off so you can stir it before it sticks’. I just laughed.” I photographed the jam, the milk saver and Mrs. Perry and as the kitchen was ﬁlled with a few more family visitors, I offered my chair and place at the table and we made our leave. Fresh fruit has always been saved for the times when there’s none by making jam and preserving. In a time when supermarkets carry produce all year round, there still has to be something special about making jam in a season of plenty from produce you have grown yourself. I’ll ﬁnd myself a ‘milk-saver’ and next year, Mrs. Perry, I’m not going to stir. R F Fred Harden

Recipes Nana Perry’s Plum Muffins Wet Mix 1/2 Cup of margarine or butter (softened) 1 cup of sugar 1/2 cup of vanilla yoghurt (or sour some milk with a dash of vinegar) 2 eggs 6-8 chopped fresh blood plums (frozen or preserved plums also work) 2-3 tablespoons of milk Dry mix 3 cups of Self raising ﬂour.

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C and grease the mufﬁn pans. Blend margarine/butter and sugar andbeat in yoghurt and eggs. Gently fold in plums and the ﬂour. Do not squash the plums if they’re ripe and depending on their moisture, some extra milk may be needed to moisten the mixture.

Spoon into mufﬁn pans and bake for 25 minutes. Makes 12 mufﬁns.

“You don’t skim the froth off your jam do you?”

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L OS E TO T HE E DGE : Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost a frontier quality to the King Island kelpers. While even the local Rotary club has kelp collecting days to raise money, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a toughness required to do it successfully. People like Carmen Woolmore (above) give up their desk jobs (she was a nurse) to make better money collecting kelp.

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KELP

Harvesting THE STORM J ohn Hi s cock General manager of Kelp Industries

T I S 3 A M on a Sunday morning—a wild storm has just passed. Most islanders are still tucked into warm beds, but King Island’s ‘kelpers’, the harvesters and gatherers, are wading knee-deep into ice-cold Bass Strait waters to hook, heave then winch eight metre long bull kelp fronds into their trailers and trucks.

“We used it in a curry the other night—not much flavour at all really.” Storms hit King Island hard and fast—and regularly. These storms are welcomed by the thriving local bull kelp seaweed industry who need them to promote kelp growth in nearby reefs, and then to bring the kelp to within easy-picking reach on the island’s west-side shore. “Every few weeks there is a big blow,” says big John Hiscock, the manager of the island’s one and only kelp company, Kelp Industries Pty Ltd. “Rough weather provides the ‘agitation’ for the kelp to receive enough sunlight and nutrients to grow to its mammoth proportions.” John explains. This inch-thick brown rubber-like local seaweed, called Durvillaea Potatorum, can grow up to 14cm a day and live to 14 years or longer. King Island’s kelp is also deemed to be one of the richest sources of ‘alginates’ in the world—a tasteless, thickening substance which is used to make everyday products such as toothpaste, ice cream, paper, paint and cosmetics. Surprisingly, there are very few locations in the world where bull kelp seaweed grows. The majority grows in Scotland, but smaller crops are found in parts of the UK, Iceland, South Australia and King Island

Kelp Industries, established in 1975, thanks to what the company calls ‘significant State and Federal grant aid’, is 50/50 owned by Scottish company ISP Alginates and Tasmanian company Webster Ltd. All the collected King Island kelp is dried, crushed and then 75-80 per cent is shipped in one tonne-lots to ISP Alginates in Scotland. Here it is used in the 300 different alginate products that are sold worldwide. “Our kelp yields around 40 per cent of alginates which is very high.” John says, explaining that alginates occur naturally in most brown species of seaweed. “So they (ISP Alginates) blend it with seaweeds from around the world. If our supplies are down, it upsets their blend.” A gentle giant standing 6 feet 6 inches tall, with kind eyes, a bushy beard, crumpled clothes and a loping walk, John came to the island in 2003 for a ‘lifestyle change’. “When my wife Yvonne and three daughters arrived (aged 10, 13 and 17), I took them to the house and my wife asked ‘where are the keys?’ There weren’t any!” he chuckles. Originally from Tasmania, John Hiscock worked in a number of management roles in various metal mining industries. “I’ve been through two redundancies in the mining industry, so I was driving trucks,” he says, obviously with very little regret or bitterness. With a couple of decades of management experience under his belt, John today is responsible for locally maintaining the momentum of the Kelp Industries’ profitable position, which contributes between $1.5 & $3 million dollars annually into the local economy. The company directly employs 6 – 8 staff and around 30 ‘freelance’ harvesters deliver kelp to the factory. The island’s self-employed kelpers must hold a licence to collect the ‘cast’ kelp—which only King Island residents can apply for and receive. “They can make up to $400 per truck load,” John says, while kelper Douglas Moriarty unloads fronds onto a drying rack. “They can earn $40,000 to $100,000 a year depending on how much time they are willing to put into it. Some do it to supplement the income, others do it full-time.

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“In an island community nothing is wasted. We converted the drying ovens from oil ﬁred back to wood, which is collected from council roadside clearing.”

Clockwise: John Bowden unloads to drying racks, Carmen Woolmore operates the winch, drying racks, sweeping up the ﬁrst crushed stage of the dried product.

An ex-general manager is now a full-time kelper. A guy who worked here for 20 years is also now a kelper.” “The harvesters only collect a portion, around 1015 per cent, of what washes up on the shoreline due to access not being available to a lot of the coast. It’s mainly collected on the west coast—there’s not much on the east side. Before Kelp Industries started harvesting, the stench of rotting kelp could be smelled in Currie and along all the shorelines.” The kelp hangs on tall, 2x2 metre high and wide metal drying racks for two weeks. Once dry, a modified front-end loader lifts down the fronds and transports them to the odorous ‘unhanging section’ where the kelp is numbered and sorted into different pens. From

the unhanging section the kelp is then shredded and placed in a large mechanised dryer. “88 per cent dry matter is our normal standard,” John says as he takes the tour from the drying racks, to the unhanging section, to the drier, to packaging. “After all this drying, the first thing they do in Scotland is put it in water again!” Despite the fact that currently “demand is greater than supply”, John says Kelp Industries is looking at other potential uses for King Island’s kelp. “We’re thinking of doing something with the stalks,” he says, while using his pocket knife to slice the tip off a thighbone-like kelp stalk. “At the moment we’re not doing anything with them. We might turn them into fertiliser!” R F

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ROMANCE

The Klumpp’s KELP CONDIMENTS De nni s and P eta K l um p p King Island Products

T’S A VERY King Island kind of love story. King Island girl sees boy on the Midday Show. Sydneybased boy visits the island for a few days to teach Rock ‘n’ Roll dancing. Boy moves to King Island and into girl’s cliff-side beach house. Boy and girl concoct a range of kelp-flavoured condiments and live happily ever after. “I rarely turn the telly on,” says King Island girl, Peta Klumpp. “I flicked it onto the Midday Show, and saw

“I was warned by the locals that if I didn’t do the right thing by Peta that I’d be tarred and feathered.” Dennis doing wild acrobatic dancing and I wondered what I had been doing all my life! I grabbed a tape and recorded a few minutes of it. Several months later I phoned the television station to see who it was. I rang Dennis and he said, ‘we do workshops around Australia’.” A King Island workshop was booked for 1998 and Peta “hit the phone and accosted people in the street” to round up participants, but attendee numbers were still too low to cover workshop costs. “We made a loss, but I gained,” says the affable Dennis Klumpp. “I met my match.” Between King Island and Sydney, the Klumpp’s romance blossomed during phone calls, faxes and periodic visits. An industrial chemist, Dennis was wooed by Peta’s experiments extracting the scent of a local heath with tiny white flowers (Leucopogon parviflorus), making an oil for a perfume base. The oil became a perfumed love letter sent by mail from the Island to suburban Sydney. How could he resist? From perfume, the Klumpps moved on to experimenting with kelp. Calling the native bull kelp ‘a

vegetable from the ocean’, Peta had researched the uses of and tried to eat seaweed for years. She boiled, steamed, fried and pressure cooked, but still could not make the kelp appetising. “She needed a chemist,” Dennis says with a chuckle, happily ending Peta’s story. Married three years after their Rock ‘n’ Roll meeting, they formed King Island Produce (KIP) and began to create their kelp condiments. Kelp chutney, kelp lemon spread, hot and spicy kelp sauce, hot kelp pickles, and kelp chilli paste. “The chutney is a family recipe adapted,” Dennis says while removing the lids from a number of sample jars. The kelp chutney is 20 per cent seaweed. The kelp is barely noticeable other than as a scattering of little green flakes throughout. Kelp’s nutritional value is “one of the richest sources of minerals on the planet”. King Island’s bull kelp has a particularly high alginate content and is therefore highly sought after. Extending from a stem as long as an arm and as wide as a thigh bone, metres-long (from 2 to 10 metres) kelp fronds have the consistency to-the-touch of wetsuit material. Dennis and Peta now regularly add kelp to their meals, serving their guests culinary delights such as Kelp Curry Soup, Kelp & Beef Stew and Kelp & Chicken Omelette. “Oldtimers on King Island recall that their mothers made them chew on pieces of kelp, like an apple a day.” Both aged in their mid-50s, Dennis and Peta are licensed to collect 500 kilos of King Island’s shorewashed kelp per year. Dennis explains that they collect “the light, little, tender ones—not the big ones.” Once collected, the kelp fronds are minced, salted and cooked until the colour changes. “It’s quite a spectacular process,” Dennis enthuses. “The colour changes—it goes from brown, to bright green, to brown again. A little salt helps this process. You have to trick the seaweed into thinking that it’s back in the ocean.” The chemist behind the brand comes out again in their King Island Colloidal Minerals, which the accompanying pamphlet explains can ‘supply the

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Dennis and Peta’s relationship is safe under the watchful eye of a kelp maiden body with a wide range of 68 readily absorbable trace minerals often lacking in the modern diet’. “Colloidal minerals come from plants which absorb minerals from the soil.” Dennis explains, after informing our white-haired photographer that the selenium in their King Island Colloidal Minerals will slow his greying process. “Since the 1950s, most of the soils (in Australia) have been depleted in trace minerals.” But King Island’s ‘pristine location, topography and geology’ has led to rich deposits of colloidal minerals.” With 180 degree views over the metres-away ocean waters, the Klumpp’s beachside family home is also KIP’s production house and sales room. KIP is open in the afternoon for tastings four days a week—Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. “It’s been terrific,” Peta says of the many customers who have come through the KIP doors over the last year. “We were a little tentative at first because we were concerned about giving up our privacy.” Originally from South Gippsland, Peta came to King Island in the 1970s ‘for the cheap land’. A couple

of decades later she discovered the site for the 11 yearold beach house while taking trail ride tours along the rugged coast to the north of Currie. “I used to ride horses up and down this country, operating King Island Trail Rides for 10 years. From nineteen horses, I’m now down to nine—plenty to keep me busy pleasure riding. When we were first engaged, Dennis tried very hard to ride. I had said, ‘marry me, marry my horses’. But since we tied the knot, whenever I suggest a ride, he’s always too busy!” Dennis really is a busy man. “I’ve had a few career changes over the years,” Dennis points out. He has taught computer science at TAFE, worked as a Radiation Controller and is a bona fide Rock ‘n’ Roll dance champion. These days he is the island’s multimedia designer, as well as co-owner of KIP and of the F.J.Rock ’n’ Roll dance school. “We hold smaller, private lessons at home,” Peta says. “but if we’re running a big course we hire the Town Hall. We plan to extend the house—to accommodate a Dance Studio.”

A love message in a bottle

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H E LI V I N G R O O M, as with the rest of the house, holds an assortment of Rock ‘n’ Roll memorabilia. Records and CDs hang from fishing line from the roof. A large Elvis clock hangs on a wall. A Marilyn Monroe clock hangs in the nearby openplan kitchen. The floor-to-ceiling views are spectacular, but yes, there’s just not enough room for dancing. Still smitten after just 3 1/2 years of marriage, petite Peta, who at 5ft 2ins and 50 kilograms, is the perfect partner-size for such moves as ‘the candlestick’. An

inch or so taller, and a few inches wider, Dennis flips Peta into the air until she settles into a vertical position with her feet pointing towards the laboratory ceiling. The chemical lab, a 4x6 metre extension with white walls and very little furniture, is where Dennis ‘keeps tinkering and playing’ and where he keeps a bottle of Peta’s Leucopogon perfumed oil. At this stage there are no expansion plans for the food side of KIP. “We don’t want to spend all of our time in the kitchen—which is the reason why we use those small bottles.” The Klumpps are (very) happy to split their time between KIP, Dennis’s design business, the dance school and ‘tinkering’. “Some countries are breaking down other fruit and vegies to extract their sugar,” says Dennis excitedly as he places Peta’s perfume back in its safe box. “Maybe we can look to breaking down kelp to simple sugars? It’s possible and if sugar (cane) wasn’t so cheap, we’d do it!” RF Jackie Cooper

Turn left at the sign, mind the pheasants and peacocks.

Wrapt in kelp

W O C O U N T R Y - P R E T T Y blonde girls stand side-by-side draped in thick, mustard coloured kelp fronds. The Swiss cheese type holes in the fronds provide peek-a-boo glimpses of tanned skin underneath. Their gazes are distant. Are they sea-nymphs dreaming of returning to their under-water home, or just freezing under salt-encrusted and sticky seaweed? These ‘kelp girls’, local girls Toni and Gerri, are King Island Produce’s mascots (KIP). They feature on

coreflute cut-outs and posters placed in a number of tourist-focused sites. “Quite some years ago we had a King Island Festival, and Caroline (the potter) dressed two girls in kelp to make a human sculpture in the main street,” explains KIP co-owner, Peta Klumpp. Now the kelp mermaid idea has been resurrected with the slogan ‘You’ll be wrapped / wrapt in kelp on King Island.’ The outfits were sewn together with fishing line for the photographs, taken by then local doctor John Stokes. Toni and Gerri suffer for art

Recipe

KELP & CHICKEN OMELETTE

Mahala (Nana) Klumpp died in 1993 at the age of 101, but fortunately her recipes did not die with her.

3⁄4 cup minced fresh storm-cast bull kelp 1 onion (diced) 1 head garlic (peeled & sliced) I tablespoon olive oil 1⁄4 teaspoon salt Spices of your choice e.g. pepper, chicken stock powder, bay leaf powder, pinch curry powder 1 tablespoon vinegar 2 cups cooked diced boneless chicken 2 tablespoons soy sauce 2 eggs 500 mL water 1⁄2 cup grated tasty cheese 1⁄4 cup chopped spring onions

Heat oil in frypan, add onion & garlic and lightly brown. Add the kelp & salt and stir while heating. The colour of the kelp will change from brown to bright green.

Continue stirring. The cooking mass will develop long sticky strands that adhere to the spoon when it is lifted from the pot. Continue stirring while adding the water, vinegar and soy sauce. Add spices of your choice. Continue heating until the liquid is reduced to a point where it is almost gone and the kelp has turned brown again, stirring occasionally. Add chicken and stir through until warm. Finally add the eggs, cheese & spring onions, and stir through untill eggs are cooked. Serves 2

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H E RE WA S A TIM E when milk came in gallon billies and loaves of bread were wrapped in tissue paper. It was a time when Grassy was the biggest town on the island and the large bite into the hillside was an active open cut mine. Then they turned out the lights. Can good food help bring a town back to life?

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THE GRASSY STORY

Try a brownie from the G. CAFE M ar i e R eed Cafe Propietor and Long-Time Resident

“T

MAKES THE BROWNIES – I get stuck with the cheesecake,” says Grassy café manager Marie Reed with a gentle smile, standing behind a row of treats sitting along the top of the focaccia-filled food display cabinet. The brownies, made by the café’s 23 year-old coowner Ned Fairlie, are very popular with the locals. “The ladies would come to the café for a latte after water aerobics at the local indoor pool,” says Ned’s 36 year-old café and cray-fishing business partner, Mark Heywood. “We joked around and told them that they were weight watchers brownies. Now they come in ask, ‘can we have the weight watchers one?’!”

“Fridays were the best day – fish ‘n’ chips or T-bone. On Saturdays, if families wanted a meal, it would cost them $2 for to get a roast and dessert.” Located across the road from the Grassy Club, the G. Café opened for business on November 6, 2004. When the café’s two ‘cray-men’ bosses arrived on the island, four years ago the shop was empty. They were told that the shop, located next door to the kelp souvenir shop, was once an artist’s studio, among other things. Recently redecorated in a blue and white nautical theme, black and white photographs of old seafaring ships sit against the painted sky-blue backdrop. A ship’s steering wheel is the latest addition. All furniture is new, but not too expensive. “Things happen a little different on King Island—you have to think ahead,” Mark says. Café manager Marie, who says “I’ve worked in cafes since I was 13”, is living piece of Grassy history. Born on

the island, she left as a five year-old child, and returned when she was around 18. Marie at one point worked in the mining ‘mess hut’ for a year in the mid 1980s. “I used to do the vegies for the ‘crib order’ (lunches),” she says, sitting back down at a café table after serving two teenage girls. “There were 800-900 living in the town back then, so we’d feed around 400 workers. We fed mainly single men in the mess—there were definitely more single men than families at the time.” “Fridays were the best day—fish ‘n’ chips or t-bone. On Saturdays, if families wanted a meal, it would cost them $2 for to get a roast and dessert.” Grassy was built on sheelite profits—it is the source of tungsten used for hardening steel—which was mined from the Doplhin Mine and Bold Head Mine. Demand for sheelite peaked during WWI and WWII. “Dad used to say it’d take another war for it to take off again,” Marie says thoughtfully, divulging that she was one of the few that remained in Grassy when the longterm mining industry shut down. “It was awful,” she says. “Everybody had to get out of town by March 16 (1991). There were only eight of us left—including me and my three boys. We lived in the (Grassy) club’s house, just up the road.” “They (the company) turned the water and power off. The whole town was built and owned by the mines—only a handful of houses were freehold. A group of locals got together and bought the town off the mines. They got a grant to get the power back on. They didn’t know if the town would get up-andrunning again.” Grassy is starting to grow again—from eight in the early 90s, Grassy’s population has reached nearly 150 – thanks to new arrivals and a Ballarat-based private school which has developed a ‘campus’ from a number of empty mining houses. Outside food influences such as focaccia’s are also new to Grassy, (and King Island too). “Up until recently, there was only pretty oldfashioned food available,” Marie says, the blue stud pierced through the top of her lip sparkling as bright as her blue eyes. She confides,“I still like my white bread—I’m still old fashioned.” R F Jackie Cooper

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“There would be people from other parts of King Island who haven’t been to Grassy for 15 years.”

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Michelle works in the small Grassy Supermarket and Post Office, complete with a small King Island Produce counter. Her husband is involved with a project ‘up north’ that is hoping to create the first full life cycle hatchery for farmed crayfish. The multiple changes that the lobster goes through in its life make it a difficult (and so far unsuccessful) project. The financial rewards for a fully self-contained hatchery are considerable with the prospect of a year round supply and easy harvesting. R EGIONAL F OOD A USTRALIA

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THE GRASSY STORY

THE CRAY-MEN of Grassy M ar k and Ned Hay wo o d Diver Services and Training

I N G I S L A N D ’ S C O A S T L I N E of ragged shallow waters is home to a vast number of shipwrecks, the remnants of ill-fated voyages as they tried to navigate through storms and rough waters to Port Phillip Bay or Tasmania. But it’s not for the shipwrecks that skilled divers come to the island township of Grassy.

“They come to King Island for the crays.”

“To be honest, the King Island shipwrecks are more wrecks than ships—they’re not intact, just scattered wreckage,” says Mark Heywood, who has been running the Southern Scuba Services diving company with Ned Fairlie for around two years now. “They come to King Island for the crays. They get their Tasmanian fishing license and that allows them to catch 10 crayfish and 10 abalone. Under Victorian licenses they are only allowed two a day and five in possession. With a

“Our diving groups come in from the boat at 4pm and I ring up John Boschetto and he opens up specially for us over the weekend,” says Mark Heywood. “You’ve got to try his wallaby salami and smoked wallaby hams.” Tasmanian license, they are allowed five a day and 10 in possession—and they can take 10 home.” Mark and Ned offer diving groups the full package – accommodation in one of the three company-owned Grassy houses, meals, transport, equipment, and even fishing licenses. They do offer snorkelling, a half-day beginner course, and can train people for the PADI Open Water license, but the biggest customer base is cray-seeking professional divers. “Next week we’ve got a group coming up for ten days,” says tall, friendly and moustached Mark Heywood, who grew up in beachside Rye on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula and later on worked with Ned in a Melbourne dive shop. “They are all trained divers.” Crayfish season starts in November. The season lasts around six months, when all the cray females head off to breed in June. “In the colder months I do plastering, build water tanks, build fences,” Marks says in his easygoing manner. “There are a lot of opportunities here on King Island.” R F

DETAILS Southern Scuba Services P.O. Box 32, Currie 7356 Telephone: 0418 340 657 or 0429 142 268 Fax: 03 9641 1124

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THE GRASSY STORY

Boschetto’s PROSCIUTTO J ohn Bo s ch etto SmallGoods with Italian style

J “My ham is the best on King Island.”

O H N ( G I O V A N N I ) B O S C H E T T O looks as though he could come from another time, another place. Small, gentlemanly, with measured movements, looking younger than his age (early 70s), he looks as though he would be far more at home in native rural Italy rather than rural Grassy. He and his smallgoods—smoked wallaby ham, proscuitto, hot pork, local beef salamis, to name a few – are quite cosmopolitan for the former mining town which has been John’s home now for over two decades.

“I wanted a change,” John says somewhat shyly, raising his small and slightly blood-splattered hands. “I had a butcher shop in Italy (in Miane (TV), a small town 80 kilometres north of Venice). I also had a butcher shop in Melbourne (Brighton), but it was getting tougher. It’s too competitive over there, and I’m not competitive at all.” The ‘Butcher Shoppe’ sits in the middle of a row of three weathered properties, most likely built in

the 1950s. A hand-drawn sign sitting on the front windowsill tells the public that the shop is ‘open’. The locals know it is open when John’s van is parked outside. A wall-mounted chalkboard states the day’s specials—silverside is $7 per kilo, mince $4 per kilo, lamb forequarter chops $5 per kilo. Cheap. Inside, the space where a customer can stand is restricted, blocked in by a deep, two metre long meat presentation cabinet lodged in the middle of the room and a small clutter-free laminex table to the left. A few time-worn meat posters are pinned to the wall. It’s minimalist, quiet, almost calming. A small selection of vacuum-packed smallgoods seems to be placed almost haphazardly in the meat presentation cabinet. Prices are handwritten slips of paper. But these are delicacies, made using long-practised techniques, most prepared in the shop’s own smokehouse. There’s a respectable proscuitto crudo, (made when he can get the pork because there are no commercial piggeries on the island) and a rich smoked beef, almost a bresaola, dark red and not too dry, so that it pulls apart on your fork with a gentle tug. The wallaby – salami and ham – is his current obsession. After five years of waiting, he has completed a course and received a licence in November 2004 to work with local wild wallaby meat from a registered catcher. The meat is lean and smoking is carefully done so that it doesn’t dry too much. The surprise is that the flavour isn’t strongly ‘gamey’, but it is different and the ham texture firm and tender. John is still experimenting. We asked about a dark salami at the back of the cabinet and he said it was a hot wallaby salami he was testing. He slipped it into our shopping bag as a gift. But the reality (or the misfortune) is that John’s Butcher Shoppe is not all about artisanal smallgoods. “My customers always want steaks, they always want scotch fillet,” he says, gently smiling at the thought. “I still sell the mince—it’s the cheapest. And I’ve just bought some lambs to sell whole cheaply ($55 to $65 each) to keep my regular customers happy.” R F

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The wallaby meat is lean and smoking is carefully done so that it doesn’t dry too much. The surprise is that the ﬂavour isn’t strongly ‘gamey’,

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“There’s no need to chew King Island beef…” (overheard quote)

mea meat O

N A QUIET WINTER’S NIGHT, the remnants from a shipwreck washed to shore in the lull that followed a particularly violent King Island storm. Cups, cutlery, well-worn garments—and the wadding from the makeshift beds of convict women and children. That wadding, made of grass and straw from the Motherland took root, and made the journey from shoreline to inland, to feed and plump the island’s future generations of prized beef cattle. This ancient grass, coupled with pristine air and mighty rainfalls, is the reason why there’s no need to chew the tender King Island beef. Or so the story goes… 50

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JAMIE ROEBUCK, A 27 YEAR-OLD next generation beef cattle farmer, subtly cocks an eyebrow at this retelling of King Island beef cattle folklore. He’s heard it all before. “A load of codswallop I reckon—that grass would all be extinct by now.”

