During his recent visit in Australia, Slow Food international president Carlo Petrini had lunch in a Perth restaurant where he was offered three type of raw milk cheese, all from overseas. Petrini asked: ‘Are the French and Italian bacteria better than the Australian ones? Is it fair that Australians can pay for French and Italian bacteria and not for Australian ones? That’s not fair for Australian producers. With this issue, Slow Food has been able to win in the United States. Now, with 30,000 members in the United States, Slow Food has managed to change a stupid law. And if we can win in the United States we can also win in Australia. From that campaign in the United States we now have cheese makers in Montana, in California, and in Massachusetts. All over the United States we have a growing army of cheese makers, and the cheese is excellent. This is the great force of diversity”.


Slow Food Australia has now launched a public campaign to allow raw milk cheese to be made in Australia.

Raw milk cheese has a long tradition in Europe; other countries, such as the United States, Canada and New Zealand have recently changed legislation to allow its production. Australian consumers, instead, are still being denied the opportunity to taste home produced raw milk cheese.
Michael Croft, Slow Food project coordinator, says that Food Standards Australia New Zealand – the authority responsible for Australian food regulation – has to decide in early 2010 if protocols are to be changed to enable the making and sale of Australian cheese from raw milk.
“We have an opportunity to encourage food diversity, build skills and knowledge, and return opportunity to Australia’s rural heartland,’ he said. ‘We want government to allow Australian dairies to make and market raw milk cheese of quality. We call on government to enable our cheese makers and consumers to choose.’

If you want to sign, here’s the link to the online petition, or to the multiple signature petition.

“We must allow Australian cheese makers to make their cheese with raw milk. When you pasteurize milk you deprive it of its soul. There is no difference anymore. Instead, what can you taste with raw milk? You can taste the breed, the grass that the animal ate, if it comes from the mountains, hills or valleys, you can taste the expertise of the cheese maker, and so it becomes a pleasure. So difference becomes the real strength.” Carlo Petrini

THE 7:30 Report, ABC Television current affairs program, interviewed Carlo Petrini about Slow Food International during his visit to Australia in October. Along with Petrini, Tracey Bowden spoke about Slow Food and how it’s spreading in Australia also with Alex Herbert, chef of the Bird, Cow, Fish restaurant in Sydney, Michael Champion, organic vegetable grower, Michael Croft, rare farm animal breeder and Sarah MacMaster, Sydney school garden coordinator.

“T.BOWDEN: What do you say to those who believe this is just an elitist movement?
C.PETRINI: I’m in favour of what I call an “austere hedonism”. What do I mean by “austere hedonism”? It’s not that we are sad environmentalists. We want happiness, we seek pleasure but at the same time, we also seek sustainability”

Read here the full transcript.

From Slow Food Australia website:

The Australian Ark, Food Cultures, Traditions and Biodiversity Commission has launched a campaign to create a Slow fruit national register.  

In Australia, old fruit and nut trees can be found in paddocks, private and public gardens and urban wasteland, on stock routes, roadsides and streets. Many of these trees are varieties long forgotten and at risk of loss. As a first step, Picking slow fruit seeks your help to document this information about our rich fruit and nut heritage so that it can be recorded in a Slow fruit national register. Slow Food will then encourage the development of technical groups to determine if some varieties might be reintroduced to orchard and garden production.

For some time, Slow Food Blue Mountains convivium in New South Wales has been building a local fruit tree register. It is a great idea and we now have the opportunity to do this nationally through Picking slow fruit. The Ark Commission is particularly looking for old varieties.

Around the world, Slow Food works to support the food culture and traditions of local communities. In this way it helps to protect and defend food diversity. Its Foundation for Biodiversity, based in the Italian town of Albarese, provides technical expertise and support for more than 300 food diversity projects in more than 60 countries.

WHAT CAN I DO?
It’s simple. If you know of fruit or nut trees that are mature or senescent – nearing the end of their life – in your community:

* get your camera and the form (you can download it from there)
* if the tree or orchard is on private land, seek out the owner and ask for their help in providing information and for their permission to take photographs
* take good, clear, daylight photographs of the whole tree, its leaves and fruit, and estimate its measurements
* find out as much as you can about its history
* complete the form and email it, together with your photographs, to slow.fruit@slowfoodaustralia.com.au or post to: Slow fruit, Post Office Box 721, Kalamunda WA 6926

MORE INFORMATION
You can find out more and share information shown on the Slow Food Australia website.

You can also contact:
Pauline Tresise
Australian Ark Commission member
T 08 9381 4519
or
Jamie Kronborg
Slow Food Australia webmaster
T 08 9293 1845

You can email Pauline or Jamie at slow.fruit@slowfoodaustralia.com.au

PHOTOGRAPHIC PRIZE
A prize will be awarded in each state and territory for the images judged to be the best among those taken during the Slow fruit campaign. From these, we will award a national prize.

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”.

Last year Sydney Slow Food Members attended to a presentation of the work of SIMS, explaining how the marine biologists and scientists work to identify and eradicate imported alien species, restore overfished species and many other studies.
Thanks to the 19.5m grant, SIMS scientists will now have access to state-of -the-art equipment and facilities at its Chowder Bay site to combat threats to marine ecosystems arising from climate change, urbanisation, changing coastlines and marine microbes. The new funds will be used to set up a unique protected marine aquarium and associated research laboratories, along with pumps, research vessels, mobile radar equipment and sophisticated communications equipment.
To read the full story, click here.