OceanWatch Australia is a national environmental, not-for-profit company that works to achieve sustainability in the Australian seafood industry by protecting and enhancing fish habitats, improving water quality and advancing the sustainability of fisheries.

To help raise awareness, Ocean Watch Days were held at Bondi and Manly and Slow Food Sydney were invited to come along.  Our Convivium President and chef,  Syd Pemberton,  held a demonstration BBQ and this is one if the recipes she prepared:

Spicy fish fillets cooked in banana leaf
6 fresh banana leaves, cut into large 12 squares
6 with fish fillets cut in half (ling fish, barramundi, blue eye)
Spice paste:
1 tbls finely chopped fresh ginger
1 large green chili, deseeded and chopped
1 tbls chopped coriander stalks
2 tbls chopped coriander leaves
1 tsp salt
½ tsp turmeric
2-3 tbls of coconut cream to blend
Blend the spice paste together in a smell blender or mortar and pestle.
Spread a little of the spice paste onto each piece of fish. Place onto a square of banana leaf and wrap it like a small parcel and secure it with a toothpick.
Refrigerate until ready to cook.
Lightly oil the bbq grill and cook the fish parcels for 4-5 minutes each side, until cooked through. Remove and serve with lemon or lime wedges on the side.

Honey, a wonderfully rich golden liquid is the miraculous product of bees and a natural alternative to sugar as well as a useful antimicrobial agent and antioxidant.  Although it is available throughout the year, it is an exceptional treat in the summer and autumn when it has been harvested and often at its best.

It was as a young boy of 11 years that Rod Yates of Australian Honey first saw a bee hive… and he was hooked.  He can still recall the sound emanating from the rustic wooden boxed housed at the back of a neighbours’ property, “it vibrated and hummed like a jet engine”.  Rod believes that “all children are fascinated by nature and have an intrinsic understanding.”  Given the right exposure, they can develop an interest that lasts a lifetime.

Establishing the independent packing and distribution company, Australian Honey, was a natural progression for Rod whose journey includes forays into Accounting, Art Education, building the first mud brick house in NSW and completing a design degree at UTS.  he has also been keeping bees on and off for 49 years.

Bees are “flower constant” in that on any one foraging trip from the hive, they will only collect nectar from one type of plant and Rod’s bees have a penchant for Eucalyptus tree flowers. The different and distinctive honey varieties available in Australia are the result of migratory beekeeping.  Colonies of bees are moved by truck to locations where particular trees or plants are about to flower.  Sites are selected so that one particular species dominates the crop at that time.

As with all foods, flavour and health benefits depend on the integrity of producers, distributors and any processing.  Australian Honey packages and distributes honey from beekeepers along the east coast as far south as Tasmania to the northern tip of Queensland.

If you have ever had the privilege to enjoy a honey tasting, you will appreciate the vast array of flavours available in Australia.  None of Rod’s honey is too sweet and never bland.  Varieties include the light golden and subtle flavoured White Box, smokey Mallee, the exotically full flavoured and dark hued Leatherwood.  Yellow Box drizzled on baguette instantly conjures memories of childhood.

But why don’t we see these gourmet honeys in our supermarkets?  ”For whatever reason, major honey packers and retailers in Australia believe they need to manufacture a product with an consistent taste”, an attitude knows as the ‘McDonald’s factor’.  To achieve this, bland varieties are blended and often diluted with other substances.

Competing with inferior cheaply made products leaves beekeepers turning to international markets where honey varieties are prized and where producers can obtain a fair price for what is undoubtedly an arduous labor of love.

Rod Yates recognises the Australia has superior honey for which there is great international demand.  he would also like to see Australians enjoy locally made, sustainable, clean and delicious honey, “I would love to introduce Australians to the complexities of the various flavours of honey and show them the many ways of enjoying it” - as a marinade for meats and fish, used in place of sugar when baking, served with cheese.  One of Rod’s particular favourites is honey ice-cream although a spoon dripping in Leatherwood honey and dipped into thick double cream is a taste sensation!

Cheeses made from raw milk are regarded as the best in the world.  When international food lovers and dignitaries come to Australia they are served Australia’s best wines, but very often accompanied by imported raw milk cheeses. This happened to Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food when he recently visited Australia.  ”Where are your raw cheeses!”, he exclaimed.

ARE THE REST OF THE WORLD’S PEOPLE ENJOYING RAW MILK CHEESES?

Yes most are, and have done so for centuries, some for millennia.  France, Italy, the UK and most of Europe have the right to enjoy raw milk cheeses.  Half the states in the USA are enjoying raw milk cheese and more are joining in, as are Canada and New Zealand.

IF THE REST OF THE WORLD ARE ENJOYING RAW MILK CHEESES? WHY NOT AUSTRALIA?

Good question.  The making of raw milk cheese is being prevented in Australia by archaic regulations developed before quality assurance programs were available that could deliver low risk outcomes.  The work has moved on, but Australia is stuck in the past.  As a result Australians are being denied their right to enjoy the very best of cheese, and our cheese-makers are being denied their right to produce them.

WHAT MAKES RAW MILK CHEESE SPECIAL?