JJamie Roebuck

OOKING PAST THE FABLES of shipwrecks and grass from the Motherland, Jamie does agree that good quality King Island beef is as much due to good quality pastures as keeping island cattle happy. As the southern manager of the ‘young cattle’ for around a 1,800 acre property owned by a NSW-based company called Waverly Station, he regularly introduces new grass species into older pastures. “Most of the pastures on the island are very old – from the early soldier settlement days (after WW1, then WW2)—and are pretty worn out. By changing the grass and adding new species, you can significantly lift production. It does come at a cost—it’s not cheap to lift the grass—but beef cattle farmers should be changing pastures 10 per cent every year.” Unlike the majority of his dozen-or-so next generation farming peers, Jamie doesn’t come from a beef cattle background. The Roebucks moved from England to the island in 1980—mum Jane took over as the Currie chemist, and dad David worked in a Grassy mine. Although there were a few cows on the 100 acre family property in Naracoopa, Jamie didn’t come into contact with beef cattle farming until after high school. “I’m not sure where I got the idea to do this—I’ve always liked the outdoors, and animals.” Prior to completing a degree in Farm Business Management at Marcus Oldham College in Geelong in 2003, Jamie spent 12 months working on a ’cattle and

grain’ property in Canada, and ‘chased cattle’ for two years at Cherabun Station near Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia—a time he describes as ‘rewarding’, but also “‘too hot and too hard’. “The taste of the beef up there was bloody terrible,” Jamie says with a frown. “It was tougher. Here we have reliable rainfall—we don’t get droughts—which probably helps the beef’s quality, and its reputation.” His laid-back temperament is well-suited to being a cooler climate King Island beef cattle farmer. “No fresh paddock today girls,” he says, flashing his Tom Cruise smile to a row of 50 staring cows. “When they’re quiet like this, there no need for chasing. You open the gate and they follow you through. As long as you look after them, they look after you.” “Quiet cattle is the big secret to good quality beef,” he says. Bracing himself against the brisk ocean wind as he stands on a cliff’s edge, he gazes down on a small and protected white-sand beach he calls ‘Rod’s Beach’. With a smile he adds, “The cows get pretty spoilt down here—the ocean, the views. And they wake up to this every morning!”

–––––

O D ’ S B E A C H S I T S on Rod Graham’s land. Along with Roger Clemens and Brian Crockett, he is one of the three founders of the seven year-old King Island Beef Producers Group. They talk about being “originals”—being descendants of early island settlers. But other than being an “original”, and the island beef, there seems little else the three men have in common.

J Jamie looks down at Rod’s Beach

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O D , E A S Y W I T H a joke and in manner, appears the more laid-back of the three. Brian confidently takes centre stage as a formidable host for a benefit dinner and auction at the island’s swanky Boomerang by the Sea restaurant. A universityeducated economics graduate, Roger seems to be the group’s numbers man. “We W want to lift tour performance because we have an abattoir (The King Island Meat Company) that needs a lot of cattle to be profitable,” Roger says, ready to hand over a number of King Island Beef Producers Group pamphlets. “We actually hit 30,000 last year, which was a record for us.”

The three men are currently midway through a threepart cattle feeding trial under the supervision of a Wagga Wagga-based beef cattle consultant and guru. Called ‘set stocking’, Roger is keeping a number of cows and calves in a large paddock for a full year. Called ‘rotational grazing’, Brian is moving cows and calves regularly within smaller paddocks. While Rod is rotationally grazing steers. Operating more like goal-oriented businessmen than salt-of-the-earth beef cattle farmers, the three use the producers’ group as a platform to work towards increasing the quantity, quality, price and visibility of King Island beef. The producers’ group uses phrases such as ‘the cleanest air in the world’ and ‘a perfect environment for pasture growth’ to market the island beef as a high quality product. Roger, awkwardly, even goes as far as talking about the beef’s ‘mystical appeal’, built around the island’s ideal conditions and isolation. Japan has long been a key customer of quality King Island beef. Catering to the needs of the Japanese meat eating-market, many local farmers grew ‘Wagyu’ cattle, well known for their marbled, high-fat flesh. Known as ‘Jap ox’ on the island, the meat’s high-fat content provided the required richer and more exaggerated flavour that was in high demand.

Rod Graham

Roger Clemens

Off-Island experiences

A perfectly cooked ﬁllet of King Island beef from Neale White’s Pure South kitchen.

Pu re S out H

The P oinT

ONE OF THE BEST King Island regional food experiences you’ll find isn’t actually on King Island at all. At Pure South, in Melbourne’s Southgate precinct, you can experience King Island produce prepared with care by multi-award-winning chef, Neale White. Driven by a desire to serve the very best produce, from an area where the air and seas are the purest on our planet, the restaurant sources everything on the menu from Tasmania and its Bass Strait Islands. Pure South trades directly with the farmers and fishermen and has produce delivered to its requirements; for example, beef is dry-aged for 14 to 28 days before delivery. By and large, it’s not fussy food. Just superb ingredients, beautifully prepared and presented with flair. The flair shows, for example, in the cheese platter, where each cheese has its own carefully selected accompaniment. Truffled honey with the brie, balsamic blueberries with the cheddar, a miniature pear and walnut salad with the King Island ‘Stormy’ washed rind. The décor is smart and serious, the riverbank setting is glitzy and Pure South has an excellent wine list, including more Tasmanian wines than you’re likely to find elsewhere.

THIS RESTAURANT overlooking Melbourne’s Albert Park Lake is owned by the Tasman Group, who rear their own grass-fed cattle on King Island. Not surprisingly, the focus is on meat. They raise it, they process it, they cook it; so there’s no doubt about the provenance of the steak that comes out of this kitchen. Executive chef Ian Curley is, we’re told, known as the ‘meat man around town’. English born and trained, he has headed kitchens at Menzies in the Rialto, Fonteins Restaurant in Carlton and has spent three years at Stella in Spring Street. Ian says his philosophy is “to create imaginative, honest and ﬂavoursome food” and who’s to argue with that. Reservations: (03) 9682 5566 www.thepointalbertpark.com.au

Reservations: 03 9699 4600 www.puresouth.com.au

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“You notice it when you go away—the cheese is not the same, the beef is not the same.” Jamie Roebuck.

H E S E D A Y S J A P A N is more interested in lower fat yearlings. It’s good news for King Island’s beef cattle producers – as the name suggests, yearling requires just one year of management rather than the four years that Wagyu cattle required. When American beef was banned in Japan in December 2003 due to a number of earlier reported cases of mad cow disease, prices and demand for Australian beef substantially increased. As the trade restrictions are removed from American beef, The King Island Beef Producers’ Group is obviously focused on building on the growing demand for disease-free Australian beef. Building on mythical or mystical attributes no doubt adds to the appeal. The dozen-or-so (very) young next-generation beef cattle farmers are also included in the push to increase the awareness and quality of King Island beef. Despite their age, they seem to have the respect and support of the island’s older beef growing generation—something that might not be the case if it were another industry, or a less isolated location.

Another steer escapees As with the rest of Australia, the number of farms and farmers has dwindled over the decades—a situation that is likely to continue. The number of commercial farms in Australia has halved since the 1960s, due to a number of factors such as costs, declining margins and low incomes. The National Australia Bank’s agribusiness chief, Mike Carroll, predicts that the total number of farmers in Australia may even fall to 100,000 within 15 years.

That’s a lot of pressure for Jamie Roebuck and fellow up-and-coming beef cattle farmer Raymond Perry. More peers than friends, neither seems to be overwhelmed or reluctant to take on the large responsibility of being the future of the island’s beef cattle industry. “King Island has a great reputation, and it’s our responsibility to keep it going,” Raymond says matter-of-factly. Measured, thoughtful, wearing well-shaped rock-star sideburns, 23 year-old Raymond is part of the island’s Perry clan. Unlike Jamie, Raymond’s career path will depend on his father Fred, who is still heading up the 2,000 acre Perry property. But like Jamie, Raymond has also had an off-island stint working at Cherabun Station in WA. “He’ll go a long way,” Jamie says of Raymond. Both are looking to new techniques, technologies and grass species to maintain the island’s reputation for quality beef. “A lot of the old fellas (from the soldier settlement days) are doing things the way they’ve always been done,” explains Jamie. “There’s tremendous opportunity to improve on what they’ve done.” Jamie and Raymond agree that it’s a good life being a King Island farmer. Both claim to be ‘mad fishermen’, and still have a handful of friends on the island to go to the pub with or see “the odd movie” at the Town Hall. One of the major downsides to living on the island is the absence of single girls. “It would be good to be able to meet new girls on the Island,” Jamie says with a slight shrug of his shoulders. He currently lives alone in a company-owned three bedroom house. “I have a friend who comes in to clean once a week, which makes a big difference. The hardest part is cooking for one person.” But for the moment, he has things other than girls on his mind. “My long-term goal is to have my own property,” Jamie says, his bright blue eyes smiling. “I don’t know if it that will happen as I’m just a young bloke starting out. Land prices are going up, as is the cost of production—returns aren’t really following the same trend. With where I’m at the moment, I’d like to see the company (Waverly Station) progress to a branded beef. There’s a balance between the scale of number, the quality of product and being able to market it to its potential. I believe there’s enormous potential for King Island beef.” R F Jackie Cooper

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Wrapt

in plastic

The cryovac meat pack

P R E T T Y G I R L B E H I N D the counter at the Currie bakery, probably aged in her late teens, bags and hands over a crayfish pie. Tomorrow she said she heads back to the “mainland” to begin her second year of a nursing degree at Geelong University. Island born-and-bred, she was back for the three month university break to earn some extra cash working in The King Island Meat Company’s cryovac section. Yes, this young girl spent the summer wrapping meat in an abattoir. The King Island abbattoir is a success story considering the difficulty remote communities around Australia have in maintaining these facilities that support local employment and give important regional access to their own meat products. The assembly line style of the King Island one, is a large open space with conveyor delivery of specific cuts to a row of (mostly girls) who line up the wrapped meat and then stack for sealing and pack the boxes as it comes out. The Cryovac™ process (a registered trade mark) uses a plastic bag, specially made to fit the cut of meat and then removes the air from around it and heat seals it. Without oxygen the meat would deteriorate quickly at room temperature but ages slowly under refrigeration. “Aging—it’s a nice word for rotting,” says Bill Russell, who sells a substantial number of cryovac beef packs in his Currie-based butcher shop. His cryovac customers are mostly tourists picking up a bit of beef to add to their accumulated King Island souvenir produce pack. The aging process, typically over a three week period, ensures tenderness and fuller flavour. During the three weeks, the meat becomes lighter as the water evaporates. As the water evaporates, the flavour becomes stronger, as does the odour.

The feedback was that the odour caused tourists concern once their piece of vacuum-packed island meat was home. Many were also unsure how it should be stored, or for how long? And why wasn’t it red? So unsure were people with what to do with a cryovac meat pack, that The King Island Beef Producers Group put together a list of instructions, it is in an included leaflet with the meat and which reads as follows… R F

H ow to h andle a cryovac™ meat pack

Store meat fat side up. Store in a fridge between 1-2 degrees. Maximum tenderisation takes place when meat is stored for 21 days. Store meat in unopened bag. Once the cryovac bag is opened, meat will have a normal shelf life. A slight ‘confinement odour’ may be noticed when bag is opened. This will disappear within a few minutes. The meat will soon return to its normal red colour after removal from cryovac bag.

T O F I N D O U T W H E R E G E N U I N E King Island beef is sold on the ‘mainland’, see the list at www.kingislandbeef.com.au. The carcass and cryovac packed meat has a region number 790 stamp and this is also on each box shipped to butchers. If you doubt that you are getting the genuine product, contact the email address on the website.

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Russell’s

sausages… I T ’ S A L L W A Y S E A R L Y just before sunrise, from Monday to Friday, Bill and Norma Russell begin to stack a modern, ﬂuoro-lit meat presentation cabinet. It’s a massive piece of equipment, which runs across the lefthand wall and across the back of the shop. So clean, it seems to sparkle.

Bill and Norma Russell

E T H O D I C A L L Y , like they’ve done it 1,000 times before (they have), Bill and Norma pack the presentation cabinet with the more familiar butcher fare. Trays of chops line up against trays of steak, which line up against trays of mince. And then there are the many trays of sausages of all types, tastes and sizes. Bill has been in the meat business for most of his working life. After a stint as a sales rep for Don Smallgoods, he spent around 25 years in the Victorian seaside town of Sorrento in a butcher shop very much like this one on King Island. The Russell’s moved to King Island around five years ago, as Bill says, “looking for a change”. The previous butcher decided to move on and off the island, and passed on the business to the Russells. That’s the way things work on King Island. “The public is more demanding over here—they’ll shop wherever there’s a deal,” Bill says. “But there’s no pressure to keep up with the trends. The people here are like the shoppers from 20 years ago. They come in once and buy their meat for the whole week.” Bill buys his beef and lamb from local farmers. “All the beef I get is from my neighbour. I get a couple of head a fortnight. I have three suppliers of lamb – 1,000 will last around eight to 10 weeks. I only buy from the abattoir when there are cuts I can’t get enough of. All chicken products are flown in.” Unlike John Boschetto, Bill has his smallgoods (mainly salamis) flown in. “I only do what I feel safe with.” Wednesday is sausage day—his creative outlet – Italian sausages, pork plum sausages, herb and garlic, bratwurst, lamb, rosemary and honey. His sausages are the kind that need to be simmered. “Take the sausages out of the fridge and allow them to reach room temperature. They should be cooked on a nice, slow heat. And don’t prick them—we spend a good deal of time putting in those flavours… ” R F

A sign on the Russell’s shop window points out that they don’t open on Saturday or Sunday but they’re open every other day, ‘unless it’s a race day’. The local horse races are a Bill Rusell passion.

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the

Or iginals

the soldier dier

settlers “I

CAME TO THE ISLAND for a holiday. I was working at the time and I went back and told the manager that I was interested in the Soldier Settlement scheme. You see, after the war, we went back to the jobs of our youth—bank clerks, law clerks—and we could no longer settle down to a clerk’s job. “We had to sweat and struggle to survive, and a lot of them walked off. I enjoyed the farming like every one of us, but there was no money in it. “It was grossly exaggerated—it wasn’t the utopia that we were told it would be. To get a farm on King Island was like winning Tatts! That’s what they told us in Hobart.”

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H E W A R S E R V I C E Land Settlement Scheme, known on King Island simply as ‘soldier settlement’, enticed ex-servicemen, many of who were unable to settle into a desk job after the brutal experiences of WW1 and WW2, to live the life of a King Island farmer. The ex-soldiers were told of a favourable climate and rich farming country, already home to a (very) small established agricultural base of beef and dairy cattle, as well as sheep for both wool and fattened lambs. Around 50 families accepted the offer of 60 hectares and £625 to settle on the island after WW1, but most were unable to survive the high outgoing and incoming costs during the Great Depression just decade later in the 1930s. After WW2, a headline for an advertisement which ran in the Weekly Times on January 23, 1952 promised ‘88 Dairy, 14 fat lamb farms on King Island’. The advertisement stated; ‘These farms, estimated to be available from June 1952 to June 1953, are now open for applications by ex-servicemen who are eligible to apply to participate in the War Service Land Settlement Scheme.’

All these image came from the collection of The Currie Historical Society. The Currie Museum is in the beautiful old Lighthouse keeper’s residence, one of the few attractive old buildings left on the island. The Historical Society is run by an active group of volunteers. For opening times see The Guide page 89

Many of the ex-servicemen came without farming experience, and most were wearied by the experience of war, but they found more favourable conditions than their WW1 counterparts and were offered substantially more support. The ‘The Man on the land’ section of The Examiner wrote in July 11, 1956 that “significant points emerge from an examination of the King Island War Service Settlement Scheme. There was recognition that “settler’s commitments are too heavy”, and recommended that the Settlement Board needed a “more realistic and practical view of major problems facing individual settlers”. Around 161 farms were settled by soldiers after WW2—mostly dairy or sheep farms. Today’s generations of the island’s farming clans that evolved from solder settlement - the Perry’s, the Bowlings, the Paynes – farm almost an even split between beef and dairy, and there is now only a handful of sheep farmers. RF

Jack Lumsden Remembers: “O

U R M E AT B I L L HE R E was about one pound fifteen a month. Groceries weren’t much. Oh, you could live on that because we only paid five bob rent.” “I didn’t stint on food, I was sick of being in the army and living on goldfish, as we used to call them, for three months. The Americans wouldn’t eat them—pilchards—so they gave them to the Australian Government. The army cooks tried to do everything with them but couldn’t. I lived on bread and cheese in the end.” Mr Jack Lumsden, who laid claim to being “the second (WW2) settler there”, recorded an ‘oral history’ in1990 for ‘An island perspective: Oral history – soldier settlement’. Transcripts are available at the Currie Historical Society Museum.

“I

CAM E TO TH E I SLAN D for a holiday. I was working at the time and I went back and told the manager that I was interested in the Soldier Settlement scheme. You see, after the war, we went back to the jobs of our youth—bank clerks, law clerks—and we could no longer settle down to a clerk’s job. We had to sweat and struggle to survive, and a lot of them walked off. I enjoyed the farming like every one of us, but there was no money in it. It was grossly exaggerated—it wasn’t the utopia that we were told it would be. To get a farm on King Island was like winning Tatts! That’s what they told us in Hobart.” Jack Lumsden was awarded his farm after a four-year wait—“the administration was so damned hopeless”.

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crays cr ray ra and oysters, and abalone, and…

F YOU DON’T LISTEN CAREFULLY, it becomes one word—Maxndonna. If you ask about the Island’s seafood you’re told to “ask Maxndonna.” Max and Donna Summers have only owned the King Island Seaproducts business for two years but both were born on the island and you sense some local pride in seeing them doing well in their business. Max is a no nonsense person, strong and broad shouldered, it’s a surprise when he laughs. He quickly points you to Donna when there are questions that don’t have to be answered immediately, behind the busyness there’s a reserve. Donna is open faced and smiles a lot, but her clear eyes are weighing you up. They’re both happier with the people they know than with strangers who ask questions, but Donna’s enthusiasm for the subject of the Island’s high quality seafood grew as we talked. 62

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A X A N D I M E T in the standard King Island manner on the school bus. In a small community everyone knows everyone”, and with a phrase I hadn’t heard, she added “you do your laundry so there’s no point having secrets.” Like most King Islanders who don’t leave for school, Max did the rounds of the dairies and the abattoirs for work. He then took on an apprenticeship as a carpenter and soon decided that it wasn’t for him. Donna says “Give him a hammer today and he beads with sweat and has a real personality change!” He went

Max and Donna Summers

Max packs as Tony ‘Bear’ Alexandra unloads the catch from his boat ‘Shelara’ (named after daughters Shelby and Tara)

to labouring and then fished for about ten years. So Max knew the industry well, long before he and Donna launched their business. They started King Island Seaproducts for added income while they were kelp harvesting. With more people taking up ‘kelping’, they weren’t making as good a living. “It was a bit frightening to depend on it for income because it was so weather driven,” Donna explained. “So we decided to branch out. It started with one fisherman asking us if we’d take a load of crays to the airport for him when he was busy. The processor we sent them to said ‘These are the best crays, can we pay you to pick up other peoples fish?’ The first year we shipped about 5 tonnes and it’s built steadily from there.“ Both of them work full time, and the older children get roped in during the busy season November through to February, Donna laughed saying “They don’t get much school holiday.” That’s a busy time on the Island because the crays are more available, the weather is good so the fishing is easier and the demand for lobster is at its highest over Christmas.

There are two main outlets for fisherman on King Island, Fox Fishing and King Island Seaproducts. “A lot of fishermen sell one load to us and one to Fox,” Donna said, “We sell to a variety of processors throughout Victoria and depending on how much they want the fish to fill their orders, they’ll increase or decrease the price. They usually stay within one or two dollars of each other, and if there’s a glut it’s easier for us with lots of outlets to spread the load.” There are also small buyers who come just for Christmas and buy their crays direct from the boats.

Most of the crays go to Melbourne. They do supply one processor in Sydney. Those crays are packed in special styrene boxes and go on the plane to Moorabbin. They are then couriered through to Virgin who ship to Sydney. It’s still a 12-14 hour process but before packing, the crayfish’s water temperature is lowered to 8 degrees which calms them, and they have an ice-pad with them in the box to maintain the chill. There’s no commercial scale fishing on the island except for the live parrot fish. “It’s not because there aren’t good varieties around here,” Donna said, just that “there’s no way for us to handle tonnes and tonnes of product. We see the big trawlers go past but they don’t come in.” The parrot fish are all line caught. There are some licensed people who bring in a few other varieties. These are usually given away to family and friends and Max and Donna get the leftovers “Which we don’t mind,” she said “that’s the King Island community working.” The live parrot fish also go straight to Victoria. They’re packed in double plastic bags, inside bins with

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ten kilos of water per ten kilos of fish, to arrive alive and go into tanks in the restaurants. Similarly for the abalone. Max and Donna don’t sell any on the island. The quota is already allocated to a certain processor and the price is decided before the diver steps in the water. But if you’re in Melbourne, you’ll almost certainly eat King Island abalone and parrot fish in all the Little Bourke Street Chinatown restaurants. King Island Seaproducts took over the only Island oyster lease at Sea Elephant River, on the East coast above Naracoopa, You’ll only be able to try those locally, at least while they’re building up the stocks. Donna says that local sales have doubled this year and they’ve nearly tripled the size of the oysters. They’re not always available as they close down harvesting periodically to give them time to grow. “And we’re closed when they’re spawning, that’s been April-May,” Donna said, “But we collected some yesterday and they’re excellent size and quality. By the end of May we have doubled the size of the lease we use. Next year we hope to do the same, and three to four years out we’ll have sufficient stocks so we can really pick and choose for size and quality.” And how do they eat this produce themselves? ‘Simply’ was the reply. “I like my oysters cooked, Oysters Kilpatrick. Max likes his straight out of the river, he cracks them standing waist deep in the water and tips them into his mouth as he goes from one basket to another. ‘Mmmm that was good, I’ll just try another’.” ”The lobster? I really like crumbed and deep fried. I just dip the pieces in egg, use a packet crumb mix and drop them into the deep fryer, just for a short time as they cook very fast, then drain them off well.” ”We don’t eat a lot of crayfish ourselves although we did have a bit when we started, now around November when the family are here we have a few just to ‘get the fix’. After that it peters out. Once you’ve cooked a couple of hundred kilos the smell starts to turn you off. I can’t smell it in the factory but I know others can. You can see their faces as they step inside. It’s quite disturbing because I wonder what else I can’t smell!” “We supply crays to all the clubs and restaurants here, usually live unless they have really big orders of twenty to thirty kilos when they ask us to cook them. I’ve got a big cooker that we use in the factory. We don’t have frozen ones, only fresh. Off the island we ship to King Island Airline in Moorabbin and we can also ship cheese and beef packages the same way. If people want to buy crays here, we’ve got a note on the door to say they have to ring ahead. As you’ve found we’re pretty hard to catch.” But like the King Island seafood, that’s one catch you should make. R F

MAX AND DONNA’s TIPS FOR SelEcting crayfish “The biggest impact on the quality and flavour of a crayfish is freshness.” November. They take a while to harden and put weight back on. The price also stays stable through February-March so it’s the you’ll get the best value. Sizes available from 600g through to 4kg. Mid October to March both males and females can be collected and will be on sale. The female season finishes in March, and from then until September, when the season shuts for six weeks completely, they can only collect males. All females are returned. All year round any females caught with ‘berries’ (eggs) on them are returned. Donna prefers “about a 2kg cray because it’s easier to get the meat out of the knuckles and legs. People say the small ones are sweeter but I think that’s the comparison with lamb and mutton that makes people think that smaller is better. The biggest impact on the quality and flavour of a crayfish is freshness.”

