Here you can find more photos of the Bush Tucker Picnic.

Slow Food Sydney wants to thank all the volunteers, members, friends and families.
A special thanks to all the sponsors who made this event possible:

- Belinda Franks Catering for equipment and support;
- Australian Kangaroo Industry Association;
- Australian Macadamia Org;
- Brasserie Bread – for creating a special Indigenous bread and supporting us;
- Frou Frou Native Bush Cordials;
- Ecolifestyle bamboo plates;
-  Party Time Hire Company.

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”.

Carlo Petrini, founder and international president of Slow Food, visited Sydney last week, as part of his first Australian tour.
Petrini had some busy days in our city, meeting convivia members and Terra Madre delegates, visiting the local Italian community in Haberfield where residents are battling plans for a Mc Donald’s on Parramatta Road and making an appearance at the Bush Tucker Picnic in the Royal Botanic Gardens. At the end of his visit, he delivered a lecture at the Opera House, where he spoke passionately about his revolutionary food vision.

Interviewed by Sydney International Food Festival director Joanna Savill, Petrini told the audience that “today we are experiencing an incredible and extraordinary paradox: the food is eating us. Nowadays massive food production is the principal responsible for the planet’s destruction”. We are losing soil fertility for the chemicals used in our land, he said. We are wasting water: more than 70% of it is used in agriculture and intensive-cattle rising. We are losing our bio-diversity: “because we must produce food in a more intense way, only the strongest breeds win and survive. In this way, in the past 100 years we have lost 80% of the world’s biodiversity”.

These were the reason which led to the creation of Terra Madre, Petrini said. “Terra Madre is a wonderful network made up of farmers, fishermen, nomads, chefs, young and old people, academics and filmmakers who really care about a new food culture and safeguarding the environment. It’s a meeting based on brotherhood, so that people can meet and exchange ideas. “
The revolutionary idea of Petrini is that producers and eaters should build a “fraternity (brotherhood) of food”, “because fraternity allows us to respect people who have different ideas from ours, people of a different culture, skin, or religion. With fraternity we can respect them. And fraternity helps us to listen to other people. Then with fraternity we also have equality and liberty. That is why Slow Food has called (its movement) Terra Madre, because if the earth is our mother, then we are all brothers and sisters. And even if we speak different languages we can still understand each other”. Full transcript.

In late March, the students at Crown Street took their Edible Schoolyard into the kitchen.  Starting with a capsicum harvest, students learned to make stuffed capsicums, and best of all, got to eat the fruits of their labour.

We’ve posted some photos to give you a taste!