Taste and variety! Artisan cheeses made from raw milk exhibit flavours and diversity not found in an industrial product.  Raw milk cheeses deliver taste in abundance.

SO ARE RAW MILK CHEESE SAFE TO EAT? AND CAN THEY BE SAFE IN AUSTRALIA?

Any food involving the use of bacteria to make it involves a small level of risk - and that includes both raw and pasteurised milk cheeses.  However, the dairy industry worldwide is one of the safest, including in those countries that enjoy raw milk and raw milk cheeses. All that is required is that Australian cheese meet international benchmark levels of acceptable risk no matter how or what milk cheese are made of.

WHAT ABOUT EXPORT POTENTIAL FOR AUSTRALIAN RAW MILK CHEESE?

50 years ago Australia did not have a wine culture and exported very little wine.  Today Australia is recognised as the world’s best wine producing and export nation*. Unfortunately regulations prevent Australian cheese-makers from producing unique raw milk cheeses, so our export potential for raw milk cheeses is currently zero.  If realistic regulations were in place, Australia would become a leading quality cheese exporting nation.

DO REGULATIONS PREVENT INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF AUSTRALIAN CHEESES?

Absolutely.  Currently Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) are telling our cheese-makers how to make cheeses via prescriptive regulations.  The last thing an artisan cheese-maker needs to be told by bureaucrats is how to produce cheeses.  Prescriptive regulation prevents experimentation, artistry and innovation by our cheese-makers, and stops the development of Australian world-class cheese.

SO WHAT SHOULD AUSTRALIAN REGULATORS DO TO HELP FOSTER OUR CHEESE INDUSTRY?

Set standards that enable our cheese-makers to compete on the world stage with internationally recognised benchmarks for safety.  Then get out of the way and let Australian cheese-makers develop exquisite quality cheeses that meet the standards by whatever method they choose or develop.

DO OUR REGULATORS THINK THAT AUSTRALIAN CHEESE-MAKERS AREN’T GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE RAW MILK CHEESE?

That is the inescapable and insulting conclusion drawn from the law as it now stands, when we can eat imported raw milk cheese, but not those made by our own cheese-makers. This is far from the case.  Indeed, using pasteurised milk, Australia makes some of the world’s finest cheeses.

WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP AUSTRALIAN CHEESE-MAKERS AND LOVER OF GOOD CHEESES?

Sign the Slow Food petition and get all your friends and family to do so as well.  Download copies of the petition and give these to all people who enjoy good food and want to support our local producers and farmers.

Summer overflows with the fruits of Christmas… mangoes, nectarines, peaches, plums, cherries and berries.

Although you may be used to enjoying many of these all year round, try them while in season. Select from local and preferably organic producers and see if you can taste the sunshine.

Anchovies - available salted all year round but have you tried them fresh during the late sprint/summer when they are mature and grown enough to fish.

Tomatoes  - “… the raw tomato, devoured in the garden when freshly picked, is a horn of abundance of simple sensations, a radiating rush in one’s mouth that brings with it every pleasure”. Excerpt from The Gourmet, Muriel Barbery’s latest novel.

Zucchini - super finely sliced and add raw to salads or equally delicious sautéed or steamed and teamed with new season beans whether they be flat, butter, snake, broad or regular green.

Apricots - fresh from the fruit bowl, in crumbles or tarts with end of season’s batch made into marmalades and jams.

Cherries - there are many different varieties which accounts for the different sizes and colours.  Regardless of appearance, these red beauties signal the coming of Christmas!

Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries - superfoods with super taste

Also in season…..

FRUIT bananas, lemons, lychees, pineapples, rockmelons, watermelons

VEGETABLES asparagus, beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, capsicum, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, eggplant, leek, mushrooms, onions, peas, rhubarb, spinach, squash, corn on the cob

SEAFOOD Sydney and Hawkesbury rock oysters

by Syd Pemberton

12 whole sardines, gutted and cleaned

1/4 cup plain flour mixed with 1/4 cup coarse semolina

Salt & Pepper

Olive oil for cooking

Lemon wedges to serve

Caponata

Extra virgin olive oil

1 large eggplant (500g) cut into 2cm pieces

1 Spanish onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1 red and 1 yellow capsicum, chopped into 2cm pieces

2 sticks celery, chopped

400gms can of tomatoes

2 tbls red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

1/3 cup pitted Kalamata olives, chopped

1 tbls rinsed salt packed capers

2 tbls currants

1/2 cup chopped flat leafed parsley

Heat about 1/4 cup of oil in a large fry pan, add eggplant and cook over high heat until browned. Remove from pan.

Add another 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan and cook onion, capsicum and celery over medium heat until onion is soft.

Add garlic, tomatoes, vinegar and sugar.  Season to taste and cook over medium heat about 10 minutes until tomatoes are reduced and pulpy.  Stir in eggplant, olives, capers and currants and simmer another 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat, check for seasoning and cool. Stir in the parsley.

Too cook sardines, mix flour and semolina together and season.  Coat sardines on both sides with the four mixture.

Oil the barbecue plate or griddle and cook sardines in batches on both sides until cooked through - about 2 or 3 minutes each side.

Serve caponata topped with a few rocket leaves with sardines and lemon wedges.