KI Seafood buying guide Southern United Seafood Aust Pty Ltd 26 Baker St Richmond 3121 Ph: (03) 9428 8836 www.southernunite.com.au Ocean Fresh Seafoods 192 Chesterville Road, Moorabbin Mob: 0411 033521 Fax: (03) 95530778 Vasiliki Lobsters P/L 173 Barkly St. St Kilda, VIC 3182 Ph: (03) 9534 2106 Alive Seafood Exports P/L 5/188 Plenty Rd. Preston, VIC 3072 Ph: (03) 9484 5232 Aussie Lobster 1-3 Endeavour Rd, Caringbah NSW 2229 Ph: (02) 9526704 Melbourne factory Ph: (03) 93364701

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Reforming the industry D O N N A S U M M E R S S P E A K S fervently about the

industry. She cares as much for how it will change the island if crayﬁshing ceases as for her own livelihood. Her explanation of what is involved in commercial ﬁshing for seafood on the Island deserves to be heard in full.

H E N T H E Tasmanian government initially brought in quotas they touted it as ‘reforming the industry’, which it did. They wanted to reduce the numbers of boats fishing which would take pressure off the stocks, which it did. They also put in what they called ‘critical limits’, participation bottom lines, which we’ve pretty much reached. So if we go under these limits there won’t be enough people in the industry to catch all the product. When they introduced quotas they also said that it would stabilise prices and it has. At a low price, that is uneconomical to sustain. Especially if the fisherman has to lease the quota.” “Price and demand is seasonal. It depends on the weather how much is caught. Tasmanian, and probably Australia’s, seafood industry is dependant on Asia. Asia has got a lot smarter about their business while Australia hasn’t. This year processors say they are no longer getting calls to ask ‘how much is it and what quantity can I have?’ Now it’s a matter of ‘we want this many kilos and this is what we’ll pay.’ Because the Asian processors are the ones with the money, with the holding capacity and the connections to get the product into China, so they hold the Australian businesses to ransom.” “There are only one or two places that we can import into China so there is a real bottleneck. And they’ve sometimes just closed the borders. That cuts off the market completely.” “There was an Australian trade trip to Brussels a few weeks ago (in May) and they took product from King Island and Tasmania so they are trying to open the markets. One of the processors, Southern United Seafood in Victoria is trying to set up in a few other countries and not be so reliant on Asia. That will help if there’s a block on China. They can find somewhere else to ship to that is closer. Remember this is live seafood.” Donna talked about a new initiative that is being undertaken by the Tasmanaian fishing industry. The introduction of a ‘Clean Green’ accreditation, which the King Island boat operators and crews have keenly accepted. Each boat and crew must meet a stringent standard of personal/work safety as well as food safety handling. This is an initaitive to promote Southern Rock lobster from Tasmania, Victoria and Southern Australia. The focus is on tracebility of each catch via a tagging system, from the boat to the table. The emphasis will be on the export of large lobster into Europe and America.

“Until they widen the markets and establish a flow, there’s no real competition to Asia” Donna emphasised. “It’s a common complaint. The fisherman feel screwed down by the processors, the processors by the importers. It’s a business where you can make a lot of money and a business where you spend a lot of money. One month you can make a huge profit but the next month you can be broke. So it’s about risk. In the time we’ve been involved we’ve seen a few cray processors come and go and leave big bills behind them which hurts a small community.” “There have been some tax office investigations recently into the fishing businesses because they didn’t seem to be making the money that the government expected. Or the investors who purchased a quota license expected. The suspicion was that this was money going into their pockets and not the books. But it’s proving more to be that the ‘critical point’ has been reached. It has a great social and financial impact on small fishing villages like ours. We are the highest unloading port in Tasmania, Currie is where a lot of product comes in. We have about 25 boats unloading 250–280 tonnes. Running costs and license fees go up all the time.”

“…The ‘critical point’ has been reached. It has a great social and financial impact on small fishing villages like ours.”

Donna Summers While the financial pressures seem high, consider the physical nature of the crayfish business. This can be a dangerous way to make a living. The cray boats usually go out for a few days at a time and if the catch and weather is good, they extend it. With the quota system came investors and operators who figured that this was a secure licence to catch money. The investors however are remote from the pressure of the environment or the local fishing stocks. The lease prices are often paid before the crays are caught, the sale price is unknown so the fishermen need to get the best price possible. The best prices are usually when the weather is bad and the owner-operator sensibly stays at home. But if the bottom line says ‘fish’, that’s when they have to fish. There are days when the weather is so bad they can’t get back into the Currie harbour so they just have to sit out the storms at sea. It’s also frustrating for the crews who just have to sit around town, waiting for the weather to ease and the price to rise enough to make it worth fishing. This has lead people like local cray fisherman like John Mauric, to move into beef farming as well as crayfish. He talked as he was helping his son ‘slip’ his boat, expensive painting and repairing. “There’s such a tight profit margin now. I know what it costs per cray just to turn that key and start my boat. There are lots here who don’t and they’re doing it tough.” R F F R E D H A R D E N

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K ING I SLAND

Live seafood Live exports from King Island include the fo Rock lobsters differ from true lobsters by lacking pincers on the first p legs. The carapace (shell on the head region) is orange-red in colour in whilst deep water individuals can be reddish-purple or lighter in colour Rock Lobster is distinguished from other rock lobster species by two long projecting forward from the front of the carapace beside the eyes.

Blue th

p , NOTOLABRUS TETRICUS

e Common name Kelpie, or Parrot Fish NOTOLABRUS FUCICOLA

Sea Elephant Bay Oysters

Greenlip Abalone

Blacklip Abalone

HALIOTIS LAEVIGATA

HALIOTIS RUBRA

Blacklip abalone have a black edge and tentacles, with the shell often heavily eroded and covered by algae and invertebrates. Greenlip abalone have a smooth, light coloured shell and green edge and tentacles. They provide about one-fifth of the total commercial abalone catch andis considered the better tasting abalone of the two. And hence more expensive.

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a taste for

Solitude l it itu King Island Dairy’s cheese maker, Ueli Berger, has wild bears in his house and he doesn’t mind at all.

H E R E A R E N O B E A R S on King Island of course, but

there are some living in a log cabin that Ueli and his wife own, situated well into the Artic Circle in Alaska. Somehow the weatherproofing on the windows wasn’t strong enough, and a friend checking recently said there were bears inside and he didn’t feel inclined to ask them to leave. It’s hard to place that experience with the urbane artisan cheese maker that is Ueli Berger. It’s not until you hear more about his life that it all starts to fit. Ueli grew up on a dairy farm just outside of Bern, the Swiss capital. He knew that he wanted to have something to do with farming, “but my older brother took over my parent’s farm and there wasn’t room for the two of us. My grandad was into cheese making so I thought I’d use that background. I was 16 when I

finished high school and I did the cheese making apprenticeship for three years”. The local cheese was all one type, Emmentaler made in 100kg blocks. They would make two cheeses a day, using the milk from about fifteen local farmers. Appreciative of the tradition, that routine wasn’t what the young Ueli had in mind, “I knew that cheese making would allow me to see the world. When I finished my apprenticeship I applied for positions in America, New Zealand and Australia”. He almost immediately got an interview with Lactos in Tasmania, and of 48 applicants he was one of two selected. “I was barely 20 years old. It was just at the moment when Lactos had decided to make some Swiss style cheeses, so my background fitted. They paid for my fares with an agreement that I stay for two years. That was twenty years ago”.

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H R E E Y E A R S L A T E R the Lactos company was in transition so Ueli took some time off and travelled. He backpacked, camping out, travelling across Canada and Alaska. “One day I was camping by the road and a fellow invited me in for breakfast. I spent three months there, helping him build a small cabin, learning to smoke salmon and meat. Then Lactos asked me to come back, and I stayed with them for almost ten years before I decided to go back to Alaska”. Ueli ended up spending a year there, building his own cabin, trapping and fishing. A friend with a small airplane offered to take him up north and dropped him off in the wild, saying he call back for him in three months. His nearest neighbour was 300 kms away, and Ueli lived alone in a cave shelter, catching salmon and shooting caribou for food. “It was a time of my life” he offered as explanation, “when I wanted something different and an experience like that just pushes you. I came back a different person ready to attack the world again. It was great”. Not long after his return, he applied for his current job, and moved to King Island. It wasn’t a hard decision to make he says, “because the King Island Dairy already had a good name, and with that behind me I could see that it had so much potential. At the time there wasn’t great control in the manufacturing process, half the curd finished up on the floor! I couldn’t go wrong, anything I did would be an improvement!” This came at a time (six years ago) when the company was ready to invest in new equipment. “It was very much just PVC pipe, a pretty average setup” he said. With some more money things started to happen and improve. First he started by bring consistency to the cheeses they were making. Then he started to work on some new cheeses and “it just keeps growing. The real strength of the company was its very good marketing. I knew the head cheese maker who was here before me, he was a good operator but there wasn’t consistency. You have to have a finger on the pulse because the milk is changing every day and you need to adjust for it. It’s not just a 9–5 job”. Ueli starts work at 6.00 am and goes home around 4.30 but says, “I also go in through the night sometimes or at weekends and walk through the maturing rooms, just checking on ‘the babies’. With a schedule like that you might wonder about his family life, so it’s just as well that Ueli is living on the island alone. “My wife and children live in Tasmania . My wife likes things a bit fancier than I do. She’s a professional firefighter, and loves that career. And the reality of no higher education on King Island means that this suits our children as well. We have a little farm there and we’re trying for a permaculture, back to basics life. It’s a place, much like here on the island where you can grow anything. The whole family

T Ueli and Pike

“When I came to Australia in 1975, there was really only cheddar. Lactos were being brave in introducing a gouda! To think where we are now is just incredible.”

love it.” Ueli takes his breaks there, and the children visit him on the island, spending the long summer school holidays on what must be one of the best places to be a kid in.

E ’ V E B E E N T A L K I N G over a coffee

in the kitchen of Ueli’s neat weatherboard farm house that sits on ten acres. There are pine trees down the drive, cows and a horse in the paddock nearby. He has two dogs, Mork and Mindy, but there’s only Mindy at his feet, following him wherever he walks. The other dog has been missing for a few days and Ueli thinks that he’s probably not going to return. That’s what happens in the country. Looking around at the furniture Ueli has made himself you can see there is also a country approach involved, rather than fine cabinet making. Large polished natural slabs of tree rest on rough hewn legs. The book cases are also free form and angled. Ueli laughed when I related a tale of how I’d built a loft in a pole barn, using a chainsaw to notch the poles. When finished it had much the same character as his furniture. The books on those shelves also covered the same ‘back to the land’ classics that I’ve stored in a tea chest somewhere. I ask for a tour of his meticulously kept fruit and vegetable garden and when I offer compliments and envy, his pride shows. “When I was growing up we had a big vegetable garden so it’s a natural part of my life. You attack it with a passion and although it’s not ideal being by myself here, I get so much from the gardening”. “Living on King Island obviously doesn’t suit everyone, he continues, “there’s little night life and on the surface there doesn’t seem to be a lot happening. For me, that’s the beauty of it. On Saturday I’ll go down to the beaches on the west coast and sit there and watch the waves go past, just as it should be. I can go out and shoot a wallaby for the dogs, or a turkey for myself.” “I love fishing, I’ll take the rod out and catch something, bring it home and clean and cook it. Just having the freedom to do that, well…” he pauses, thinking it over, “there are not many places left where you can live the way you can here. I’ve got a great fruit and vegetable garden and we don’t get frosts. I’ve got ten acres of land because here you can still afford it. Every year I buy two calves and bucket rear them, I have the two older ones to sell each year. I can jump on the horse and go riding”. Almost as an after thought, or perhaps to balance the idyllic list, he says “but it can get a bit windy!” “We are isolated and that means there isn’t the infrastructure to support a big tourist a lot stronger. The Americans are enjoying this cheese, it has a sweet nutty flavour and it sells very well there. R F

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“When I go to the cities I buy cheese! I go to the specialty cheese shops see what they’re selling and try new ones.”

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Squeezing the Cheese

We find that the girls seem to have more patience. There’s a couple of girls who do the scrubbing and they are excellent– they seem to understand what it needs and enjoy nurturing it.

S YO U R O U N D T H E B E N D on the road that runs north to Cape Wickham, the King Island Dairy factory seems to be perfectly in place, nestled in the hollow between Porky Creek and Little Porky Creek. The green hillside and blue water of Porky Cove beyond looks like a perfect place for a rural industry. It’s only the scale that seems to be wrong. The rest of the island, even the main street of Currie doesn’t prepare you for something as modern and extensive as this cheese factory. As you’d expect, the King Island Dairy’s tasting room, the Fromagerie, is very professional. Set in an attractive verandahed building to the side of the cheese factory, and when you step inside, there’s a single friendly girl at the counter. One wall has a glowing glass door fridge that promises (and delivers) bargain purchases. There’s a chilled walk-in tasting room, with wheels or wedges of all their cheeses, with tasting notes and pencils so you can record your favourites. On almost every other wall space around you are the awards that the cheese makers at the Dairy have won. There are a lot of awards. The voice-over on the 10 minute video (“Just press play when you’re ready” the girl advises) proudly talks about the extensive scale of production, but there is no sense of a ‘factory’ assembly line in the images, and there seems to be lots of people making things. On a later tour through the factory, wearing our white coats, hair nets and disinfected rubber boots, it was the same impression. Hand made, not machine made. One cheese maker cutting curd with a wire paddle, a row of women wrapping blue waxed cheese by hand. “That’s intentional.” Ueli responded, “There are machines that do it all, like automatic stirrers. But a paddle stirrer doesn’t know when to stop. Some days you need less stirring. The curd is fresher or the room is cooler. Those things are what you need to respond to for good cheese making. You feel it. It might be a bit soft so you wait a few minutes, or you stir it more gently. That’s the art of good cheese making. And you can teach it, our people learn when something isn’t right and each morning I walk around and discuss it with them”. Ueli is happy to be passing these skills on, “There’s just too much to do for one person. We have some

excellent cheese makers. I don’t have plans to be here forever so I want to know there are good people to take over. One of the girls in our blue cheese area is terriﬁc, she just picks it all up naturally. She so sharp and has a passion for it, I wouldn’t feel bad if she tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘I want your job’. “It seems that job is a lot about balancing. Balancing resources and juggling the corporate needs. Ueli seems at home with both tasks. “Because you’re on an island,” he explains “you can’t easily bring more milk in or sell your excess to another factory. We have to handle it ourselves”. He said that when he talked about shortages to the company, they helpfully offered to get some milk sent from the mainland. They obviously underestimated the man, who threatened to leave if they did. “It’s just not done.” he said as his voice raised, “I couldn’t look someone in the eye and say ‘It’s King Island’. So we have to adjust all the time. Because our camembert and some of the blue has cream added to it, we have to get that cream by making some products that are low in fat. So we make some mozzarella or cheeses that don’t go out with the King Island brand. That way we can control the milk ﬂow”. “Because you never get 100% results all the time, we release those cheeses under one of the company’s other brands. That can happen as late as when we wrap it. We grade all the cheese and if something is just not right we’ll hold it back.” I asked if there was any concern about us publishing that, “No”, he replied, “I don’t mind if people know that South Cape isn’t as premium a cheese as King Island, and that there’s a reason behind it”. “Because we’re one of the biggest players in specialty cheeses we can’t just be in supermarkets and food service. We have to make niche specialty cheeses and they have to be available and sold as special. It’s critical that we keep those cheeses in the market for our reputation. They don’t last as long as a standard supermarket cheese. So we have to juggle the corporate demands for cheese that will happily sit on a supermarket cheese shelf and our specialist ones.” He grinned and said “I can tell you which ones are more fun to make.” R F

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Ueli Berger

T HE K ING I SLAND D AIRY C HEESE

Cheese-makerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s notes

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T HE K ING I SLAND D AIRY C HEESE

Cheese-maker’s notes BRIE

AND

CAMEMBERT

Centenary Washed Rind Brie

Black Label Brie

Seal Bay Triple Cream

We made this to celebrate 100 years of dairying on King Island. We wanted to get some extra flavour to it from our regular brie so we changed the recipe, using a more traditional culture, a mesophilic (moderate heat loving) culture instead of the thermophilic (warmth loving) culture. A mesophilic culture has more flavour early. It drops the pH of the cheese which makes the cheese chalky so you have to find the balance between texture and flavour. We then added Brevi to the surface as well. This bacterium adds a smell and an orange colour as it ages. Sometimes when you unwrap this cheese there’s an ammonia smell so you have to let it breathe like a good wine. It’s a beautiful flavour.

That’s a traditionally made brie using all mesophilic cultures, the same as it’s made in Europe. Then we leave it to mature here. We wait until it’s ready to eat before we ship it to market. It can’t go into the supermarket because it only has about maximum twenty days left but when you buy it has a full flavour, more than our other bries.

It’s a triple cream cheese mainly made with mesophilic culture, and it takes a fair bit of work. We can use mesophilic culture because it breaks down the extra protein and makes it very creamy. Again it is a very full flavoured cheese once it’s matured and we hold it back until it’s ready to go. In it’s early stage it’s quite chalky and sour so you have to let it mature

Cape Wickham Double Brie

Phoques Cove Camembert

Stormy

This is one of our flagships. Again we tried to have a lot of flavour in there, so we use some added cream and both mesophilic and thermophilic cultures. A normal brie is about 27% butterfat, a double is 30% and a triple is 33 or 35%, so it’s not really double or triple the amount. Again it’s at its best just before the use-by-date, but we made it for the supermarket so it has a good shelf life, about fifty days. It might not have the same character as some of our smaller farmhouse cheese but it lasts. A steady cheese.

It’s a conventional camembert cheese, we’re using a couple of different cultures. It’s lower in butterfat but otherwise made in a very similar way to our brie.

This is maybe one of our most robust cheeses. It’s a washed rind, and as it gets to its optimum shelf date, it has quite a strong odour, but take it out of the wrapper and it is surprisingly mild. A nice contrast. It starts from a brie base but instead of letting it develop a white mould, we start washing it with a Brevi solution like our Black Label Brie but this gets scrubbed more, it’s done by hand with a brush.

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When we suggested that ashed cows milk cheeses are something too radical for the industry, “Well no-one makes them yet”, Ueli laughed. “But they will”. D I S C OV E RY R A NG E

Small versus Big CREATING SMALL CHEESES

Discovery Hot waxed Blue, Discovery Scrubbed Brie, Ashed Brie and Ashed Blue Brie

What we’d like to do with this range is not just have a standard brie or a standard blue but something a little bit special and give people the experience to go a bit further with the flavours. The packaging is part of that, so that when they take it home they respect it, and have a good experience from it. They learn something, they tell their friends and because it’s the next stage of their cheese eating, and still within their comfort zone in another two years we can put something else in these little balsa wood boxes that’s a bit further a way. It’s a step in education and training people to go further with new flavours. The next two Discovery cheeses will be our ashed brie and ashed blue. The process is widely used in goat’s cheese and there it has a quite specific use to dry the surface. With cheese from cow’s milk you don’t really need that, we were just playing around and found it left you with a very nice mouth feel. So we said “why don’t we let people experience it as well”? It’s a new brie and blue cheese and the ash is something extra. It’s a coconut ash, and I guess it would be nice to have charcoal from vine prunings from our local vineyards, but we don’t have any.” The oil infused blue is on hold because the cost to make it is too high. We’ve had to put it on the backburner. It’s a magical product. We said “people use fetta in oil, what would a blue be like?” In a salad, the oil and herbs and the blue are really nice. It came from what I call our Champion Cheesemaker team. Every year I pick four people and we do something extra with them, more than I get working with them on the floor.

OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS we’ve found the market wants small cheeses, it’s partly supermarket driven, and the desire for people to have something whole, complete in their hand. A lot of people are still happy to have a wedge cut from a larger round, but the marketing people are calling for small versions and they don’t realise that it’s not just a matter of putting the cheese in a smaller hoop, it doesn’t work that way. There’s a lot more surface area in a small cheese compared to what’s inside so it matures differently to a big one. That can give you completely different ﬂavour so you have to change the recipe, it takes a lot of work and for a couple of cheeses such as the Endeavour Blue we didn’t succeed at all. For most we’ve got close but it’s a long process. They have different cultures, even different bacteria so they are a special batch.

Use by Dates THE TIME IS RIPE “WE ARE TIMING THE CHEESE so that it’s on the market about twenty days before its ‘best before’ use date. It’s at its best on that date. We have to educate people that this is a cheese that’s changing. We always hear of people who try it early and go ‘it’s a bit bland’. If it’s too ﬁrm, just wait a week. The cheese might have a use by date of thirty days, so it’s still very young and needs to mature. It’s a living thing and even at four degrees it’s still maturing. Especially with the white moulds. With a brie you can feel that they are still ﬁrm and not ready. Squeeze them.” “We’re not used to buying supermarket cheese that’s variable in that way. Yet as it approaches the ‘best before’ date, that’s when you’ll see it marked for quick sale so you get a bargain and a ripe cheese!”

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BLUE

Endeavour Blue

Centenary Blue

Lighthouse Blue Brie

A gorgonzola type cheese. It’s one of our gutsiest cheeses, strong flavour. Fairly sharp. It’s achieved through the bacteria and it’s the longest matured blue cheese that we have. We leave it for ten to twelve weeks, the size of each cheese is between 6 and 8 kilos and it takes time for the flavours to spread. The bacteria isn’t the same as gorgonzola, but the background flavours are very similar. If you work all your life with these bacteria, you get to know what the flavours will do. The moulds have an effect but it’s the bacterium you put in it that give the uniqueness. The Endeavour Blue was here when I arrived and all we’ve done is refine it and keep consistency.

It’s about 1.2 kilo round and after about six weeks we wax it, and that cuts all the oxygen off. You then get anaerobic fermentation happening that really changes the flavour. It develops a sweetness, a fruitiness that is quite unique. Once you cut it, on the surface you see the mould inside as yellowy pieces, but left in the air, they turn blue again. It’s not a strong cheese, mild with this sweet fruity flavour.

