Rain didn’t stop slow foodies last Sunday. Regardless of weather, more than 200 people gathered in the Royal Botanic Gardens to take part in the Bush Tucker Picnic.

Sitting on colored rugs, under the shelter of a big tree, the crowd had the opportunity to enjoy a special menu designed for the event by multi-award-winning chef Jean-Paul Bruneteau, author of Tukka, Real Australian Food. With the help of Chef Samantha Joel, he cooked a three courses meal using Indigenous ingredients:

• Emu Prosciutto Antipasto Smoked Emu rubbed with lemon myrtle and pepper leaf served with Australian olives and coz lettuce drizzled with lemon myrtle mayonnaise dressing, and scattered with garlic croûtons roasted with a hint of Aniseed myrtle.
• Slow Roo Torpedo Roll with bush tomato onion relish and crisp salad leaves. The gourmet sausage and sour dough bread with wattle seed crust have been specially created for the picnic.
• Rocky Road trifle with native-flavoured marshmallow, macadamia nut brittle, quandongs, Davidson plum jelly and wattle seed liqueur

After the lunch, Clarence Slockee, Aboriginal Education Officer of the Sydney Botanic Gardens, spoke about Indigenous knowledge and use of bush foods focusing particularly on some of the ingredients used in the picnic.

Carlo Petrini himself, founder and international president of Slow Food, was present at the Picnic, to greet SF member and volunteers and taste the real Australian native flavours.
Holding hands with Aunty Beryl Van Oploo, an Aboriginal Elder who was one of the Australian delegates at Terra Madre 2008, he spoke passionately about the values of his movement. Terra Madre , he said, is a network made up of farmers, fishermen, breeders who really care about a new food culture and safeguarding the environment. “These humble people are the very ones who can save us in this moment of crisis. The word ‘humble’ (‘umile’ in Italian) derives from the Latin word ‘humus’ – ‘of the earth’ – and we want to support and be close to them”.

“We have to change the logic of consumerism” Petrini said.”We are strong and if we all work together we can really make this change. We can support farmers’ markets. We can defend food and build school gardens. We can create and support communities and work with them. Ask for more information so that we can learn where food comes from and how it is made. In this way, we’ll be able to give value back to food”.