Slow Food lunch at Becasse

Canape: Goat’s curd, olive and thyme biscotti sandwich

Becasse Restaurant’s Producers Lunch Forum today was dedicated to all things slow – slow raised wagyu cattle, slow grown vegetables and slow seafood.

The lunch honoured Slow Food Founder Italian Carlo Petrini who was in Sydney for the Sydney Food Festival. The Guardian newspaper named Carlo one of the 50 people who could save the planet and Carlo is living up to those expectations. Encouraging people to take time to eat properly and care about how their food is grown is part of his mantra. Here in Australia Carlo weighed into the fight over the ban on raw milk cheese production saying if we could import Italian and French raw milk cheeses does this mean ‘their bacteria is safer than Australia’s?’ Stupido! Here, here, Carlo!

Freshly baked Becasse Bread: Pumpkin brioche, stout epi and garlic rosemary Auvergne

Olive oil spread with black sea salt

olive oil on a piece of stout epi

2008 Freeman Rondo rose

Spring Bay Scallop with organic radish stems, green chilli and balck pepper

Sping Bay mussels, abalone with braised periwinkles, bouillabaisse mousseline and sea urchin jelly

Roast rib of Gundooee organic grass fed wagyu beef with osso bucco of shin, broad bean puree, and crushed Bauer organic Dutch cream potatoes

accompanying wine

Sutton Grange Organic Farm Holy Goat la Luna with caper and raisin puree, baby beets and fresh almonds

Becasse deconstructed orange carrot cake

2007 Vinden Estate Botrytis Semillon

Slow Food Founder Carlo Petrini with a pathetic fan

Terre Madre

“We are in the midst of three major crisis: the crisis of finance, the crisis of food, the crisis of the environment including climate change, are all routed in the same causes. The globalized economy is based on fictions, it is based on greed, is failing us, is leading from crisis to crisis. Terra Madre invites us to return to the terra – earth, and madre – the earth as mother. All we have to do is once again remember how our mothers fed the world… It’s that generosity and abundance of sharing, of caring that we must rejuvenate.

We can, we are the future, let’s make it happen.”

– Vandana Shiva
Slow Food International Vice President Opening Ceremony Terre Madre

On Tuesday night I attended my first meeting as the ‘Terre Madre’ organiser for the Sydney Slow Food Committee. The Slow Food movement is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization founded in 1989 by Italian Carlo Petrini. Its charter is to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. Today, we have over 100,000 members in 132 countries.

Every two years thousand of farmers, producers and chefs from around the world meet in Torino, Italy for the Terre Madre (Mother Earth) conference to discuss the major themes of food production. Together they share and compare the diverse and complex issues that underlie what “high-quality food” means to them: issues of environmental resources and planetary equilibrium, and aspects of taste, worker dignity, and consumer safety.

The next Terre Madre will be held in Torino Italy in September 2010.

Sydney is hoping to send 12 delegates to this prestigious gathering who represent the best of our food traditions. We’re looking for growers, farmers, cooks, chefs, young people, teachers, foodies who are passionate about slow food traditions and demonstrate that commitment in their day-to-day life.

We’ll keep you updated on our website. And while you’re there sign up as a member of Slow Food. You’ll get to attend some exclusive food events, meet some of the world’s leading chefs and food leaders and share your love of good food with others.It’ll be the best $100 you’ve ever spent! http://slowfoodsydney.com.au/

One of the greatest disciples of the Slow Food Movement is US chef and restaurateur Alice Waters who runs the famous Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe in Berkley California.

Alice was featured recently (mar 15th 2009) on American ’60 Minutes’ about her slow food philosophy – a sign that slow food is finally going mainstream! Take a look…….
www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4867014n