Inside it has the blue mould but outside it’s nice and fluffy, it’s not overly strong, it’s a mild blue. It’s quite high in fat, so the creaminess is more like a brie. The blue flavour is quite mild, but towards the end it has a sharpness.

Roaring Forties Blue

Bass Strait Blue

Black Label Blue Triple Cream

In a lot of ways this is similar to our Centenary Blue but it’s waxed after six to eight weeks, and it then gets a sweetness and it becomes a lot stronger. The Americans are enjoying this cheese, it has a sweet nutty flavour and it sells very well there.

This was one of the first blue cheeses we made here, it’s a robust blue, with more of the direction of a Danish blue. It’s made in a two and half kilo block or round, matured for six to eight weeks before we let it go. It can be enjoyed young, it has a milder taste early on, it gets stronger and it can discolour slightly at the end but it’s still perfectly good to eat.

It’s not common to make a blue with triple cream in Australia. In France you find them. It’s very rich, very creamy and not overly strong. The Black Label means that again we keep it here until it’s ready to eat.

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CHEDDAR

Yellow Rock Red

Black Label Cloth Matured Cheddar

This is a small cylinder about one and a half kilos, it gets matured for about nine months and then we cloth it. It gets matured for another three or four months in the cloth in an open room. We spray some more flora into the air, and because the cheese is open it’s absorbed. We use a special type of cloth so that the flora grows on the surface of the cloth. You can peel it off and the cheese is hardly touched, and just the flavour has penetrated. You can cut it and the cloth stays in place. Because they’ve already been matured for a long time, even if that’s in a humidity controlled room, they’ve already had the process of drying out. So they’ll do that quicker and start cracking if you don’t wrap it up when you cut it. That happens with a camembert as well, you need to wrap it.

Stokes Point Smoked Cheddar

Netherby Blue Cheshire

A traditionally made cheddar matured for 9 months and then smoked with Tasmanian hardwood. The golden rind is created during smoking which acts as a natural preservative.

Yellow Leicester Duck Bay Double Gloucester

These are all sold as plastic sealed wedges. They’re firm cheeses and have a good shelf life. These cheeses were added since I’ve been here and they’re all in the style of the originals in their name. Most are matured for at least six months, the Netherby is pierced with the blue mould after that time and stays here for eight to nine months. These are cheeses you don’t have to fuss over at home and are always tasty.

Yellow Rock Red is a delicately flavoured cheddar that becomes sweeter with age. With a firm yet smooth texture the cheese is very agreeable to the palate. The distinctive red/orange appearance is derived from annatto. Yellow Rock Red is matured in the cellars on King Island for a minimum of 6 months.

Annatto Bixa orellana is also called Achiote, Urucu. It’s natural Colour E1606 on your food label. The seeds of a South American bush, the flavour is mild, somewhat peppery and earthy. Ian Hemphill, says “The popularity of natural colours in processed foods has made annatto a common ingredient, replacing many of the artificial colours that some people are allergic to.” (Available from www.herbies.com.au)

Wrapping AL L T H E PAP ER we use here comes from France. There’s nobody in Australia making it, the inside is sometimes waxed, some have got perforations, some use aluminium foil, some are polypropylene, whatever you use gives a different end result. The cheese is alive so you have to let it breathe or it starts sweating and smelling. But you have to retain moisture so it won’t dry out and mature, it’s an art by itself to match the paper to the cheese. The Stormy paper is very different to our Brie paper. When you develop a new cheese we spend time trialling the paper as well to let it mature properly.

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Stephen Russell feels that he would be taken more seriously as a chef, if his Bold Head Brasserie had a printed menu.

blackboard

special spec S

TEPHEN RUSSELL’S PLEASURE in being

on King Island, in his own restaurant—the Bold Head Brasserie, is evident. There are no chef tantrums and bad manners here (that might be because it’s just him in the kitchen and it’s no fun arguing with yourself). He jokes a lot and as he works, carries on a running conversation with the young waitress for the evening.

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J A N I C E H A D J U ST B R OUG H T him a large bucket of impossibly fresh watercress from a creek near her family’s homestead. She also supplied the Dutch Cream potatoes that were to accompany the veal on the evening’s menu. They were dug that day from her parents’ garden.

H I L E W E TA L K E D earlier in the afternoon, one of the men at the Grassy Club’s bar had brought him half a dozen fish, wrapped in newspaper. These were ‘sweep’, a small, fat, glossy silver fish with a bright yellow bottom lip. He was reluctantly coaxed into standing still for a photograph but after offering the information that they were caught on a line and that “they always put up a fight. A lot of the people don’t like sweep around here, ‘cos they’re bottom feeders, they feed on the grass’, he quickly returned to the bar. Stephen filleted them quickly and then went to change the blackboard menu adding the sweep to the list of six or so main meal items.

Fair trade. Just caught fish is offered in exchange for a counter lunch.

He then gestured to two foam boxes of apples and pears, “these were out in front of a shop in Currie, picked from a home orchard, no sprays and very tasty. I bought the lot for $20 so that’s desserts for the next few weeks.” “You can see why I never get a printed menu done” he said. We talked about how he thought the locals appreciate that they get something new every time they came. With a small regular clientele, plus a few busy days when groups came through and regular indoor bowls nights, the occasional off-island visitor is a bonus. Russell is the only chef I heard people talk about on the island. The other clubs and restaurants (there are really only three, the beautifully sited Boomerang by the Sea and Parer’s Hotel, both in Currie, and Baudin’s at Naracoopa) have the hard task of attracting and keeping good staff, on an island that’s away from mainland focus and stimulation. Russell’s small ‘Brasserie’ has the scale to make it viable for him to cook for his own pleasure and it shows. His experience with the local produce means that it is always expertly prepared.

There are other traditions, of which Italian trattorias come to mind, where local, always changing seasonal produce dictates what is on that day’s menu. They are also places where the locals eat often, and they all know what is in season, what is high quality (and what to avoid). Stephen Russell’s excuse for just having a blackboard menu is certainly driven by his produce and surroundings, but it’s just as much from his embracing of a King Island lifestyle. That is delightfully presented in Stephen’s diary weblog on his Kings Cuisine website (that he built himself with a shareware web editor). There you see how the life he lives here and his cooking blend. Here’s a sample. “… Just picked some fresh pine mushrooms, will roast them with some garlic & olive oil to go with the roast rump with beetroot salad. … made a good panna cotta this weekend, roasted & ground the spices myself & served with some pears & apples from Tassie … More computer trouble, I’m an idiot, should have got a Mac!!. What I did get was some great quince’s from Tassie, roasted with honey & served with some of the dairy’s new yoghurt, also did a great Thai ox-tail curry...First cold day for a while & I got some pears to poach & to warm things up I’m going to stuff them with a chilli chocolate mousse. … Cooked up another ox-tongue today, it is the best thing on the menu at the moment, char grilled & served with gribiche sauce. The local oysters are spawning so I will be doing an anti-pasto of local & Tassie produce to replace it…“ and my favourite entry… “Yesterday was King Island Show day, had a game of golf in the morning (48 for 9 holes, need a bit practice!!) got to the show & found out some info on the mine that will be re-opening here at Grassy & checked out the preserve section that I sponsor. My good friend Denise who makes fetta & yoghurt for the restaurant as well as supplies the flowers had a couple of entries in the floral displays & came up trumps with the gold sash for most impressive display, they are now pride of place in the restaurant here at the Grassy Club.” Stephen’s food experience stretches back over ten years on the island and earlier years as an apprentice and assistant chef on the mainland. Born in Colac in Victoria, he has worked in some well known kitchens that gave him more than a few of his current recipes. His chargrilled octopus, one item that stays on the menu by local demand, he credits with his time at Christos at Lorne.

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In the small kitchen Stephen Russell prepares for the evening meals, Janice Perry has picked fresh watercress for the salad which will accompany the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;signatureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;char-grilled octopus.

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N T HE I S LAND he worked at Parers Hotel, the Currie Club & the Boomerang Restaurant before moving to Grassy. There was a brief stint, that he says he enjoyed, working as a deckhand on a crayfish boat the Random Harvest. But he was fired for turning up late one too many mornings. He has been at the Grassy Club now for three years. and it feels like home. There was one particularly bad early experience Stephen tells to illustrate both how important football is on the island and to the acceptance of a newcomers. The first big function he catered for on the island years ago when he arrived, was a wedding. He’d prepared for a meat cut that hadn’t arrived, tried to change the meal and the final result ‘wasn’t good’. Everyone was fed on time but the experience didn’t go down well in the town. He was confronted by a woman at the pub a few days later and she asked which football team he was going to join. When he explained that his sporting passion was golf, she shot back “You can’t cook, you don’t play football, what the f… are you doing on the Island?” He can cook, and the Island is lucky to have him there. RF

RecipeS Mirin & ginger dressing for King Island oysters Fresh grated ginger

Mixture of vegetables cut to 3mm dice

King Island honey

(use carrot, celery, leek & capsicum.)

Mirin

Soy sauce.

The idea of this dressing is to build the ﬂavours. I always add the

ginger & honey to the vegetables to dilute, then mix in the honey, then the mirin and add soy last of all.

Char grilled octopus with lemon & oregano 3 kg octopus, head

1 ½ large onions sliced

200ml vinegar

removed.

1 tbls black peppercorns

6 bay leaves

Wash octopus & place in pot with other ingredients. Cook covered with a lid & stirring occasionally over low gas ﬂame

until skin is easily removed & ﬂesh is tender, refresh & rinse with cold water, remove skin trying to keep the suckers attached. Cut to ﬁnger sized pieces. Char grill & toss in a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, oregano & parsley.

Rhubarb and cinnamon cake 60gm butter

1tsp bi-carb soda

380 gm brown sugar

1tsp salt

250 ml sour cream

2 eggs

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

TOPPING

1tsp vanilla

500gm rhubarb

80gm brown sugar

300gm ﬂour

rind of ½ lemon

1tsp cinnamon

Cream butter & sugar with vanilla in electric mixer, add eggs & whisk Asked why his octopus is so tender, Stephen tells how most octopus available on the island come from the cray fishermen when they’re found in the cray pots. They attack the crays, and no-one is happy when a three kilo cray is ruined by an octopus. “They get flung on the deck, kicked aside. I get mine from someone that kills them quickly and it’s no surprise that they’re always tender.”

to make a light batter. Combine flour, cinnamon, salt & bi-carb. Cut rhubarb into 1 cm pieces. Zest lemon & chop finely. Add sour cream to egg & sugar batter & mix together. Add sifted flour mix, rhubarb & lemon rind & fold gently into batter. Pour into a buttered & floured spring-form cake tin, mix topping together & spread over top of cake. Bake at 180oC until a skewer comes out dry (about 35-40 mins)

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ISLAND

spirit

H E R E ’ S N O - O N E E L S E on King Island quite like Caroline Kininmonth—wild pepper picker, potter, restorer of boatsheds. There’s probably no-one else on the Mainland (Australia or Tasmania— you choose) quite like Caroline either. ‘Flamboyant’ is the word she uses to describe herself when talking (briefly) about a relationship with a previous ‘neat and tidy’ business partner. Other suitable words would include ‘eclectic’, ‘nurturing’, ‘bohemian’, and definitely ‘fulfilled’. Some islanders call her the ‘mad potter’.

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Inside the Boathouse, Caroline’s colour sense rules.

“I

’M CALLED THE ‘mad potter’ not because of my pottery, but because I was the first to build on the beach,” Caroline says, of the double-braced cliff-side Devil’s Gap Retreat guest houses. Often beset by strong winds and violent storms, King Islanders traditionally set up home inland. “The winds here can be hugely wild because there’s nothing between us and South America,” she explains. “Modern materials enable us now to build on the coast.” The ‘mad potter’ label is more pet-name than insult, for this year the islanders voted her Citizen of the Year. It’s recognition for the unique role she plays on the island as both community mediator and “flamboyant” artist in residence. An astute and natural marketer, Caroline has urged and assisted a number of the more laid-back locals to actively leverage local produce awareness under King Island brand.

Safe after a storm, the Boathouse is watched over by the Currie lighthouse. Tallish, lean, fit and very (very) busy—Caroline doesn’t spend much time at home. She’s either picking pepper, cleaning up after recently departed guests at one of the two Devil’s Gap Retreat guest houses, meeting up with friends at the island’s ‘community space’ in the bay

area Boathouse, or painting and potting in a studio on Wharf Road. “I even slept here for the first few years,” she says pointing to her studio’s upright Futon couch occupying the area under the front window. “It’s a great work spot isn’t it?” she asks, using her eyes to point out an easel set up in a back room as well as the full light streaming in from the large front windows. “This is what cemented my staying on the island.” The studio, called ‘The Pottery’, sits up high on the bay-side cusp of the Currie central business district. Outside, it is surrounded by a well-placed scrum of crayfish nets, buoys and various pieces of colourful pottery. Inside the small white weatherboard shack, the organised chaos continues—bundles of dried parsley hang from the ceiling (for the seeds), while whimsical pottery in various shades of blue and green sits on shelves lining most walls. This is also where Caroline processes and packs her pepper. The wild pepper and leaves are placed in a drier until the fleshy pepper skin has withered and wrinkled. They are then bottled, labelled, then sold through her studio. “I inherited the pepper business,” she says as she closes, but does not lock, The Pottery front door. “A local man was doing it and I took it on when he left the island. It’s a tiny little industry, and that’s the way I like it.” The pepper business’ containers and labels were also inherited. “I’m nearly through his bottles. I’m looking into what I’ll do next. I made a few pots for the pepper—people used them afterwards as candle holders. But people like to be able to see inside.” Now aged in her 60s, Caroline came to King Island in 1989 in search for ‘some space and time’. Claiming to be just ‘an old fashioned wife’ when she first moved to the island, the ‘born and bred’ Toorak (Melbourne) girl was looking for a place to pot and paint.

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“M

OST PEOPLE at some stage in their life will really question their lives. I really wanted to be an artist. And to be an artist you really need some space and time—and King Island gives me this. It’s a very selfish thing, potting. I had a go at doing what I always wanted to do.” Left behind were 30 ‘wonderful’ but often droughtstricken years bringing up a family on an East Gippsland farm. “I married young, at 19, to a Western District man,” she says. “We grew sheep, beans, potatoes, pigs – whatever we could to survive. I even sold wildflowers. I go back and forth now. I still have lovely friends there.” She has good relationships with all three of her children, as well as with her husband Ian. Her son Stuart (34) is a marine biologist living on Magnetic Island. Youngest daughter Susie (32) lives in Sydney, as does older daughter Chrissy (40) who is a regular panel member on the Inventors (ABC television) due to her successful ‘Belly Belt’. Although it is clearly obvious that she misses her three children and five grandchildren, she has no plans

Sunset barbecue at the Boathouse to leave the island. “We’ve seen people leave to be closer to their families, and then the children will move,” she responds when asked if it’s hard to live so far away from her family. “It’s a modern problem. It’s best for everyone to live their own life.” Also on her journey of space, time and revival, Caroline took on the rebuilding and ongoing maintenance of a boathouse ideally nestled in a solitary alcove in the Currie Harbour. Once a school, even storage house for explosives during WW2, the boathouse lay vacant and derelict for around 20 years. “It was total madness because we didn’t know who owned it,” she says as she turns her weathered 4WD truck onto a narrow, unsealed road that leads out to Devil’s Gap. “We got Council approval, thinking they owned it, but found they didn’t—the Marine Board did.” After a decade of negotiations and renovations, the boathouse opened in the mid-1990s. “Dick Smith opened it. He came here for lunch, and I said, ‘hey, we haven’t officially opened it’.” Islanders also use the free-for-all venue for self-catered lunches, dinners, BBQs – any kind of social gathering which needs a few plates, chairs and fabulous bay-side views. R F Jackie Cooper

Native Mountain Pepper CA R O L INE RO L L S U ND E R an electric fence on the way to the nowdry Sea Elephant River to pick the wild pepper. Her outﬁt is unusually subdued today—a paint-splattered white long sleeved t-shirt hangs loose over black pants tucked into white socks and white shoes. She bends down to pick up a currawong feather and tucks it into her bright-white hair which is pulled up into a loose knot. The currawongs play an important role in the wild pepper process. “The trees don’t propagate themselves—they grow from bird poo. It’s got to go through a currawong. They’re the only birds that can eat the peppers.” Weaving in and out of wild pepper trees and native Manuka (ti tree), Caroline explains that the previous pepper picker showed her the crop’s location before he left the island. A fairly long drive through two properties on a very bumpy and lumpy unsealed track takes her to an electric fence and down to the crop of perhaps 100-or-so pepper trees of varying age. The pepper patch is as Caroline describes it—‘another world’. What seems like rows and rows of very straight tree trunks jut out from a very dry and mostly barren bush ﬂoor underneath a canopy of leaves. It’s quiet, except for the occasional wattle bird song. It smells slightly damp. Every now and then the stench of a dead wallaby wafts by. “You have to hold your nose here—something is awfully dead.” Summer is the season for the wild pepper, called Native Mountain Pepper, Tasmannia Lanceolata. One of a number of wild peppers it grows in Tasmanaia and in some parts of Victoria. Caroline picks once a week, for 3-4 hours at a time—‘when the spirit moves me’. She hikes (at breakneck speed) through the scrub in search of the black, ripe and ready berries. “The higher they go up, the blacker they are. Each tree ripens differently. Like fruit, the pepper has to ripen. They go green, red, and then black. This particular tree is red – in a fortnight the pepper will be black.” “The leaves are just as exciting to use as the peppers, think bay-leaves with a bite,” Caroline says, reaching her gloved hand up high to a large bunch of peppers to be stuffed into a canvas bag. She walks up to a tree brimming with shiny, black fruit. “This is what they should look like. This is a perfect bush – it’s a young bush. If I don’t take them now, the birds will have taken them all by next week.”

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R E G I O N A L

THE

F O O D

A U S T R A L I A

GUIDEKing Island O U R

C O M P R E H E N S I V E

G U I D E

T O

T H E

R E G I O N

Visiting King Island is not like visiting a foreign land– it’s very Australian and very familiar. But there are a few things to know that will make your visit live up to the promise of “enjoyable, healthful and restful.”

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THE

GUIDEKing Island

ING I SLAND makes few concessions to the wellheeled tourist. Many of the island’s visitors are the summer holiday families who own or rent a beach house and come back year after year. Even at its busiest, the island has a laid-back feeling and one adjective that never springs to your mind is ‘trendy’. The main town is Currie. Stay at Parer’s Hotel and you’ll very likely be witness to some local culture, when the boys come into town. “The trouble is, there aren’t enough girls” one local conﬁded. “They all go off to school on the mainland after year 10, and a lot of them don’t come back.” It’s a problem for the young men who stay around to work on the family farms. The odd wheelie in the hotel car park is one way of letting off steam. If you’re staying there, you’re advised to park your rental car in the rear section, out of harm’s way.

Many of the holiday homes are at Naracoopa, on the eastern side of the island, where the long, clean beach is more sheltered from the persistent westerly winds. Baudins, one of the island’s few restaurants, is in Naracoopa but when we visited out of season it was obviously off-form, with a limited menu and very little local produce on offer. Grassy, at the southern end of the island seems particularly wind-swept and behind-the-times. Yet behind the unprepossessing cream brick façade of the Grassy Club is the best food on the island (see the story on page 78) and the local butcher, John Boschetto does a great line in gourmet meats. His wallaby ham and salami are highly recommended (just take our advice and don’t tell your teenage daughters what they’re eating!) Locals will assure you that the Bennett’s wallaby is a pest on the island, so it’s fair game for shooters all year round (although you do need a license). There are short seasons on mutton birds, pheasants and duck. You can also bag the feral turkeys and peacocks that have naturalised here, but you need permission from farmers to shoot on their land. If you’d rather use a camera than a gun, you’ll also spot potoroo, brush tailed and ring tail possums and the shy Orange Bellied parrot. The Grassy breakwater is home to a fairy penguin rookery.

––––– –

The best option for accommodation is to rent a cottage and self-cater. There’s plenty of great produce on offer. The Fromagerie at King Island Dairy near Currie provides, not just a staggering array of cheeses (many you will never have seen before), but the best yoghurt you’ve ever tasted. King Island beef may come in unappetising cryovac packages from the supermarket, but is also available fresh from the butcher. Its superlative ﬂavour and tenderness is a beef-eater’s epiphany. Oysters, crays, abalone, ﬁsh of all descriptions are sea-fresh from King Island Seafoods. The renovated Boathouse, on Currie Harbour, is worth a visit. Whether you’re calling in for coffee, browsing for souvenirs or planning a party, everything works on the help-yourself system. Use the gas barbecue, and put your $5 in the honesty box. Make your own tea and coffee (instant), sign the visitor’s book, and leave a donation if you will. Because of the island’s size, it’s an easy drive to anywhere. It’s worth making the trip up to the Cape Wickham lighthouse. Built from local granite, it’s the tallest lighthouse in the southern hemisphere.

T’S A sea place, as you’d expect an island to be, with beaches that are clean and uncrowded – and unpatrolled, so it’s up to you to take care. Those waves rolling in from the Southern Ocean offer some of Australia’s best surfing. And with over 200km of coast, more than 60 known shipwrecks, and the lure of crayfish and abalone, divers have much to discover. Then there’s the fishing. Sweep is the favoured catch off the rocky western shores and there is excellent surf fishing from King Island’s sandy beaches. Or you can try for squid or barracouta off the wharves at Currie or Grassy. Three of the island’s lakes are also stocked with brown trout. Other favourite pursuits on King Island are bushwalking, cycling and beachcombing. If you’re a golfer, the King Island course offers a challenging workout and absolutely spectacular views of the ocean (but be prepared to cough up for excess baggage if you’re taking your clubs on King Island Airlines). Although King Island has a yesteryear feel about it, conveniences of modern life, like teller machines, EFTPOS, and the internet are as readily available as on the mainland. Just enjoy the mellow touches, like the local two-finger salute - two fingers lifted languidly from the steering wheel in greeting as you pass an oncoming car. Be ready to respond. On King Island, you’re not just part of the scenery.

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THE

GUIDEKing Island

Getting there From Melbourne, Regional Express flies once a day from Tullamarine and King Island Airlines flies three times a day from Moorabbin (the midday flight is technically a freight run). From Tasmania, Tasair has two flights a day out of Devonport (and an extra one on Saturdays). If you want to take your own car, Patrick Shipping operates the Mersey Searoadd from Port Melbourne. It calls at King Island weekly, but doesn’t carry passengers, so you have to fly separately. The airport is 8km from Currie. Regional Express 13 1713 King Island Airlines 03 6462 1000 Tasair 1800 062 900 www.tasair.com.au Patrick Shipping 03 9207 8900

Vital statistics

King Island lies at the western entrance to Bass Strait, midway between Victoria and mainland Tasmania, approximately 100km from both coasts. The population, according to the sign near the airport, is “about 2000”. Currie gets an average of 918mm of rain a year (less than Sydney, which receives 1223mm). But in Currie it rains more often—214 rain days per year compared to Sydney’s 138. It’s wettest in winter. Temperatures are mild, with summer maximums averaging 18–23C and winter maximums 11–15C. Overnight minimums are usually milder than elsewhere in Tasmania.

