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.

A small grower from Eastern NSW says when it comes to what gets put on your plate, it’s time people become serious about going slow, supporting what’s small and living local.

Certified OGA organic grower Michael Champion was a recent Australian delegate at this year’s largest Slow Food event - Terra Madre (translation: ‘Mother Earth’) in Italy.

Attended by a record 7,000 strong crowd, he says the conference was a meeting point for a growing number of chefs, farmers and youth who are adamant the world needs to be more conscious about the origins of what it eats.

“Slow Food is about artisan farmers and farms that put care and precision into their product - whether that is a cow, a vegetable, or a piece of fruit,” he says.

“It’s about farms that are bio-diverse, which grow in a particular way that preserves old traditions of production. Slow food is very anti-industrial farming and also anti-GM.

“And it’s about promoting small, local farmers.”

He says organic is a natural fit with most - but not all - of the mantra of the Slow Food Movement.

Slow Food, which was established formally just twenty years ago by Carlo Petrini (initially in protest of the opening of McDonalds in Rome), upholds the pillars of ‘Good, Clean and Fair food’.

The movement believes gastronomy is irrefutably tied to politics, agriculture and the environment.

Slow Food principles state agriculture can only really be sustainable when it is based on the wisdom of local communities, in balance with the ecosystems food is produced in.

Mr. Champion says that is where his concern for organic lies.

Slow food is not always organic - just as organic food is not always local.

He says in his opinion, the benefits of organic fulfilling the ‘Good and Clean’ criteria of Slow Food can be made obsolete if it falls down on ‘Fair’ returns to local farmers.

“I was a buyer in Sydney for five years and I honestly think local food is looked down upon in metropolitan areas (even as interest in organic grows),” he says.

“Unfortunately because of a large proliferation in Australia’s urban population, farming land which used to occupy city outskirts has been developed - and food is purchased from a wider geographic range.

“I do not think food can be described as fair when my neighbour with high quality product produced in the local environment, is forced to compete against someone from the other side of the country.

“Small producers remain an integral part of the backbone of organic - and we need to promote local industries to provide incentives for them to produce enough for the markets that are local to them.”

He says he has no problems with large organic farms - provided they service those areas closest to them.

“I do understand the price of land close to cities is prohibitive to local farming.

“But if large organic farms begin to take market space from more local organic growers - or flood the local market - then it is only a matter of time before products from large Australian organic farms are being replaced by products from large organic plantations in Brazil.”

He says the issue is not isolated to Australia.

“These are global issues - and we’re at the centre of discussions in Italy, where similar views were expressed from round the world.”

But he says there is an onus on Australian consumers to learn to shop better - and purchase local products as a priority.

“Consumers have to be part of the production process in terms of what they consume.

“People have got to start going into organic shops and asking - ‘has the majority of it been sourced locally?’ And if not - ‘Do you know where I can find a local supplier?’ Italian communities are much more responsible in this manner.”

He says eventually it will mean the retailers will ask wholesalers about the origins of their purchase - “And the cycle will begin”.

He says like anything that matters, the process will be slow - “But it can happen!”

For more information on Slow Food Internationally visit www.slowfood.com
For more information on Slow Food in Australia visit http://slowfoodaustralia.com.au/
For more information on Slow Food in the capital city near you visit:
Sydney: http://slowfoodsydney.com.au/
Melbourne: http://www.atasteofslow.com.au
Perth: http://slowfoodperth.org.au/
Brisbane: http://www.slowfoodbrisbane.com/
Canberra: http://www.slowfoodcanberra.com/
Darwin: http://www.slowfooddarwin.com.au/
Adelaide: http://slowfoodaustralia.com.au/convivia/find-a-co nvivium/south-australia/