Getting around There is no public transport on King Island, so you’ll probably want to have a rental car waiting for you at the airport. When you leave, the usual requirement to ﬁll the tank has special challenges as there are no 24hour petrol stations and only one is open on Sunday (at The Trend in Currie). Cheapa Island Car Rentals 03 6462 1603 kimotors@kingisland.net.au King Island Car Rental 03 6462 1282 kicars@bigpond.com Taxi 03 6462 1138

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Rent a cottage with a view of the ocean; buy your produce fresh off the boat or straight from the dairy. Cook it the simple way, on the barbecue, maybe with a touch of the local mountain pepper. Where to eat

Where to stay

What to do

There are only 400 tourist beds on the island. Some cottages and villas claim 4 ½ star status and the rest range from 3 ½ star to frankly funky. Seek out ocean views. Parer’s Hotel has comfortable rooms but, if you want a good night’s sleep, ask to be located at the opposite end from the bar. For more information see www.kingisland.net.au

In summer, hit the beach. Fishing, surﬁng, diving, walking, horse-riding, golf – there are lots of outdoor things to do. Visit the museum or follow the shipwreck trail for a historical perspective on the island. Take a penguin tour to the Grassy breakwater at dusk. When it comes to nightlife …eerrrm …there isn’t much. You can play the pokies at one of the licensed clubs or at the pub. Or hire a DVD. There is, however, a healthy community arts scene, so see the local paper for details of performances.

C U RRI E Boomerang by the Sea 3½ star motel 1800 221 288 john@bythesea.com.au Devils Gap/Waterwitch Ocean view cottages 03 6462 1180 / mb: 0249 621 180 Gullhaven 4BR holiday home 03 6462 1560 Green Ponds Guest House 1800 359 993 King Island Gem Motel units, cottages 1800 647 702 ann@kingislandgem.com.au Cabins & caravan park Parer’s Hotel Meals, TAB, Pokies 03 6462 1633 Shannon Cottages 4 ½ star s/c cottages 03 6462 1370 Wavewatcher S/c apartments 03 6462 1517 GRA S S Y King Island Holiday 4 star s/c villas 1800 359 993 kiholiday@kingisland.net.au NA RACO O PA Baudains S/C cottages 03 6461 1110

King Island Golf & Bowling Club Golf, bowls, squash, TAB 03 6462 1126 King Island Dive Charters Wrecks, marine life dives 1800 030 330 King Island Coach Tours Full day, half day & penguin tours 1800 647 702 Southern Scuba Dive courses, group trips 03 6461 1011 / Mb 0418 340 657 King Island Museum Open 2-4pm, closed July, August 03 6462 1512 Fishing Information TG & DJ Perry 03 6462 1182 Tourist Information Book tours, car hire etc. 1800 645 014

It’s not a ﬁne dining kind of place, but there are a number of spots to sample the local specialties. Most locals recommend the Bold Head Brasserie at the unprepossessinglooking Grassy Club as the pick of the bunch. Others worth a try are Baudins at Naracoopa and Boomerang by the Sea, which has a breathtaking view over Currie Harbour and the wild Southern Ocean. The King Island Club and Parer’s Hotel also do meals. Harbour Road has a good breakfast and, some claim, the best coffee in town. For a quick snack, grab a crayﬁsh pie from King Island Bakery. Baudins 03 6461 1110 Bold Head Brasserie, Grassy Club 03 6461 1341 Boomerang by the Sea 03 6462 1288 Harbour Road Café f 03 6462 1807 Hoopers Restaurant, King Island Club 03 6462 1124 King Island Club Bistro 03 6462 1124 Parer’s Hotel 03 6462 1633

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If you want a beach to yourself, King Island has dozens of pristine, secluded ocean havens. You can stand on a sandy beach having your toes washed by the waves that come straight from South America. Where to shop Mainly, you’ll want to shop for food, whether it’s for immediate consumption or to take home. For the latter purpose, both the Currie supermarkets do a good trade in small insulated containers that you can carry on board the plane. You’ll also some ﬁnd some intriguing galleries selling paintings, pottery and local oddments. The unique kelp craft shop in Grassy is…well…unique. Supermarkets in Currie are open 8am to 6pm every day and there’s a Westpac ATM located in Currie.

FOOD Grassy Harbour Gourmet Meats Wallaby salami, prosciutto, hams 03 6461 1356 King Island Bakery Pies, cakes and Christmas puddings 03 6462 1337 King Island Cloud Juice From supermarkets and food outlets King Island Dairy Cheeses and yoghurt to die for 03 6462 1348 King Island Oysters Sea Elephant River oysters 03 6462 1774 King Island Seafoods Fresh crayﬁsh 03 6462 1774 Russell’s King Island Butchery Closed on race days! 03 6462 1435 ART, CRAFT AND SOUVENIRS Fool on the Hill Studio & gallery 03 6462 1182 King Island Naturals Garments from local wool 03 6462 1451 The Pepperpot Treasure trove of objets & art 03 6462 1180 The Trend Also tourist info, ﬁshing gear, bike hire 03 6462 1360

Major events

Forewarned is forearmed

TH E K I N G Island Imperial, a footrace across the island, is one of the biggest events, with quite a lot of money changing hands on the outcome. But the warm-up event for this annual handicap race sounds even more colourful. The ‘Free Willies Dash for Cash’ along British Admiral Beach, 5 mins from the centre of Currie, is run, as the name would suggest, nude.

I F Y O U ’RE going for the weekend, a visit to the famous King Island Dairy ‘Fromagerie’ needs planning. It’s open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday from 12 noon to 4.30pm, but closed all day Saturday – so plan to arrive on Friday afternoon or take a late ﬂight out on Sunday.

King Island Horse-Racing Carnival December-January King Island Show First Tuesday in March King Island Imperial 20 March Third weekend in March Queenscliff to Grassy Yacht Race March Muttonbird Season 2 weeks in April Pheasant Season June King Island Open Golf Tournament November King Island School Market Day December

––––– – D O N ’T FO RGET to pack… AN UMBR EL L A, a windproof jacket and a book. King Island has no bookstore.

––––– – AN D LEAVE behind… PLA NT S AND honey. Tasmania (and that includes King Island) has quarantine regulations that prohibit the import of fresh fruit and vegetables, honey, plants or plant parts, cut ﬂowers or anything carrying soil. So leave your pet pot plant at home, OK? R F

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SIMON JOHNSON

NEIL PERRY Rockpool, ANTHONY MUSARRA Radii, KAREN MARTINI Mr Wolf, JUSTIN NORTH Bécasse, GUILLAUME BRAHIMI Guillaume at Bennelong, SIMON JOHNSON Providore

SHOP WHERE THE CHEFS SHOP PYRMONT 181 Harris Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009. Tel 02 9552 2522 WOOLLAHRA 55 Queen Street, Woollahra NSW 2025. Tel 02 9328 6888 CASTLECRAG Quadrangle Shopping Village, 100 Edinburgh Road, Castlecrag NSW 2068. Tel 02 9967 9411 FITZROY 12 - 14 St David Street, Fitzroy VIC 3065. Tel 03 9486 9456 TOORAK 471 Toorak Road, Toorak VIC 3142. Tel 03 9826 2588 SUBIACO 169 Rokeby Road, Subiaco, Perth, WA 6008. Tel 08 9388 7780 www.simonjohnson.com

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Nuts on the Brain

HE ANCIENT doctrine of signatures was a kind of sympathetic magic that related the appearance of things to their function, particularly their usefulness for regulating bodily organs and their ills. Thus beans were thought to be good for your kidneys, asparagus was imagined to be the ancient equivalent of Viagra and walnuts were widely reputed to be of benefit to your brain. Walnuts enjoyed this reputation in cultures as wildly different as Britain and Japan. It’s not difficult to see the visual analogy. A wrinkled core, of two hemispheres, concealed beneath a tough shell, the whole covered with a smooth fleshy skin. The Afghani name for walnuts, charmarghz, means ‘four brains’. While modern science, as far as we know, hasn’t confirmed any specific benefits for the brain, walnuts may be good for your heart. Walnuts are rich in

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omega3 fatty acids, benevolent fats that combat heart disease. They are one of the few plants in which these fats occur. A detailed study done over many years in the USA and published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that eating walnuts signiﬁcantly lowers cholesterol in human blood. Walnuts are also a great source of protein and include vitamins and minerals including Vitamin A, potassium and magnesium. While it’s nice to know they’re probably good for you, the main reason to eat walnuts is for the taste. Because the local walnut crop is all picked by June, now is best time to eat fresh walnuts. While you eat them, reﬂect on their past and enjoy a sense of connection to our prehistoric ancestors. Walnuts are one of the oldest foods known to man and there is archaeological evidence that they were being harvested as early as 7000BC. There are more than 15 varieties of walnut, native to Asia, Europe and the Americas. The English Walnut, which is the family most commonly cultivated today, is believed to have originated in Persia, now Iran. The botanical name for the English walnut is Juglans regia. The Latin Juglans means ‘Jupiter’s Acorn’, attesting to the high regard the Romans had for the nut. Walnuts were often thrown at newly married Roman couples to symbolise fertility. (Ouch!) The USA is the largest producer of walnuts today. California has about 90,000 hectares of walnut orchards producing up to 250,000 tonnes of inshell walnuts per year. China produces about the same quantity annually. Walnut cultivation is also important in Turkey, Russia, Greece, Italy and France. Walnuts are the most commonly used nut in the baking industry and walnut oil is a traditional salad and cooking oil in Switzerland, Italy and France.

Honey Pickled Walnuts

OAN BATH and her husband run the Wine Café in Mount Barker approximately 50 km north of Albany, WA. The sell homemade and many other regional products and use the regional foods of the district on their menu. They also make a great pickled walnut. Joan says “When we bought our farm, it came with a beautiful, large mature walnut tree growing outside the back door. So we started several years of experimentation before perfecting the art of pickling the walnuts. Recipes all seemed to date from the early twentieth century and before. I know nearly every walnut tree in backyards around our district and we are planting a small walnut orchard on our property, propagated from our current tree.” The whole walnut fruit is picked around Christmas time before the shell has formed. Then follows about a month of treatment, to remove the bitterness, and air drying before ﬁnally pickling the fruit in vinegar with selected spices. Taste Mount Barker adds a little honey to soften the harshness of the vinegar. The walnuts are packed in 300 ml jars at $10 rrp. Joan adds “The pickled walnut is very much a part of the traditional ploughman’s lunch and as an ingredient they also were much favoured by the Two Fat Ladies for terrines, but also in sauces, gravies and casseroles.”

Taste Mount Barker 26 Langton Rd, Mount Barker WA (08) 98512500 tastemb@westnet.com.a ----------------------All products are available by mail order.

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Cracking the Australian market

F YOU buy packaged walnuts in the supermarket, chances are they’re imported (USA and China are the big producers). But there are local nuts available in season. Most varieties of walnuts need sharp winter cold to ﬂourish, but agricultural authorities in Australia are working to develop varieties that will grow in warmer climates. If you’re buying fresh nuts, there are small local growers in Victoria, southern New South Wales and Western Australia, but most are now Tasmanian walnuts from the massive, publicly listed Webster Ltd. Haven’t heard of Webster Ltd? Would you be surprised to hear that they’re the fourth oldest business in Australia? Webster’s business started in 1831, just 28 years after the settlement of Van Diemen’s Land. They’re a big name in Tassie where, at the turn of the century, they introduced early generators and refrigeration equipment into Tasmanian dairies. Today, Webster Ltd is a food and agribusiness based company with ﬁngers in lots of pies. The company exports fresh produce and services rural Tasmania through a joint venture with Elders Ltd (by-the-by, they also are a partner in Kelp Industries Limited, established in 1975 to mill Bull Kelp washed up on the shores of King Island). Webster operate Australia’s only commercial walnut nursery and are the only large-scale producers of walnuts. In 2006, they expect to produce 329 tonnes of nuts, from 350,000 trees. Their long term goal is to establish 800 hectares of walnut orchards, some jointventures and some company owned. With joint-venture orchards, local farmers supply the land, establish and maintain the orchard while Webster supplies

the expert advice to growers, an orchard maintenance service if needed, harvesting equipment, processing facilities and marketing and shipping services. The income is shared equally. Growing areas include Wye River and Cranbrook, north of Swansea, on the east coast of Tasmania. There are also joint-venture orchards in the Coal River Valley, Tamar Valley, North West Coast and other regions. Webster’s walnuts are available in the shell in bulk—ours came from a branded hessian sack at the local fresh food market. Stephanie Alexander recommends purchasing walnuts in small sacks and storing them in an outdoor shed (but this may not work in hot, tropical climates). Shelled nuts, says Stephanie, should be kept in an airtight container in a cool place, such as the refrigerator, otherwise they can become rancid very quickly. Fortunately, Webster’s also sell shelled walnuts in sealed cans.

Walnuts with a twist While walnuts are delicious to eat fresh from the shell and are a staple in baking, there are local businesses doing other interesting things with them. Using their brains, you might say. On a trip to Cowra in Central New South Wales, we discovered the highly addictive Cowra Smokehouse Walnuts. Having initially purchased a small packet (55g $2.50) as part of our picnic lunch, we headed back for more, coming home with a couple of large (250g $9) re-usable containers of these oily, salty, incredibly more-ish delicacies. Regional Gourmet Deli & Cafe and Cowra Smokehouse (02) 6342 6366 2 Lynch St Cowra 2794

Super bowls HAVE YOU spotted these yet? They’ve been around for a while in Coles Supermarkets. No, they’re not ﬁne china, but don’t be snobby, the classic shape means they ﬁt in anywhere. Use them for hearty soups, Asian dishes, salads, as fruit bowls or for serving vegetables. They’re perfect for laksa. Best of all is the price—at about $2.60 each it doesn’t matter too much if the odd one comes to grief. Occasionally they’re also available in shiny black.

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Oliveria Warmth to a cold day

The Oliveria Tap Step into the Oliveria store in Melbourne, opposite the Prahran Market, and you’ll be greated by Dorita or Les Laughlin. Dorota is Polish, Les is Australian and they met in Switzerland and were married in Italy. Coming home (for Les) meant the loss of any olive oil European culture and for both, despair at the way that our local oils are displayed. Presented as rows of bottles on a shelf, with almost no feedback from the labels, it’s hard to know what it will taste like. Their solution is a great concept of in-store olive oil tasting rack, the Oliveria Tap. Featuring local and overseas product, which they source directly, they will tell you about the oil’s producers, the style and ﬂavours to expect. There are also printed sheets with the kind of tasting

notes that ﬁne wine is accorded. Then take one of the small plastic cups and you can taste over two dozen varieties of olive oil. You can then buy the oil in a bulk pack to take home. If you don’t have a dispenser, buy one of their cheap and attractive ceramic oil dispensers and a pourer/stopper (or two) and then ﬁll from the bulk pack. The store has books and associated products such as biscuits, pasta and cooking accessories and olive based cosmetics. Each visit is an essential olive oil education. Their website www.oliveria.com.au is a very professional introduction, the store is on the corner of the Pran Central Shopping Centre, cnr. Commercial Rd & Cato St in Prahran. Ph: (03) 9510 0690 (Oh, and Les pronounces the name as in Pizzeria).

It was a dreary grey Melbourne winter’s day and standing outside Simon Johnston’s Toorak store there was a sudden cheery moment. The small yellow tins of El Serpis Spanish manzanilla olives ‘de anchoa’—anchovy filled green olives (350g $8.95, the cute 125g tin is $3.95), reminded me of a quote from a terrific book on olives that I was reading, Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit by Mort Rosenblum (just reprinted as a paperback.) Rosenblum is himself quoting from Lawrence Durrell and tells how ‘his shabby romantic in Justine brings warmth to a cold day in Alexandria with a small can of olives, spotted in a grocer’s window, and bought with his last few coins: “...sitting down at a marble table in that gruesome light I began to eat Italy, its dark scorched flesh, hand-modelled spring soil, dedicated vines.” Justine arrived, and he gave her an olive.’

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Photographed by Marie Raccanello and Lucia Ballestrin The Nardo Collection $59.95

…an invitation GRIFFITH Photographic portrait of a Riverina town

OBVIOUSLY A labour of love, this glossy coffee-table book celebrates life in the Riverina town of Griffith. Produced by two local photographers, it captures much of the multicultural heritage, particularly the strong Italian influence in the town. Most of the writing isn’t as lively as the story of the salami competition below, and some of the pictures have obviously been colour-enhanced and manipulated to within an inch of their lives, but the book includes some really beautiful and evocative images of the place and its people. Every town would be lucky to have such a sensitive interpretation of their region and lifestyles. It’s available through the Griffith Visitors Centre (Ph: 1800 681 141) or via the website www.aninvitationgriffith.com

The pigs are nervous ONE OF the biggest scandals to hit Grifﬁth in recent years occurred during last year’s salami competition. The scandal erupted not just because of the large number of non-Italians who entered the competition but the fact that the most quintessentially Australian bloke in town, more a Slim Dusty type than an Antonio Carluccio came second. Allan Willett, former shearer and local radio announcer, more recognised in town for his love of the horses and for his rhyming slang, had slain them with his salami. Allan’s second place is a great Aussie yarn. Picture the hall full of old Italians who have been making this stuff for

years sniffing and prodding slithers of ripe salami each with their own little secret mixture of herbs and spices and all hoping to win. And nothing engenders an argument between Italians more than making salami. ‘This family does it better than that family, the southern Italians make it better than the northern Italians’ and so the arguing goes on. When the winners were announced the shock of it all was too much. Can’t complain about the refs this time fellas because the Italians were the refs. The Aussie battler had come through with the goods and boy is he proud. Allan reckons he has salami making down to a fine art. Sweet Sherry, Allan told me, is the secret to a good salami and the secret to his success last year—but I’m not to tell anyone. He didn’t have any sherry on hand this year so he whacked in a bit of grappa to give that raw pig meat an extra kick. But Allan’s second place meant more than just bruised egos for the local Italians; it’s a great example of how multiculturalism becomes crossculturalism if you just give it some time. For all of Allan’s efforts in what is really just a quirky little story there is also a good story about how our culture has evolved. And the proof of that evolution is literally, in the eating. In the 1950s, when my mother was a kid, she was bashed at school one day and made to apologise for being a ‘dago’ because she had a salami sandwich on home-made bread cooked in a wood oven. These days kids can buy that same sandwich at the tuckshop at the same school with sun-dried tomatoes and marinated eggplant thrown in. I don’t reckon Allan’s grandkids, salami sandwich in hand, will cop the same flack—I’ll eat to that! Adrian Piccoli MP 2003 (From …an invitation GRIFFITH. Reproduced by permission)

Mark Kelly does Thredbo THIRTY-ONE CONSECUTIVE seasons of Thredbo winters must qualify me for something (please don’t ask my mother what that is). Throw in another couple of hundred days, across more than 30 ski resorts around the world and you realise this is one big habit. Yes, like food and wine. At Thredbo, the only resort in NSW with the European village feel, stay at one of the houses on the Crackenback Ridge (take your ear plugs for when the snow guns are running) or The River Inn. Segreto in the Thredbo Alpine Hotel, was serving seriously good Italian food last season. But the pick of the restaurant experiences remain Sante and the multi-award winning Credo. Credo does ‘Modern Australian’ food, with an emphasis on fresh local produce which changes constantly. Excellent cellar of aged wines. Crackenback Cottage is a great alternative place to stay on the Alpine Way. To quote chef Greg Harmer, from a Sydney Morning Herald article last season; “Our winter food is rich and has strong flavours ... to warm you up.” And there’s more. “Schnapps, red wine and chocolate are also favourites for those returning from the slopes.” Yep, I’ll have all of that please (but watch the drive back if you’re staying in Thredbo!) When the snow’s falling, go for first tracks, skip breakfast at the lodge and grab excellent coffee and other brekkie specials at Avalanche Cafe on the way up the hill. Get there at 8.10am and you’ll be first on the lift at 8.30am. Always stop at the top chair of Crackenback at least once on your trip for the “top of the world” views, service and smart mountain food. The best on-mountain food experience remains Karella Hutte. If you don’t ski (what are you doing here again?) go to the Thredbo AIS Centre for swimming, gym, massage (better still get them to come to you), then curl up with a book at the lobby bar fire place at the Thredbo Alpine Hotel. Make sure you have one (one only OK?) last schnapps at the Tyrolean style, Black Bear Inn, a Thredbo institution sold to developers by the Sommer family after 34 years. Skip the meals. For more of Mark Kelly’s Snow Food (including Hotham), see the Features section of our website.

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HA RV E S T

Christmas in July IN THIS out-of-synch hemisphere, we’re cheated out of the European traditions that accompany mid-winter and which are supposed to restore the sun from its lowest and shortest days and kick-start the new growing year. Christian celebrations have appropriated many pagan symbols and ceremonies with links to ancient Winter Solstice festivals. The wassail bowl hanging over a burning Yule log, the mulled wine and egg nog, the obligatory roast and the hearty pud of the English Christmas tradition do seem more appropriate to the cold darkness of a northern winter than to a hot Australian summer. It would, perhaps, be fanciful to link the growing popularity of Christmas in July festivities to any primitive desire to conjure back summer. But there’s no denying that low temperatures outside make hearty Christmas food much more attractive. And you don’t have to bother with all the tiresome shopping. Not surprisingly, Christmas in July seems to be embraced most warmly in the colder parts of the country. Thredbo, for example, where they’re planning on a white Christmas from 21 to 23 July. It all comes complete with skiing Santa, fireside egg nog, carollers in the Village Square, and plenty of Christmas fare. The highlight is the “Top of the Mountain Christmas Feast” on Thursday July 21 at Eagles Nest Restaurant, perched at the top of the ski lift. The fixed price includes a gondola ride up to the restaurant and a five-course Christmas extravaganza! The Blue Mountains have built a whole festival around the ‘Christmas in July” idea. ‘Yulefest’ apparently owes its origins to some homesick Irish travellers who, in 1980, inspired the host at the Mountain Heritage Country Lodge Retreat in Katoomba to turn on an improvised,

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but impressive, Christmas feast. They’re still doing it, as are many of the other establishments in the area. The Mercure Grand Hotel Hydro Majestic are going all the way with a ‘Faulty Towers’ (sic) Christmas Show on Saturday nights. You can even have Yulefest aﬂoat, on the Nepean Belle. The paddle-wheeler cruises through the Nepean Gorge by day or by night, with appropriate Christmas festivities, through July and August. Only the night-time menu sounds particularly Christmassy, though, and even then the substitution of sticky date pudding for the traditional plum pud sounds like a bit of a cop-out. Probably not one for the gourmet—in our experience, it’s hard to get good food on anything that moves. Close to Melbourne, the historic Rupertswood country house, near Sunbury, is celebrating Christmas on 17 July. A sumptuous three course luncheon, including pre-lunch drinks and hors d’oeuvres, will be served in Rupertswood’s magniﬁcently restored Drawing Room and you’ll have “access to the Smoking Room and the Clarke Dining Room.” It’s a chance to pretend you’re part of the landed gentry in the English countryside—rumour has it that King George VI stayed here when he was Prince of Wales.

Rupertswood (above)

Sunday 17 July Christmas in July luncheon Booking essential (11.30am-4.00pm) (03) 97405020 Eagles Nest Restaurant

Thredbo Thursday 21 July. Christmas feast on Crackenback Mountain (02) 6457 6019 Mercure Grand Hotel

Hydro Majestic, Blue Mountains Weekends until 3 September. ‘Christmas at Faulty Towers’ Accommodation packages or dinner & show only (02) 4788 1002 Peppers Fairmont Resort

Leura Every Saturday in July Yulefest buffet dinner, ﬁne wines, Santa (02) 4784 4144 Home of Yulefest

The Mountain Heritage, Katoomba Until August 7. Accommodation packages, Yulefest dinners and luncheons (02) 4782 2155 Nepean Belle Paddlewheeler

Dinner Friday & Saturday, lunch Sundays, other days by demand (02) 4733 1274

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Recipes Everyone’s mother makes the ‘best’ Christmas pudding, but my mother deﬁnitely does. The grandchildren queue up for seconds, and it’s not just because of the money hidden inside. Their grandfather has hoarded up shillings, sixpences and two, much-coveted twoshilling pieces of ‘old’ money, which have to be returned each year after dinner and exchanged for their decimal currency equivalents. Jan O’Connell

Nanny’s Christmas Pudding 225g suet 225g soft breadcrumbs 225g sugar good pinch salt 115g plain ﬂour 1.5 tblsp mixed spice ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda 4 eggs rind & juice of one lemon 115g almonds or 1 tsp almond essence 115g mixed peel 225g sultanas 225g currants 225g raisins ½ cup brandy ½ cup milk Silver coins or tokens, if you like.

Prepare the fruit. Mix fruits together, break up lumps and cut raisins in pieces if too large. You can add the brandy to the fruit and leave to soak overnight, but Nanny doesn’t.

Mix suet, breadcrumbs and dry ingredients together in batches in a food processor. Or you can grate the suet and then mix with the dry ingredients. The food processor is much easier.

Add fruit to the suet mixture and mix

through. Add lightly beaten eggs and ﬂavourings, milk and brandy (if you haven’t already used it to soak the fruit) and stir well. The mixture should be fairly stiff.

Add coins or tokens, if using. At this point, it

is traditional for each member of the family to stir the pudding and make a wish (a custom Nanny adheres to rigorously, although there are now only two of them in the household).

Scrape into a greased 2 to 2.5 litre pudding

bowl, cover top with two layers of greaseproof paper and secure with string. Cover with one layer of foil and secure with string. Pass string under the bottom of the bowl in both directions, as though wrapping a parcel, and make a secure loop at the top so you can lift the bowl by the loop. Put the bowl into a large saucepan with water a little less than half way up. Boil for 8 hours, making sure to top water up regularly so it doesn’t boil dry.

Refrigerate in bowl until needed. This keeps for up to a year in the fridge, so you can make one for July and one for Christmas at the same time!

Two hours before serving, return bowl to

saucepan, add water and boil as before. Remove bowl from saucepan, turn pudding out onto a serving dish and serve with custard, brandy sauce, and/or cream.

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HARRIS FARM ADVERTISING PROMOTION

You have to get up early to do a better deal than David Harris.

THE SCENE WAS Harris Farm Markets’, buying room at Flemington market, 4.30am. They’d been at it for some time. Monday to Friday, three staff start at 1.30am, the rest begin at 4am. With computer and phone, they’re buying for 17 stores across NSW. Each store is different in its needs and they get fresh produce each day.

David Harris buys the premium lines; this day he tells us that he’s negotiated raspberries, needs to have some strawberries checked and still has to get enough ﬁgs. Harris Farm Markets purchase from the markets, checking each pallet of fruit and vegetables offered and selecting from the best or cheapest for that day.

By contrast, the major supermarket chains are not represented at the markets and do their buying over the web, direct from the major growers or on contract from the smaller ones. They don’t see the produce until it arrives at their depot. Bob Ortardo, in his late seventies, has worked for David for many years. He’s as nimble as someone much younger, climbing on forklifts to check a carton, scuttling from one arrival to another. He rejects the ﬁrst load of broccoli and makes a call to the dealer to say ‘it’s too dry, too old’, which brings a new forklift with different product packed in ice, with tight crisp green heads.

There’s obvious respect from the dealers, and Harris Farm buyers are offered select produce or a special price. By 6.30am the sunlight is coming through the gaps between sheds and overhead windows. David Harris invites us to follow him, as he still needs a few more cases of ﬁgs. The negotiation seems to take forever and there’s a constant movement around the crates. There’s a little give and take as both sides make offers, shake their heads and then settle a price that makes them smile.

David heads back to Harris Farm Markets’ warehouse and ofﬁce, where he takes off his buyer’s hat to become a businessman. Tomorrow, he’ll do it all again.

Bondi•Broadway•Castle Hill•Charlestown•Edgecliff•Erina•Merrylands•Mosman•Orange Parramatta•Pennant Hills•Rhodes•St Ives•Strathfield•Willoughby www.harrisfarm.com.au

S EA S O N S B E S T

E’VE WRESTLED with how to list what fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood are in season around Australia. As Stephanie says in the quote above, if you’re in one of our major cities there will be little difference to the produce you have available. What will be different, is what’s at peak freshness, sourced locally in your state and seasonally best. Only by asking your greengrocer, market stall holder or farmers’ market grower will you know what has been just picked, cold d h ll d

If you supermarket shop, then you’re out of luck. You will be lucky to have labeling that will tell you if it’s Australian or an imported product (cheap supermarket garlic comes mostly from China but it’s not labeled as that in my local Coles). And have you ever seen anyone to talk to who knows their produce in a supermarket? Here in a quarterly magazine we can only point you towards those seasonal items, online on the Regional Food website, we have better monthly information (and more pictures.) www.regionalfood.com.au

“...true regional cooking probably no longer exists in any country that has any form of sophisticated transport and communications.” Stephanie’s Seasons. By Stephanie Alexander. Published by Allen & Unwin 1993 Tangelos

Honeydew melons

The Minneola Tangelo is a deep orangecoloured citrus fruit and was ﬁrst grown in Australia in 1992. A hybrid fruit, the Tangelo is a cross between a Dancy mandarin and Duncan grapefruit and you can identify them immediately by their distinctive ‘little neck’. Early season Tangelos come from Mundubbera and Gayndah in Queensland, then from NSW, SA, VIC and WA. While slightly more tart in ﬂavour than mandarins Tangelos are popular because they’re easy to peel, virtually seedless and they’re one of the juiciest of all fruits. They have twelve segments (count them) that pull apart easily. Use tangelos wherever you would use oranges or mandarins.

The yellow skin honeydew melons this winter. With pale cream flesh, these melons are amazingly sweet yet delicate in flavour and best served slightly chilled. The smooth white-skin honeydew melons with pale green flesh are less sweet.

Strawberries The ‘Camerosa’ strawberries from Queensland actually do have ﬂavour. They’re picked over the next two months and have the ‘Camerosa’ sticker on the packaging. Queensland grows over 24 million strawberry plants each year and almost 70% are Camerosa variety. Strawberries will keep for 4-7 days in a covered container in the refrigerator. No strawberry tastes good cold, so remove them from the refrigerator for about 4 hours before eating.

Potatoes If you think KIPFLER potatoes are exotic, the number of varieties that are available from some of the farmers’ markets will really surprise you. Even the commercial growers are supplying new varieties. NICOLA, KING EDWARD and SPUNTA are becoming common (and all tasty) but look out for... CHARLOTTE—the biggest selling salad potato in Europe, blonde and buttery. SERIFINA—the yellow-skin Serifina potato retains its firmness when cooked which makes it great for salads, stews and casseroles. KURODA—you’ll pick its dark red skin and smooth yellow flesh. A finer texture and is considered even better than DESIREE in flavour. ALMERA —long, oval and with a clear, creamy coloured skin, this potato has smooth yellow flesh. It can be baked, boiled or made into chips. And you might see BF15—not the most romantic name, a new French variety with a teardrop shape. It tastes good baked or boiled.

STORING POTATOES All potatoes are best stored (preferably in a covered cardboard box) in a cool well-ventilated place, but not refrigerated as their natural sugar content turns into starch which can alter their ﬂavour and texture.

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S EA S O N S B E S T GREMOLATA* —combine 1⁄2 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, 1-2 teaspoons grated lemon zest and 1 clove of finely chopped garlic. It’s always sprinkled over Osso Bucco but you can also add it to pumpkin or fresh tomato soup, grilled fish, barbecued prawns, pan-fried chicken fillets or lamb cutlets.

FENNEL, ORANGE AND OLIVE SALAD Try this Fennel, Orange and Olive Salad – layer ﬁnely sliced fresh fennel with sliced new season navel oranges and chives. Season with salt and ground pepper. Top with baby rocket leaves, black olives and drizzle with virgin olive oil and verjuice.

Parsley

Fennel / Aniseed

You’ll see both the curly and flat-leaf parsley. Curly (frilly) parsley has a mild flavour and is used in salads, cooking, as a garnish and is preferred in England. Flat leaf parsley (Italian parsley) has a stronger flavour that complements many European meat and fish dishes and is now very popular in Australia. An easy garnish made from flat-leaf parsley is the versatile Gremolata*.

With a gentle aniseed flavour and texture a little like celery. There’s a difference in flavour between the male and female fennel. The longer fennel bulbs are ‘male’ and have a more savoury flavour, and the rounder bulbs are female and are slightly sweeter. You’ll notice that when eating them raw (sliced in a salad) but when cooked the difference is lost as the flavour becomes more subtle.

Seafood Colder water temperatures close to shore bring different varieties, but down deep there are few seasonal impacts. Some species are protected at certain times, spawning and growing seasons dictate what’s best and at peak. In the next few months look especially for Mussels, Atlantic Salmon and Dusky Flathead. Closed seasons: July – Moreton Bay Bugs, Northern Territory Calamari, Banana and King Prawns, West Australian Rock Lobster season is closed now until mid November. There’s a Southern Rock Lobster and Giant Crab closure in Tasmania and Victoria from September to mid November and the lobster in South Australia in September.

Ruby grapefruit If you pucker up eating a bitter grapefruit each morning, try the red-ﬂesh varieties. Star Ruby, Rio Red and Flame are just a few of the new varieties being grown in the warm climates of Queensland, Western Australia and Northern Territory. These ruby-ﬂeshed grapefruit are sweeter, lower in acid and very juicy.

Leeks Are at the peak of their season in June/ July. Because the soil is heaped around them you need to fan out the leaves and rinse very well. Use only the tender white part as the green tops are chewy and ﬁbrous when cooked.

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Gold Kiwifruit The gold smooth-skin kiwi fruit are popular with people who don’t like the fuzz of green ones but they are also sweeter than green kiwi fruit, lower in acid and have a similar attractive ﬂesh with the distinctive seeds when sliced. Buy ﬁrm plump fruit and leave to ripen at room temperature until they yield to gentle pressure. Once ripe, store in the refrigerator and use within a few days. There are mini varieties now sold in punnets that are crunchy and usually eaten whole.

Jerusalem artichokes

‘Topless’ Pineapples

The name suggests middle eastern origin but it’s actually an English mangling of the Italian girasole “turning to the sun following”. That’s what the tall flowers on the plants do, not surprisingly because they’re a variety of sunflower. They have nothing to do with artichokes. The knobbly tubers look a bit like fresh ginger with a nutty sweet flavour and slightly crunchy texture. They can be eaten raw in salads, peeled and chipped, mashed, made into soup or casseroles but we like them baked in their skins. Jerusalem artichokes go with leeks, garlic, parsley, chives, tomatoes, lemon, olive oil, celery, chicken, veal, Gruyere cheese or Parmesan. If you’re peeling them, place in a bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon juice to prevent discolouring.

Minus the leafy tops, these Queensland pineapples are more compact and easy to carry home. If you test ripeness by plucking a leaf from the top, relax, that’s a bit of myth. As they dry out you can always pull a leaf. A fragrant tropical aroma is the best indicator of ripeness and ﬂavour as pineapples don’t ripen after harvesting. The ‘topless’ pineapples are consistently sweet and low in acid, they have a high Vitamin C content, pleasant crunchy texture and are less ﬁbrous. (The tops are used to propagate a new pineapple.) Seasons’ Best information comes from our market visits, information provided by interstate readers and from Harris Farm Markets who sponsor that section of our online site.

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Regional Food Calendar See our website for up to minute events: www.regionalfood.com.au

July

August

September

NEW SOUTH WALES

ACT

9 - 16 July

6 - 7 August

18 September

Evans Head Fishing Classic

Riverina Small Farms Expo

Old Bus Depot Markets - Fine Food Day

Unconfirmed date. On the River, Evans Head.

Wagga Wagga Showgrounds & Exhibition Complex. Bourke Street, Wagga Wagga.

Over 50 local and Canberra region food and wine producers celebrate spring with a day full of cooking demonstrations and interactive with chef Mary Wills. Old Bus Depot Markets , Wentworth Ave, Kingston,

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

20-21 August

1 - 30 July

Northern Rivers Herb Festival

Coonawarra Cellar Dwellers 2005

Riverside Park, Lismore.

For the month of July 2005, Coonawarra Cellar Doors will be showcasing back vintage wines from their range, available for tasting and sale. Coonawarra, Limestone Coast

17 July

Mid-Winter Merriment in Mount Benson Warm up with hot soup and a wine tasting then follow the wine trail for food and wine selections from five cellar doors. Weekend packages available from Adelaide. 08 8768 2465 www.mbva.com.au Mount Benson Wine Region via Robe

27 - 29 August

Market Power Farmers’ Markets: the real food revolution grows. Second national Australian Farmers’ Markets Conference 02 9360 9380 www.farmersmarkets.org.au Lake Hume Resort, Albury.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

The annual festival has market stalls, food and beverage stalls and amusement rides entertaining those of all ages. Seafront Oval, Esplanade. Hervey Bay

31 July

TASMANIA 19 August

Main Street of Childers

Winter Feast by the Fire

VICTORIA

Rediscover the savours and flavours of authentic regional cooking with Simon’s shared table winter feast. 4 courses with entertainment. Meadowbank Estate

Cape Mentelle Cabernet Tasting Cape Mentelle’s biennial benchmark cabernet tasting moves to Melbourne. Taste 20 of the world’s best cabernet sauvignons from the 2001 vintage, followed by canapés and a gourmet lunch. More information 08 9757 0817 www.capementelle.com.au Atlantic South Wharf, Southbank Melbourne

QUEENSLAND 4 September Banks of Auckland Creek, Gladstone Experience the taste of Gladstone’s succulent seafood, washed down with superb wine. www.gladstonefestival.com

6 - 8 September

Narrandera Agricultural Show & Championship Dog Show.

Heritage AG Show

Narrandera Showgrounds, Elizabeth Street, Narrandera.

12 - 15 September

Hervey Bay Whale Festival 2005 Electric Light Parade

Street activities followed by Oysterfest dinner and the opening of an exhibition in the Memorial Hall. Ceduna, Eyre Peninsula

3 September

Hay Agricultural Show

G&S Engineering Wine and Food Day

July 16

Various locations in Mudgee.

The Gawler Show is the largest two day country show in South Australia. Gawler, Barossa Valley

31 August

Childers Multicultural Food, Wine and Arts Festival

Mudgee Wine Celebration

Gawler Show 2005

QUEENSLAND

An array of local produce, aromatic foods, wine, lively entertainers, children’s amusements, workshops and jazz bands. The Civic Centre Precinct. Gordon Street, Mackay

1 - 30 September

10 - 11 September

16 July

Ceduna Oysterfest 2005

Gladstone Seafood Festival.

NEW SOUTH WALES

27 - 28 August

QUEENSLAND

30 September - 2 October

Hay Showground, Hay.

Fine Food Australia/Hotel Australia Industry/trade show. Includes ‘Bakery World, Dairy World, Drinks World, Confectionery World, C-Store & Supermarket, Natural Products and Meat & Seafood World’. (Wow, CStore World. I gotta be there). Darling Harbour, Sydney.

September 24 - 25

The Feast of the Olive Oil tasting, picking and marinating table olives, tapenade demonstrations, olive tree growing and care, cooking with olives, market day and more. 0419 244 785 Hunter Valley Olive Trail

30 September - 1 October

Deni Ute Muster Various venues around Deniliquin

Queensland’s premier and largest agricultural field days, providing the rural and business community the opportunity to display the latest technology and product releases to local, interstate and international visitors. www.agshow.com.au Glenvale Road Toowoomba

10 September

Kingaroy Peanut Festival 2005 www.peanutfest.southburnett.com.au O’Neill Square, 138A Haly Street. Kingaroy

24 - 25 September

Kilkivan Beef Festival 2005 Riders and spectators converge on Kilkivan Showgrounds for a full weekend of campdraft action. Kilkivan Showgrounds, Kilkivan

WESTERN AUSTRALIA 10 September

Perth Hills Wine Show Over 100 wines from producers around the Perth Hills region. Kalamunda Agricultural Hall, Canning Road, Kalamunda

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

27 August

2 - 10 September 2005

25 September

Opera Under the Stars

Royal Adelaide Show

Opera Under The Stars is the Kimberley’s unique, must-experience opera gala event presented in the lush, topical gardens of the Mangrove Resort Hotel. Mangrove Resort Hotel, Broome

South Australia’s biggest annual event with entertainment, exquisite handicraft, cookery and a wide variety of champion livestock and animals.

Eagle Vale Oyster and Sauvignon Blanc Indulgence. Enjoy freshly shucked oysters and wine by the glass. 08 9757 6477 www.eaglevalewine.com 51 Caves Road, Witchcliffe

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FARMERS’ MARKETS Our national guide to markets around Australia. ACT

Bathurst Organic Market

Kiama Produce Market

Canberra Region Farmers Market

Fridays 9am - 5.30pm Saturdays 9am - 1pm Brooke Moore Centre, Bathurst

4th Saturday of every month, 8am to 1pm Black Beach, Kiama

Blackheath Growers Market

Lismore Farmers Market

2nd Sunday each month, 9 am - 1pm Blackheath Community Center, Cnr Great Western Hwy and Gardiner Cres, Blackheath

Every Saturday 8am-11am Lismore Showground

Every Saturday. 8am to 11am Exhibition Park in Canberra Kuringai Building - access via Federal Highway and Wells Station Road. www.canberraregionfarmersmarket. com.au

QUEENSLAND Brisbane Powerhouse Farmers’ Markets

Bowral Farmers’ Market Bowral Memorial Hall, Bendooley Street, Bowral

2nd and 4th Saturday 6am - 11.30am Brisbane Powerhouse. 117 Lamington Street, New Farm www.brizmarkets.com

Byron Farmers Market

Indooroopilly Farmer’s Markets 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month 7am–noon St Josephs College, Indooroopilly www.brizmarkets.com

Marina Mirage Farmers’ Markets 1st and 3rd Saturday 7am - 12noon Seaworld Drive, The Spit

Mudgeeraba Farmers Markets 2nd and 4th Saturday month. 6am - 11am October to April, 7am - 12pm noon May to September Mudgeeraba Road, Mudgeeraba, 4213.

Noosa Farmers Markets

Every Sunday morning 6am - 11.00am. Miami State High School, Gold Coast Highway, Miami.

North Coast Farmers’ Market Saturday morning Lismore Showground Lismore

2nd & 4th Saturday 9am - Midday Wynyard Showgrounds, Wynyard

Coffs Coast Farmers’ Market

Northside Produce Market

Deloraine Showgrounds Market

Fortnightly Thursday’s 9:00am - 5:00pm City Square Coffs Harbour

3rd Saturday, 8am - noon Community Centre, Miller St, North Sydney

Cowra Farmers Market 3rd Saturday, 9 -12 noon River) Cowra Showground, Grenfell Rd, Cowra (on the Banks of the Murray

Dubbo Farmers Market 4th Saturday, 8am - noon Dubbo Showgrounds

Fox Farmers Market

Armidale Farmers Market Sundays 8.00am - 1pm K Mart Car Park, Dumaresq Street, Armidale NSW

Banora Point Farmers’ Market 1st and 3rd Saturday (& 5th if it applies) 7.00am - 12 noon Banora

Bathurst Farmers’ Market 4th Saturday, 8.00 - 11.30am Bathurst Showground, Mitchell Hwy, Bathurst or Berry Park (along side the Denison Bridge)

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NSW Farmers Association Farmers Market

2nd & 4th Saturday, 8 - noon Gateway Island, Lincoln Causeway, Albury Wodonga

2nd Saturday, 8.30 - 12pm Orange Showground.

Pokolbin Growers’ Market 4th Saturday of every month Blaxlands Restaurant, Pokolbin

2nd Thursday 7am - 1pm Centre Market Square Grafton

2nd Saturday of the month 8am - 12 noon, and during daylight saving the 2nd Tuesday 3pm - 7pm

Great Lakes ~ Great Produce Market

Wagga Wagga Farmers Market

3rd Saturday 8.00 am - 12.00 noon Great Lakes College - Forster Campus. Camp Hawke Drive, Forster. www.greatlakesgreatproduce.com.au

2nd Saturday 8am - 1.00pm CBD, City Gardens, Wollundry Lagoon

2nd Saturday of the month, 8am - 1pm Castle Hill Showground, Showground Rd, Castle Hill

Hume Murray Farmers Market Weekly until end March then Fortnightly from 9th April onwards, 8.00am - 12.00 noon Gateway Island, Lincoln Causeway, Albury www.hmfb.org

1st Saturday of the month 9am - 1pm and the 3rd Saturday of the month Feb to May Lake Hwy, Deloraine

Orange Farmers Market

Grafton Farmers’ & Growers Market

Hawkesbury Harvest Farmers & Gourmet Food Market

Wynyard Farmers’ Market

VICTORIA

Rainbow Region Organic Market

4th Saturday of every month 8am - Noon Wauchope Showgrounds

1st and 3rd Saturdays 8.30am - 12 noon Wivenhoe Showgrounds, Burnie

Every Saturday, 8am - noon Warwick Farm Racecourse, Liverpool NSW 2570

1st Saturday except January, 7 - 11am Pyrmont Bay Park (opposite Star City Casino) www.events.smh.com.au

Hastings Farmers Market

NEW SOUTH WALES

Burnie Farmers’ Market

2nd and 4th Saturday John Street, Camden

Good Living Growers Market

The Organic Gold Coast Farmers Market

TASMANIA

Camden Fresh Produce Markets

Northey Street Organic Market

3rd Sunday month, 7am - 12noon, November to April Old Cold Stores, Wallangarra Road, Stanthorpe, 4380.

Nabiac Farmers’ Market

Seasonal approximately monthly Penola Race Course, Penola Willunga Farmers Market Saturday weekly, 8am -1pm Alma Hotel Carpark, Willunga

Last Saturday of every month 8am-12pm Nabiac Showground, Nabiac Street Nabiac NSW 2312

4th Sunday month, 7am - 12noon. Weyba Road, Noosaville, 4567.

“Stanthorpe in Season” Farmers Market

1st Saturday - 8.30 - 12 noon St Johns Anglican Church, Church St, Mudgee

Limestone Coast Farmers Market

Thursdays, 8 - 11am Butler Street Reserve

Wednesdays, 10am-4pm, Saturdays 10am-4pm and Sundays 10am-5pm Fox Studios, Moore Park

Every Saturday, 6am - 10.30am Northey Street City Farm, Northey Street, Windsor, 4030.

Mudgee Farmers Market

a regular schedule Various Locations - Next one to be confirmed soon!

Tuesday morning, Thursday twilight Lismore Showgrounds

Tamworth Farmers Market

Wingham Showground Farmers’ Market 1st Saturday 8am- 11.00am Wingham Showground, Gloucester Rd Wingham

SOUTH AUSTRALIA Barossa Farmers Market Every Saturday 7.30 - 11.30am Vintners Sheds, cnr Nuriootpa & Angaston Rds, www.foodbarossa.com

Battunga Country Growers Market Old Uniting Church Camp, 2 Marriot St Macclesfield (Adelaide Hills)

Eyre Peninsula Farmers Market

Albury-Wodonga Farmers’ Market

Avenel Produce Market 2nd Sunday, 1 - 4.30pm Harvest Home Hotel, Bank St, Avenel

Bendigo Farmers’ Market 2nd Saturday 8am - 1pm Bendigo Showgrounds, 42 - 72 Holmes Road Bendigo

Knox Farmers Market 3rd Saturday 8am - 1pm Wantirna Primary School, Mountain Hwy, Wantirna Sth. Melways Ref. 63 E8 www.rfm.net.au

Boroondara Farmers Market 3rd Saturday, 8am - 12.30pm Patterson Reserve, Cnr Toorak Rd & Auburn Rd, East Hawthorn

Bundoora Park Farmers Market 1st Saturday 8am - 1pm Bundoora Park, Plenty Rd, Bundoora www.rfm.net.au

Cardinia Ranges Farmers’ Market Pakenham Racecourse, Pakenham 2nd Saturday of month, 8.00am-Midday

Central Murray Farmers’ Market 1st, 3rd & 5th Saturday 8am-1pm Alton Reserve High St. Echuca

Central Victoria Farmers Market 1st Sunday (starts Sept ‘04) 8.30 - 1pm Cnr Midland Highway & Blackjack Road Harcourt

Still gauging response for

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This listing is taken from our website at www.farmersmarkets. com.au which we try to keep updated and accurate. Online we have space for you to tell us much more about your market, and include photographs. We haven’t included markets here that take a break over winter, and if you have a market that’s not listed here or on the website, we’d love to include it, please let us know.

Central Geelong Farmers’ Market

Talbot Farmers’ Market

2nd Saturday 8.30am to 12.30pm Little Malop Street - between Moorabool and Yarra Streets, Geelong

3rd Sunday 10am - 2pm Talbot Historic Precinct, Scandinavian Crescent, Talbot www.ballarat.com/talbot/farmers_market. htm

Churchill Island Farmers’ Market 4th Saturday, 8.00am - 1.00pm Main Street, Phillip Island

Traralgon Farmers Market

2nd Saturday, 8.00am - 1.00pm St Helier Street, Abbotsford

4th Saturday 8am - 1pm Kay St, Traralgon, opposite the council chambers

Drouin Farmers’ Market

Veg Out St Kilda Farmers’ Market

Collingwood Children’s Farmers’ Market

3rd Saturday, 8.00am - 12.30pm Civic Park, Drouin, West Gippsland

Essendon Farmers’ Market 4th Saturday 8am - 12.30pm Essendon Secondary College, 286 Buckley Street Essendon

East Gippsland Farmers Market 1st Saturday 8.00am - 1.00pm Secondary College Oval, McKean St Bairnsdale

Highland Farmers Markets - Malvern 1st Sunday Feb - Dec 10am - 2pm Malvern Gardens, Cnr.High St and Spring Rd, Malvern. Melways Ref. 59 D7

Highland Craft and Produce Market - Kilmore 3rd Saturday 8.30am - 12.30pm Memorial Hall, Sydney St, Kilmore. Melways Ref. 509 K9

Highland Farmers’ Markets - Moonee Ponds 4th Saturday - Jan to Nov 8am - 12.30pm The Incinerator Arts Complex, 180 Holmes Rd, Moonee Ponds.

Highland Farmers’ Market Williamstown 4th Sunday Feb - November (except March as it’s Easter Sunday!) 9am - 1.30pm John Morley Reserve, The Strand, Williamstown (near the Ferguson St Pier)

Lanceﬁeld and District Farmers Market 4th Saturday 9am - 1pm Center Plantation, High St, Lancefield

Local Producers’ Market (Milawa) Every fortnight from November 2, 9am - 1pm to the end of summer Milawa Cheese Factory, Milawa

Myrtleford Produce Market Every Saturday, January to mid April 8am -12 noon St Pauls Hall Grounds, Great Alpine Road, Myrtleford

Port Fairy Farmers Market 2nd Saturday, 8am - 2pm Railway Place, Port Fairy

Tatong Farmers Market

4th Saturday 8am - 12.30pm Peanut Farm Oval, between Chaucer & Spenser Streets St Kilda www.vegout.asn.au/market.php

Warrnambool Farmers’ Market 1st Saturday, 8am - Midday Civic Green, Liebig St, Warrnambool

Wellington Farmers’ Market 3rd Saturday 8am - Midday Port of Sale, Cnr Princess Hwy and Foster St, Sale www.wellington.vic.gov.au

Yarra Valley Farmers’ Market 3rd Sunday year round, 10am - 2pm The Barn at Yering Station Vineyard, 38 Melba Hwy, Yering www.yarravalleyfood.com.au

WESTERN AUSTRALIA Albany Farmers Market Every Saturday, 8-12 noon Aberdeen Street Albany www.albanyfarmersmarket.com.au

Boyanup Farmers Market 3rd Sunday month, Memorial Park Complex, Boyanup www.farmersmarket.boyanup.com

Carnarvon Farmers Market Every Saturday (May - December), Civic Centre, Carnarvon

Gascoyne Growers Markets May to October, Every Saturday 8am - 12 noon Carnarvon Civic Centre, Camel Lane Carnarvon

M a r k e t P ow e r Farmers’ markets national conference “Farmers’ markets put fresh food and the control of its production back into the hands of those who grow, rear and produce it, providing a viable alternative channel in the current highly concentrated food supply system. They also offer consumers fresh, healthy food and another way of shopping that is not dominated by the industrial food heavyweights.” So reads the introduction to the program for the 2nd National Farmers’ Markets Conference. And they’re sentiments that Regional Food endorses. The growth of the farmers’ market movement has been proliﬁc. When the ﬁrst farmers’ market conference was held in Bathurst in 2002, there were around 30 markets Australia wide. Now there are more than 80 trading regularly in all states. This second conference, to be held in Albury from 27 to 29 August, will allow those active or interested in the Australian farmers’ market movement to hear local and international speakers, to share knowledge and to participate in some convivial meals. Speakers include Dr Barbara Santich, Associate Professor of Gasronomy at Adelaide University, Gawen Rudder, food consultant and member of our own Regional Food Advisory Board and many, many producers from around the country (including Fiona Chambers also on our Advisory Board). For more information: visit www.farmersmarkets.org or call 02 9360 9380.

Manjimup Farmers Market Monthly, dates on website www.mysouthwest.com.au

Margaret River Farmers Market 2nd Sunday of month Old Hospital, Margaret River

Wanneroo Farmers Market 1st Saturday of each month 8am - l2 noon Wannerooo Showgrounds, Corner Ariti and Wanneroo Roads

1st Saturday, 8am - 1pm Tatong Tavern Hotel, Tatong www.rfm.net.au/tatong.htm

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W INE

Not the Wine Story L I V I N G I N a wine region, the shock of ﬁnding that no-one on King Island is making wine was hard to understand. Every region has wine doesn’t it?

URELY A mild, cool climate like King Island could produce at

least one vineyard? We did drink some good Tasmanian wines on our visits (only in an effort to be somewhat local of course) and we asked a lot of people the question “why is there no local wine?” They all pointed us to Rebecca (Bec) Catlin. Bec was 14 when her father Ian Wilson decided to grow grapes and make his own wine. She was doing her higher education schooling in Launceston but on trips back home in school holidays she helped, becoming more and more interested. She credits his experiments as dictating her interest in wine as a career, and talked affectionately about his attempts.

“They crushed them with their feet, more from the idea of a tradition.”

Rebecca Catlin

“Dad was a farmer with no wine background but he had asked the Dept of Agriculture in Tassie for some advice. He planted about six or seven rows, laid the irrigation and planted around 1000 vines. He brought the cuttings from Tasmania and planted rows of riesling, cabernet franc and pinot.” “In ‘93 or ‘94 he made his first vintage. He onlyy ever made riesling. I wasn’t there when they picked their first wine and at the time I wouldn’t have known how to make wine anyway! They crushed them with their feet, more from the idea of a tradition.” Bec laughed, “I know now it’s probably the worst way a to make wine with fine delicate grapes… crushing and mistreating them like that.” The result of the ‘vintage’ was enough to encourage Ian to try again the following year. “But there was a string of misfortunes,” Bec said, “first there was bunch rot from the wet King Island

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climate. Then in the season when the grapes were flowering it was also very windy. The wind actually blew the flowers completely off, so no fruit set. The protective fencing failed and the sheep and wallabies got in and ate the vines. After a few years of struggling with protecting and pruning it all got too hard and was abandoned.” But would it be possible to grow wine grapes on King Island? If you could choose a protected site? Bec thinks that the lack of support services on the Island would deter even an experienced viticulturalist to try. If they did produce good grapes it would be difficult to get a contract winemaker to take on the task of producing the wine without good equipment. “That was one of dad’s problems,” she said, “even though he must have invested thousands of dollars in the project.” Bec’s mother Robyn runs the Currie Newsagency and is obviously proud of her daughter’s achievements. Rebecca Catlin obtained a Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Oenology) in 1998 through the University of Adelaide. She then worked in vineyards in South Australia, California and Western Australia before joining West Australia’s prestigious Capel Vale Wines in March 2001 as Assistant Winemaker. She became Winemaker in July 2002. She was a finalist in the Wine Society Young Winemaker of the Year Awards 2004. Her husband Stuart (they married in 2000) is a chef.

There has been another trial planting recently to grow wine grapes in King Island by Graeme George, the young vines are growing well we were told.

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W INE C hr i s t i n a Tul l o c h

Remember Chardonnay? K AT H & K I M are exactly the kind of stereotype Australians love to hate, but ever since Kim announced the H in Chardonnay was silent, this Australian staple has become the wine we love to hate.

T SEEMS wine has become the fodder of fashion and what the introduction of oak chips and the use of oak to mar poor type you buy can quickly relegate you from hot to not quicker fruit and bad winemaking, common practice. than you can say secondary fermentation. Despite this there are a number of committed winemakers A similar trend has been noted in the US, when the movie who take pride in producing Chardonnay’s of great finesse and Sideways bagged Merlot and extolled the virtues of Pinot Noir. varietal character, from unoaked to gutsy, buttery full bodied Merlot sales plummeted by up to 80%, meanwhile Pinot Noir styles to medium and beyond. The proof is in fact in the oak became the new drink dujour, despite the fact that many hadn’t and when used as a tool to create complexity, depth and style yet recognised that the T in Pinot was in fact silent. rather than to dominate, the results are judged as exceptional Poor old Chardy, (as it is so affectionately known in Oz), has among their peers and indeed very drinkable and enjoyable for become the wine we won’t admit to drinking. Attending a lecture consumers. a couple of weeks ago the speaker announced The trick is that the integration of oak he was an ABC drinker, Anything-Butshould form part of the whole mouth-feel of Chardonnay. Down right impractical when you the wine. It shouldn’t be apparent as a layer Christina Tulloch says realise that bottle shop fridge space is usually of taste and smell that disguises the inherent at least 80% Chardonnay with perfunctory tastiness of this variety when left to bloom scatterings of Riesling, Semillon and the new under its own devices through the different hot drop, Sauvignon Blanc. methods of fermentation employed in the While Kath & Kim sealed the fate of winemaking process. Australia’s love affair with Chardonnay, it had It’s time to give Chardy a second chance been a long time coming with cheap over-oaked and seize the opportunity to find a style to styles of the variety rife on the market and many suit you, or be left bewildered by your lack of unwilling to pay the price to sample some of the choices as it continues it’s dominance of the better examples of this variety. Like it or hate Australian white wine market. The question is, it, it is here to stay with the latest vintage intake how do you know where to start your journey report form the Winemakers Federation of Australia reporting a of rediscovery and to ensure that the Chardonnay you select is surge in Chardonnay for the 2005 vintage, up a massive 34% on one that will suit your palate and needs? the previous year and forecasts showing continued growth of the While trial and error is always a fun way to find your category through to 2007. tipple of choice it can be expensive and harmful to your liver. Alas do not despair if you are an ABC drinker because a great Independent bottle shops are the greatest source of information deal of flack this variety attracts is without merit and there are and variety for all wine-drinking consumers. They select the a number of wonderful variations and styles of Chardonnay to wines they stock through tasting them and therefore are able ensure there is one to appeal to all tastes and occasions. to guide consumers through the maze of choice to arrive at a Originating from the Burgundy region in France and one destination that balances hip pocket and preference. of the worlds’ most recognised grape varieties, Chardonnay has Chardonnay is the king of the white wine and long may it been used and abused at the hands of large corporate winemaking reign as an excellent example of an Australian wine produced companies and by winemakers themselves, for the past decade and with great passion, flair and substance. In the words of Kath & beyond. The use of oak, or misuse of oak is probably the most Kim it is very ‘eyebrow’ and a crowd pleasing style to impress at singly important factor in tracing the demise of this wine, with all occasions.

‘ it’s time to

give Chardy

a second chance’.

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Chardonnay is the king of the white wine and long may it reign as an excellent example of an Australian wine produced with great passion, ﬂair and substance.

One of Australia’s most committed Chardonnay producers, the Scarborough family have devoted their ﬁnely honed wine making skills to making outstanding Chardonnays since 1987. The palate is full, round and rich with a strong lingering after taste. Enjoy this full bodied style with a rich ﬁsh like salmon or with game bird.

Jim Barry established his vineyards in the Clare Valley in 1959 and ever since has been producing some of Australia’s most renowned Rieslings and Shiraz. Located in the North Mount Lofty ranges north of Adelaide, the Clare Valley was established as prime viticultural land as far back as 1851 and is renowned as a prestigious premium wine region with a Mediterranean like climate. The 2004 vintage of the Watervale Riesling was a challenging one to say the least, as drought conditions prevailed with a heat wave testing the resilience of this great variety. With the mercury soaring above 34 degrees for sixteen days straight and maximum temperatures reaching 43 degrees, the canopy structure soon became the most important factor in ensuring a 2004 vintage.

The dry conditions resulted in a generous flavour profile and rich concentrated fruit characters, making it an ideal wine for consumption in its youth, but also a prime candidate to lay down for three to five years, for those who enjoy the famous aged Riesling styles. Typical pale straw in colour, aromas of citrus lemon jump out of the glass, while fresh intense fruit on the palate is balanced by a crisp, lingering acidity. Enjoy this delicate wine with seafood or simple white meat dishes.

SHAW AND SMITH 2003 Unoaked Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills SA Shaw and Smith began producing their unoaked chardonnay as an alternative for consumers who love the ﬂavour of the chardonnay variety but were tiring of the heavy oak treatment. Fresh and lively on the palate, unoaked Chardonnays are best consumed young while they exhibit the fresh fruit characters that have become the trademark of this style.

Adelaide Hills

SCARBOROUGH 2002 Yellow Label Chardonnay, Hunter Valley NSW

JIM BARRY 2004 Watervale Riesling, Clare Valley SA

Clare Valley

Tasmania

Stefano Lubiana’s superb ‘Primavera’ Pinot Noir is both a labour of love and the legacy of ﬁve generations in the wine industry. Formed in 1990 and owned an operated by Steve and Monique Lubiana, the vineyard is situated on the gently undulating hillsides about 20km north of Hobart. With a particular interest in grape varieties of Northern Europe, the vineyard is planted with a mix of interesting and emerging varietals like Pinot Gris along with more traditional varieties such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot. Viticulture on the family property is labour intensive with all pruning, shoot positioning, bird netting and fruit picking done by hand. The use of preservatives and additives are kept to a minium, so the

inherent goodness of the grapes are captured beautifully in their exceptional range of wines. This hand crafted Pinot Noir off a smallish 1.3 hectare block exhibits classic black cherry and plum characters on the palate with good tannin structure. Rich red in colour with a bouquet of alluring vanilla and raspberry, this is the ideal wine to enjoy with food. Match it with Italian or Greek style dishes to get the most out of this subtle but stylish wine.

Hunter Valley

STEFANO LUBIANA 2004 ‘Primavera’ Pinot Noir, Tasmania

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REVIEWS[books]

Before we eat

Paul County, y Bernard Lloyd and T Tom Samek. 328pp – $49.50

UBLISHED IN 2004 as a Commemorative Tasmanian Bicentennial Publication this large format paperback is a surprising treat. Before we eat—a delicious slice of Tasmania’s culinary life by Paul County and Bernard Lloyd. (328pp $49.50) While sharing equal editorial billing, the division of editorial duty seems to be Bernard Lloyd’s for the historical research and compilation and Paul County supplied the photography. Tom Samek has also contributed some clever illustrations. You may think that if you put enough lovely old photographs, quaint advertisements, and ephemera together with text extracts from newspapers and historical journals you should end up with an overview of the subject that is fun to read and a useful record. Well maybe. If a book ever called for colour and better reproduction, this is it. The mix of old mostly black and white copied material would be lifted from the monotonous with full colour tints, and page furniture such as the images of bottle tops and kitchen utensils scattered throughout. Many of Paul County’s photographs, mostly silly/humorous portraits of working chefs and Tasmanian food industry participants are printed with little contrast and the matte stock makes it even duller. There are indulgences that go past what was needed to make a point, (ten pages of candid photographs of the diners at the then new Wrest Point Casino in 1973 for example). These combine to give the book the feeling it lacks editorial rigour. But the stated aim is plain about that, so you have to take this as it is, a grab bag of some of the best historical information you’ll ﬁnd on Australian food history. The visuals take the stage but you must read the text to get the full value. This is a truly eclectic mix of material and it works because of that. With a bigger print and design budget and some minor editing this book could be really special. As it is, if you’re Tasmanian and at all interested in how your state developed to be such a ﬁne food island, you should have a copy. If you’re a mainlander then you should buy it and compile one for your own state. But do it in colour ok?

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When we eat

Liz McLeod, Bernard Lloyd, Paul County. y 232pp – $36.00

H E R E ’ S A PAC K AG E deal if you buy Before we eat, with the similar sized but slimmer (232pp $36 ) full colour, When we eat—a seasonal guide to Tasmania’s fine food and drink. This book of Tasmanian produce, restaurants and recipes for Tasmanian produce could be a foodie visitors guidebook. Again photographed by Paul County there are lots of photographs of small details from country signs, ephemera and appealing close-ups of produce. The layout lacks some ﬁnesse and there’s one huge problem that I assume is with the colour reproduction of the cooked food photographs (and there are many). Dark shadows with contrasty lighting they look mostly unappetising. Tough for a food book. A sticker says that When we eat is the Kitchen companion to the history book and while it stands alone, if you’re out there buying, get both. Publishing ventures such as these have to be supported. Fred Harden Price is $79 plus $10 postage for both titles and along with a range of other food related historical publications is available through The Culinary Historians of Tasmania website www.culinaryhotel.com Photo below of John Bignell by Paul County from Before We Eat.

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“...this mix of Auntie Mame and Silent Spring will keep you reading. There’s a message there, but it’s served with generous helpings of entertainment.”

Last chance to eat Gina Mallet, Random House – $37.95 pbk

INA MALLET takes a somewhat jaundiced view of the way food is going. In this book, she combines memories of a childhood spent in wartime England and post-war France with intriguing historical asides and more than a few swipes at modern food science, food production and marketing. The backward glances vividly evoke an unconventional family life in a vast and under heated mansion on the Thames. Despite wartime rationing and battles with the local egg commissar, the food on the table was prepared with care and consumed with appreciation. By contrast, today nothing is sacred and nothing, it seems, is safe. Mallet chooses five staple foods and devotes a long, rambling chapter to each. It’s a story of decline—of how taste has been sacrificed in the name of health and for the convenience of supermarkets. Take eggs, for instance. If you follow today’s food safety guidelines for cooking eggs to a minimum of 161°F, it’s bye bye forever to chocolate mousse, soufflé, real egg mayonnaise, meringues and, by extension, the good old Aussie pav. Cheese was in decline in Britain, even in Mallet’s early years. She laments the disappearance of farmhouse cheeses and the advent of ‘National Cheese”, a factory-made product from pooled milk that looked very much like toenail clippings and tasted of nothing. However, she is even more appalled at the changes mass-marketing has brought to the classic French cheese, like Brie. (See box below.) The chapter on fruit and veg looks at how US supermarkets have sent small apple growers broke—what Mallet describes as “…the

unacceptable face of industrialised food, the middleman deciding what consumers will eat based on his profit margins”. Don’t think it doesn’t happen here. Chapters on meat and fish also have their share of bad news, with a look at the effects of Mad Cow Disease and the undesirable aspects of aquaculture. Fortunately, the bad news is well-seasoned with wit, charm and the unexpected. The book is full of snippets of information that you can drop into a dinner table conversation: “Did you know that the Bible is an eggless book?” or “Of course, Brie was Charlemagne’s favourite dish”. You learn the correct way to eat sushi – (dip the fish side only, never the rice, into the sauce) and how to tell if a pear is ripe (pinch gently at the base of the stem). The exploits of Mallet’s eccentric family members have a delicious touch of English dottiness and her descriptions of the foods of her childhood are accompanied by recipes for old fashioned classics, from Sole Veronique to Junket. Mallet is not an evangelist. She avoids dogma, even while pointing out the appalling conditions of battery hens and expressing concern about the vanishing varieties of apples. She concludes, for example, that organic doesn’t always taste best; she’s open to the idea of GM foods if the results are worthwhile; she even recognises good practice by McDonalds (market driven though it may be). For Gina Mallet, the key criterion is taste and her fear that the world of food is becoming blander and blander. Last Chance to Eat is far from bland. Maybe the chapters are a bit too long and a bit too full of non sequiturs. I found myself wishing I could be finished with beef and get on to fruit and veg, but no, there were pages and pages left. However this mix of Auntie Mame and Silent Spring will keep you reading. There’s a message there, but it’s served with generous helpings of entertainment. Jan O’Connell

GINA MALLET quotes a conversation with a French farmer’s son, Guy, on the sad fate of le vrai Brie: Once the farm families stopped making cheese, Brie went into a freefall, its manufacture taken over by factories, driven by the demands of supermarkets, which in France, as everywhere, were becoming the most popular way of selling food. The Brie didn’t ﬁt the supermarket template. First of all, there’s the smell. The smell of Brie is one of its deﬁning glories. A Brie smells of the countryside, of decay; it’s the smell of wet wool on a sheep, and it tastes that way too, just the way wine taste of grapes rotted by intense bacteria activity, rich and a little seedy. A philosopher might say that the smell of the Brie contains intimations of mortality. But philosophising is out of place in a modern urban supermarket, even a French one. The Brie had to be changed to meet supermarket demands. No more generous-sized Brie going over the top and smelling up the shop.

Does the size of a Brie matter? ‘Oh yes” Guy replied. ‘The taste of a smaller Brie is different, there’s more rind, for one thing, and the whole ripening process is accelerated, and it’s in the arduous ripening that the Brie gains its full complexity. y ’ But, he added, it is inevitable. The large farm family is no more, and smaller families cannot eat a large Brie at a single sitting. No Brie should hang around orr – Guy’s voice darkened – ‘be put in the refrigerator’. The Brie – any soft cheese – hates extremes of temperature. The refrigerator numbs, even destroys the valuable ﬂavour molecules, which need a steady, cool atmosphere to come to their full glory. y In order to sell, the factory Brie had to be industrialised: it was reduced in size, pasteurised and the paste often bulked up with cream to stiffen it. ‘Of course all cheese will be pasteurised.’ Guy said. ‘Already ‘ most cheese in France is pasteurised. It’s inevitable. The Americans have decided on it.’ Last Chance to Eat, Gina Mallet Random House – $37.95 pbk

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R EV I E W S [ t v ] P e t e r C o t t o n

N ONE level, the rise and rise of the TV celebrity chef is relatively easy to explain. Excluding the Two Fat Ladies, chefs with shows on the box are young-ish, charismatic types who know their stuff and use the medium well, talking to you down the barrel of the camera as they might to an intimate friend they’ve invited into their kitchen. On the other hand, some might argue that the success of cooking shows is another symptom of vacuity in this age of Western afﬂuence. The argument goes that these shows are meaningful only because all other meaning has gone. But that’s the stuff of another column. For now, let’s stay latched to the question of why cooking shows work. And it’s a question that prompts a question: Who ever cooked anything during or after watching it demonstrated on TV? Answer: No one that I know of.

But a thought occurs: What if you’re the best chef around, but you don’t look like a Jamie or Nigella. In fact, what if you look like the average chef, a bit too much middle from too many tastings, a few too many years under the belt and the wrinkles to go with them. As with politicians in the TV age, unless you look the goods and can string words together to entertain and inform, you’ll never be asked to step up to the stove in a TV studio. Then again, there is Charlie Trotter.* Charlie looks like an accountant who left his tie at home, always in long-sleeved shirts with his top button fastened. Trotter doesn’t demonstrate the how of cooking a dish. He uses his dishes to outline a culinary philosophy. There’s plenty of “this ﬂavour goes with that” advice, but there’s also something of the Zen aesthete about him, where he stares into the lens and counsels his audience to “be in the moment” when they cook, “don’t be a slave to the recipe,” he says,

Who ever cooked anything during or after watching it demonstrated on TV? Answer: No one that I know of.

Trotter doesn’t demonstrate the how of cooking a dish. He uses his dishes to outline a culinary philosophy.

You could do it of course. You could be watching a cooking show where the chef ﬂags that they have a nouvelle way of cooking beef acrobat, your favourite dish. You pop a tape in the VCR and hit record. You later play it back to get a list of ingredients and go out and buy up. Back home, you rewind the tape and before you know it, you’re cooking with Jamie. Play. Rewind. Play. Pause. In other words, it’s pointless trying to keep up with celebrity chefs as they go through their paces on the box, even if you have it on tape. So where to get the recipe, if not off the box as it’s happening before your eyes? From a recipe book of course. Their recipe book. It’s no accident that the popularity of TV cooking shows comes at the same time as cook books have hit the top of best seller lists around the world. And there’s their food merchandise and their signature cookware, diaries and calendars. All bring in big bucks, and isn’t that what celebrity is about? Selling personality to sell product? We’re agreed then. Again it’s greed. But we don’t mind. We’re a generation of food obsessives, and while most of us couldn’t take an hour of real pressure in a commercial kitchen, we still want to cook like a top chef, a top TV chef. A top, svelte, easy-on-the-eye-type chef, whose recipes work. And it is compelling viewing. Mostly.

“exercise free will”. I love this guy. And I love Nigella, especially when she lingers while sucking chocolate off a spoon. Very watchable, but I stay away from her recipes. I’m trying to lose weight, or at least trying to keep it off, and she really is too much into “comfort” food. The only celebrity chef whose food I wouldn’t touch if it were served up to me is Giorgio of “Tony and Giorgio”, as seen on Foxtel’s Food channel. He has greasy, lank hair that hangs down below his nose, and it constantly whips across his face when he applies pressure to something in the mixing bowl. God knows what he unwittingly adds to his dishes in the process, but I’m not for ﬁnding out. Finally, to my pet beef when it comes to TV chefs. It’s when they say: “Now add a little bit of oil” and they pour half a bottle into the pan. Or they advise you to season something on the stove with a “smidgen of salt”, and they deluge it with the white stuff. Do you do as they say, or as they do? It’s all very inexact, and just another argument for cooking from a written recipe, rather than attempting to follow anything straight off the box.

*PBS cooking series, The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter.

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websites Click! Scroll down. click! we love the web. Advertisers sites Harris Farm Markets www.harrisfarm.com.au

Füri knives www.furi.com.au

Melissa Harris www.melissaharris.com.au

Alfa Romeo www.alfaromeo.com.au

Simon Johnson

Websites we’ve mentioned

Websites we like

These were links related to a story or mentioned within an article in this issue.

Almost everything about the Slow Food movement supports the small producers of quality food. We do have a number of local chapters or ‘convivia’ (is that plural of Convivium?) eg: the Slow Food Sydney Convivium website but don’t judge Slow Food by that, visit the International web site www.slowfood.com instead. Informative, stylish and international in scope.

King Island has an ‘official’ website with community info at www.kingisland. net.au and a ‘commercial’ one at www. kingisland.org.au. You need both to get the full picture of what to expect and what’s on.

King Island Produce

www.simonjohnson.com.au

(Dennis and Peta Klumpp) www.kip.com.au

Gourmet Safaris

King Island Dairy

www.gourmetsafaris.com.au

(Ueli’s cheese) www.kid.com.au

Australian Tourism www.australia.com

Tourism Australia www.tourismaustralia.com (Business site)

Tourism Victoria www.visitvictoria.com

South Australian Tourism www.southaustralia.com

REX – Regional Express www.regionalexpress.com.au

Cotswold Furniture www.cotswoldfurniture.com.au

Yalumba www.yalumba.com

McVitty wines www.mcvittygrove.com.au

L.G. Australia au.lge.com

Teen Matters www.teenmatters.com.au

King Island Beef Producers www.kingislandbeef.com.au

Stephen Russell’s Bold Head Brasserie www.kingscuisine.com.au

See the Australian Farmer’s Markets Association site for their state listings and contacts, and information about the huge Conference in Albury in late August. www.farmersmarkets.org.au (Remember there are also website listings for Farmers’ Markets and Growers’ Markets on our own site www.farmersmarkets.com.au

Gremolata www.gremolata.com is a Toronto based site but of wider foodie interest.

Kelp Industries www.kelpind.com.au www.websterltd.com.au

Charlie Trotter Fernleigh Farm www.fernleighfarms.com

Southern Scuba Services www.divekingisland.com.au www.aninvitationgrifﬁth.com

Oliveria www.oliveria.com.au

Hydro Majestic Hotel Peppers Fairmont Resort www.peppers.com.au

Rupertswood

Sauté Wednesday If you can only bookmark and visit one site regularly, make it this one. Bruce Cole’s www.sautewednesday.com has bits from and links to the best food web content.

Mountain Heritage Yulefest

Saveur

www.nepeanbelle.com.au

Australian Gourmet Traveller why such an obscure URL? http://gourmet. ninemsn.com.au/gourmettraveller/ (Wasn’t the June Italian issue great?) Vogue Entertaining and Travell is also hiding, it’s on the Vogue site www.vogue.com.au search the Titles link.

Gastronomica www.gastronomica.org

Waitrose Food Illustrated www.waitrose.com/wﬁ/

Food Reference The Food Reference Websitee Mark Vogel’s labour of culinary love. Subscribe to the email newsletter and get a taste of it. You’ll be back. www.foodreference.com

The Artisan - an excellent Italian site on baking Italian style bread, in English www.theartisan.net

Own a restaurant? Maybe you’re a wait’person? See the (online only) Slammed Magazine. www.slammedmagazine.com

And the ‘other’ food magazines…

Nepean Belle Paddlewheeler

www.cuisine.co.nz

Slammed Magazine

www.rupertswood.com www.mountainheritage.com.au

Our favourite NZ mag.

Star Chefss has developed into an important USA food industry site and has good interviews with inﬂuential regional food people like Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse restaurant. www.starchefs.com

www.charlietrotters.com

…an invitation GRIFFITH

Cuisine

The Culinary History Timelinee is just that. Great food history site links, ordered by year. Some academic, mostly readable. www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/food1.html

Walnuts - Webster Limited

www.hydromajestic.com.au

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Slow Food

Good website, great recipes!

We want to be Saveur when we grow up. www.saveurmag.com

Epicurious (site of Gourmett and Bon Appétit magazines). www.epicurious.com

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The Regional Food Australia website www.regionalfood.com.au Major City Produce Markets Sydney Produce Market www.sydneymarkets.com.au

also see their site for Kids www.freshforkids.com.au

Sydney Fish Markets www.sydneyﬁshmarket.com.au

We certainly don’t see our website as being just a copy of the magazine, and one of the things a website can do best is be a source for up to date information. To coincide with each issue we have a regular section called Regions where we can keep that mercurial content updated. If Stephen Russell drops the char-grilled octopus from the menu (unlikely) we’d tell you about it.

Produce

www.prahranmarket.com.au

While we know many of our readers are in big cities like Melbourne and Sydney, our Season’s Best section is building up regional and markets information from the other States. We’ve added ﬁsh and meat to the material we get from David Harris of Harris Farm Markets about the best fruit and vegetables.

South Melbourne Market

Events

www.southmelbournemarket.com

Our online Events Calendarr can also supply much more information than the paper listings, and you can search it quickly.

Melbourne Queen Victoria Market www.qvm.com.au

Prahran Markets

Adelaide Central Market www.adelaidecitycouncil.com

CentralMarket Brisbane Markets www.brisbanemarket.com.au

Perth Market

Opinion Our blog (that’s a sort of web diary if you’ve been surﬁng the web with your eyes closed) has small bits of our opinion gossip and things that won’t wait until the next print issue. We like our website and encourage your feedback and contributions.

www.perthmarket.com.au

Other sites we care about The Rare Breeds Trust of Australia www.rbta.org

Permaculture Melbourne’s Heritage Fruit Group http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pcmelb/ heritage/about.html

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HU M O U R

Refrigerate after opening I N E E D A N E W F R I D G E . But a quick survey of the latest models available at Hardly Normal reveals that even a new fridge is unlikely to solve my problem. S t o ry B y Jan O’Connell, Illustration By Phil Selby.

ES, THEY ALL COME with nifty cheese compartments and egg holders, crisper drawers and meat keepers. They’re all perfectly adequate for storing the fresh produce we lug home from the market. But they’re all woefully inadequate when it comes to coping with the modern way of eating. I’m talking about that dread phrase ‘Refrigerate after opening’. Now that it’s commonplace to eat Mexican one night and Thai the next, Chinese quite regularly, with the occasional Saturday night curry or laksa, our fridges are becoming repositories for half-used jars of exotic ingredients. This problem is particularly acute if you’re empty-nesters, using smaller quantities of everything. A recent survey of the top shelf of our refrigerator revealed no less than 36 partially full jars and bottles, from your standard oyster and plum sauces and assorted jams to a scarcely touched jar of tamarind pulp, some Maggie Beer preserved lemons and a jar of anchovies in oil (one anchovy left). I’m sure, in days gone by, many of these items would have been stored on shelves in a cool, dark place. Today, however, manufacturers need to protect themselves from law suits by exhorting us to take no chances. Even the familiar Rosella Tomato Sauce, which never lived in the fridge at Mum’s place, carries the dread exhortation. We’re running out of room. We’ll either have to purge our menus of exotic flavours, become wastrels who discard the unused portions or, as will probably happen, continue to blunder around trying to find things on the top shelf. And as the leaning tower of pesto crashes to the floor, taking with it the mayonnaise and three half-used jars of marinated vegetables, we’ll mutter darkly about impractical packaging and silly fridge design. Usually, I am better than my other half at finding things in the fridge. Conventional wisdom holds that women have better peripheral vision and are therefore better at locating things: an acquaintance once described this as the difference between a ‘mummy look’ and a ‘daddy look’. You’d think, though, that some tuned-in manufacturer would devise a system that would allow even the most tunnel-visioned male to find the whole grain mustard without assistance. Maybe they could include drawers or sliding trays that would allow the miscellany of small jars and pots to be conveniently stored and easily viewed. Or a lazy Susan. Some of the Very Large

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Fridges had additional trays inside the doors that would be useful, but even these couldn’t cope with our array sauces, spreads and seasonings. ––––– – E RARELY STOP to think how refrigeration has revolutionised our whole approach to food. I can remember, just, living in a household that had no refrigerator—just a leaky ice-chest that sat on the back verandah. It was used for meat, dairy products, the odd bottle of beer; almost everything else was bought fresh as we needed it or lived in the cupboard. Of course, food was a lot plainer then and condiments consisted mainly of salt, pepper, the ubiquitous tomato sauce and a cardboard box of Keen’s Curry Powder. Not much call for ‘Refrigerate after opening’. But we wouldn’t want to go back to those days, now would we? So we’ll keep shoving the unused portions into the fridge, alongside the left-overs from yesterday’s moussaka, Sunday’s stirfry and Saturday’s risotto. Hmmm…left overs. Now there’s another story…

Simon thought he might wait until he had guests over before opening the olives.

What’s in your fridge? Write and tell me – and share your food frustrations and kitchen woes. Write to fridge@regionalfood.com.au

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OP I NI O N

In search of Real Food S O M E T I M E back I worked with the much-admired researcher Elizabeth Dangar on a project called ‘Food in Focus’. One of the findings that emerged at the time was a trend she labeled ‘real food’, and defined as truly natural and fresh, delivering full nutritional value, authentic flavour, texture, aroma and visual appeal. Story By Gawen Rudder

Y INVOLVEMENT with Regional Food prompted me to revisit the subject and test its relevance in our more complex food landscape some seven years later. I asked food friends and culinary colleagues to share their definitions of real food, and ask you to join me as we share their fascinating, and sometimes amusing, musings. I spoke with the doyens of the South Australian food scene Dr Barbara Santich of the Graduate Program in Gastronomy, whose reply was brief and to the point: “Simple food, honest food, satisfying food, all or any of these,” she replied. And secondly, Barossa’s own Maggie Beer who defined real food as “Food where you know its provenance. Food that hasn’t been manipulated. Food that has no preservatives and is full of flavours from the produce itself.” Continuing in this theme Ian Parmenter, major domo of the upcoming Tasting Australia in Adelaide this October added “real food is anything produced honestly, grown as sustainably as possible, and not overtampered with,” except, as he quickly pointed out, “alfalfa sprouts and iceberg lettuces, which are little more than water dressed up as food!” I really liked Dr Rosemary Stanton’s response, “foods bearing a strong resemblance to something that once grew”; and Dr Max Lake expanded on this thought with “real food is produced naturally, as opposed to synthetic. On the plate or in the glass it should have sustained

MARGARET FULTON shares a real food moment with a young chef from the Hyatt Canberra and a younger audience member, making Anzac cookies at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra in April.

or enhanced the ﬂavours and fragrances it was born with…dinkum!” Joanna Savill explained that the team at Food Lovers’ Guide (SBS) like to say that they feature ‘Real People cooking Real Food!’ in the sense that there’s nothing artiﬁcial in what is captured on tape, “what you see on our show is what is grown, cooked and shared in kitchens, homes, paddocks and backyards around the country.” Elaborating on this she added, “you could say that to

prepare or to eat real food, you need to know where it has come from. You could extend that to knowing how it was cooked, grown or produced, ideally being satisfied that its production was sustainable environmentally, free of genetic modification, perhaps even chemical or growth-promotant free.” A bit idealistic? Not really, and as ABC radio’s Simon Marnie warns, “real food is a threatened species whether it be in its basic form (ingredients) or processed (meal). “It is,” he asserts, “the freshest ingredients combined with love and attention and served to people who have the time and appreciation to savour each stage of its development from the paddock to the plate.” ––––– – HEN IT comes to preparing and cooking, Elise Pascoe, founder of the International Cooking School talks of food that’s “planned lovingly, cooked with passion and made with fresh seasonal ingredients, in an unpretentious way.” As does food tour organiser Leonie Furber, who is just as passionate about basic preparation that allows “the fundamental taste and flavour of the food is able to dominate, and not just a concoction of merged indistinctive and messy flavours and food which sustains, is not ‘precious’, is simple and prepared with respect. For further evidence of the trend towards real food is the boom in Farmers Markets, and two of the champions

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OP I NI O N

behind the movement Jane Adams and Jan Power had differing but complementary views. “Fresh food that smacks of authenticity”, says Jane, “grown, reared, caught or artisan-made from high quality as pure as possible ingredients with ﬂavour, taste and texture. Real food also encompasses notions of cultural integrity, and increasingly organic and biodynamic produce when available.” Up in Queensland the ebullient and ever-enthusiastic Jan Power, extols the virtues of “genuinely real, freshly grown and cooked simply to satisfy the eater. It is there to keep us going, keep us healthy, and keep us happy. Unreal food ‘man’ is what you get from food fashionistas, over-achieving chef/artists at the top end of the food chain and also from dumber-down fast food outlets at the bottom of the food chain. Unreal havoc with our guts is the end result.” She then asked for a second go at distinguishing between real food and unreal food as “the same as the difference in a loved kith and kin kiss or a TV Kath and Kim air kiss.” ––––– – ASKED Loukie Werle, food editor and author of upcoming book ‘Real Food’ for the Australian Heart Foundation (June release). She told me of food that’s cooked with honest, down-to-earth ingredients, “food that’s presented in a straightforward manner, without ‘cute’ tricks, such as towers on the plate or unnecessary garnishes, food that’s as good and comfortable to eat as it is to cook, and food that’s a joy to share.” We’ll let our very own living treasure, or as Lyndey Milan recently dubbed her, ‘the mother of Australian cooking’, Margaret Fulton, sum up for us, “real food,” she says, “is the food my grandmother and mother ate; casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, puddings

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“Real food...is the food my grandmother and mother ate; casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, puddings and breads all made with foods that were raised and grown using traditional breeding and farming processes, free of GE, the radical new technology that manipulates genes and DNA.” and breads all made with foods that were raised and grown using traditional breeding and farming processes, free of GE, the radical new technology that manipulates genes and DNA.” There seems to be a groundswell towards returning food to the country farmers, not the white-lab-coated ‘pharmers’ to whom Margaret alludes. The common thread interwoven between these individual explorations and

deﬁnitions of real food seems to be words like simple, sourced, sustainable, shared, satisfying and unsullied. This is the food of our forefathers—and mothers —enjoyed and which we must preserve for our children, and our children’s children. Gawen Rudder is a member of the Regional Food Australia Advisory Board, and as close to a food pundit Australia has.

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R E G IO N A L F O O D Management g | Marketing g Mark Kelly Editorial | Content Fred Harden Contributing Editor Jackie Cooper Sub Editor Margaret Kelly

Next Issue: Capital Region Villages

Publisher | Advertising John Borger Advertising | Sales Linsey Bamping Designer | Art Director Diagram — Christopher Waller Assistant Art Directors Matt Scully Jason Lipscombe Subscriptions p | Circulation Bruna Rodwell Contributors Jackie Cooper Christina Tulloch Gawen Rudder Jan O’Connell Television development Greg Sneddon Website Producer Joh O’Dell Farmers’ Market liaison: Jackie O’Connell Finance: Linda Vrckovski Email | Addresses Editorial editors@regionalfood.com.au Advertising advertising@regionalfood.com.au Production studio@regionalfood.com.au Subscriptions subscriptions@regionalfood.com.au Regional Food Fax: +61 2 822 19814 Marketing mail to: PO Box 1113, Glebe Point NSW 2037 Editorial mail to : PO. Box 317, Bungendore NSW 2621 Editorial Phone: +61 2 6238 0020 Regional Food Australia magazine is published by Regional Food Communications Pty. Ltd. ABN: 25 113 738 079 Registered ofﬁces: Suite 19 / 18 Oxley Street Glebe NSW 2037 and 47 Rutledge Street, Bungendore NSW 2621. Our websites: www.regionalfood.com.au www.farmersmarkets.com.au Our advisory board members are Steve Allen, Fiona Chambers, Mark Lincoln, Maeve O’Meara, Mark Patrick (there are lot’s of Mark’s on RF) and Gawen Rudder. We are lucky they’re around. All photographs and text are copyright and the property of Regional Food Communications P/L. They are not to be reprinted or used in any media without permission. While we always try to clear all editorial copy and photographs before publications we welcome the opportunity to correct any errors and omissions. The opinions of our columnists are not necessarily those of the publisher. We welcome your feedback. Price in Australia is $7.95. Subscription rates: 1 year (4 issues) $25. 2 years (8 issues) $45. NZ $9.95 inc GST. For overseas subscriptions send us an email or see our website. This is Vol. 1 No.1 (and there will be many more). ISSN 1832-6781 Regional Food Australia is printed by Offset Alpine, 42 Boorea Street, Lidcombe NSW 2141.

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Canberra is one of those rare places where you can work in the city and live in the country, without driving for several hours a day. But the villages that ring the national capital are far more than outlying dormitory suburbs. They have their own vigorous village lifestyles and these include large helpings of good food and wine. Our next issue – Capital Region Villages – looks at the restaurants, the producers, the wineries, the B&Bs and the special experiences that await you in this sometimes under-rated region. R EG I ONA L F OOD AUS T R A L I A S UB S CR I PT I ON PR OMOT I ON: W I NT ER 2 0 0 5 TE R M S & C O N D I TI O N S 1. Instructions on how to enter and prizes form part of these conditions of entry. The competition is open to residents of Australia only, whose new subscription for 1 year or more to Regional food Australia magazine is received between 13.07.05 and last mail 13.09.05 and is signed against a nominated valid credit card or, if paid by cheque, cleared for payment. The Promoter is Regional Food Communications P/L, 19/18 Oxley Street, Glebe Point NSW 2037. ABN: 25 113 738 079. Employees of the Promoter, Spence and Lyda P/L, advertising agencies and families, are not eligible to enter. 2. The winning entries will be the ﬁrst three valid entries drawn at the premises of Legion Interactive, Level 9, 100 William St, East Sydney NSW 2011 on 19.09.05 at 11.00 am. 3. The judges’ decision in relation to any aspect of the competition will be ﬁnal and binding on every person who enters. No correspondence will be entered into. By entering the promotion, unless otherwise advised by the entrant, each entrant consents to the information they submit with their entry being entered into a database and the Promoter may use this information in any media for future promotional, marketing and publicity purposes without any further reference or payment to the entrant. All personal details of the entrants will be stored at DCA for the Promoter. A request to access, update or correct any information should be directed to the Promoter. 4. Total prize value as at 14.06.05 is $7500 and consists of 3 prizes, each worth $2500 (valued at RRP) for products of the winners’ choice from the Sambonet range, available at Spence & Lyda, including delivery to the winners’ home. Prizes must be claimed by 30.11.05. 5. Any change in the value of the prizes occurring between publishing

date and date the prize are claimed is not the responsibility of the Promoter. The prizes are not transferable, exchangeable or redeemable for cash or other goods and services and is subject to availability at the time of booking. The Promoter shall not be liable for any loss or damage whatsoever which is suffered (including but not limited to direct or consequential loss) or for any personal injury suffered or sustained in connection with any prize except for any liability which cannot be excluded by law. 6. The promoter reserves the right to request the winners to provide proof of identity and proof of residency at the nominated prize delivery address. Identification considered suitable for verification is at the discretion of the promoter. 7. The promoter reserves the right to refuse to allow a winner to take part in any or all aspects of the prize, if the promoter determines, in their absolute discretion, that a winner is not in the mental or physical condition necessary to be able to safely participate in the prize. It is a condition of accepting the prize that the winners may be required to sign a legal release in a form determined by the promoter in its absolute discretion. 8. The prize winners will be notified by mail, and the winners’ name will appear at www.regional food.com.au on 20.09.05 and published in The Australian on 29 September 2005. 9. If the prizes are not claimed, there will be an unclaimed prize draw at Legion Interactive, level 9, 100 William St , East Sydney NSW 2011 on 20.01.06 at 11.00 am subject to any written directions given under Reg. 37 of the Lottery and Gaming Regulations 1993 (SA) and their details will be published in The Australian 31.01.06. 10. Authorised under permit numbers: NSW: TPL05/06971, VIC: 05/1995, ACT: TP05/2519, SA: T05/2299, NT05/2030.

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