To cook like a Tuscan all one generally needs are the main ingredients, olive oil, bread or pasta, some herbs, and salt. It is a cuisine of simplicity.

When it comes to meat dishes the preparation is just as straightforward. All one needs to make a perfect bistecca fiorentina are the ingredients listed above, less the herbs, with the addition of a wood fire, some cracked black pepper and a T-bone cut of Chianina beef three fingers wide.

If you have not tried bistecca fiorentina you are only half a carnivore. While it is somewhat ordinary in Tuscany it is a delicacy more delicious than decadent and one that ought not make a true carnivore feel guilty about flying to Italy to try just one bite. If you are the sort who is prone to viewing such a trip as an extravagance, bring a friend. The cut is large enough for two, sometimes three people. The flavors are clean and meaty, obviously, and the texture is extraordinarily tender.

The name bistecca fiorentina is a bit anomalous in the Tuscan language and its origins are disparate. The first word of the two word title is said to have come from English tourists of old taking the Grand Tour. Apparently many were nervous of Italian cooking so they ordered “beef steak” everywhere they went. Over time the Italians began to call this cut of grilled meat bistecca, the approximation of the English term. As for fiorentina, this part of the title comes from Saint Lorenzo, the patron saint of cooks who was martyred in 258 CE by being grilled alive. One highly improbable version of the legend has it that while the poor man was slowly roasted to death he allegedly joked: “Turn me over. I’m done on this side!” (Traditionally, bistecca fiorentina is served sangue or rare; perhaps a bit of Tuscan gallows humor?) Another possible source of the dish’s association with Florence may come from the church of San Lorenzo in Florence which was the parish church for the Medici family. Over time these two terms got hobbled together and the name stuck.  

The huge, white Chianina cattle have been a part of the region for centuries. The first records suggesting the presence of the Chianina breed can be found in the 4th century BCE, or the earliest period of the Umbro/Etruscan era. The breed most likely originated in the ancient Indus valley which today lies in parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-western India. Centuries of slow migration eventually lead to central Italy where the cow was especially well adapted. Herd sizes increased greatly in the middle and later Etruscan age and through to the 7th century mainly because the Etruscans viewed the cow as sacred. From Roman times to the end of the Second World War, the Chianina cow was the work horse of Italian agriculture living most of its life as a draft animal then, after life, as dinner.

In many respects the Chianina is the perfect farm animal. It is docile yet powerful and when bred for consumption, it is prolific and fast growing. A Chianina bullock can grow to 1,500 lbs / 700 kgs in just 16 months. Females can get up to 2,200 lbs / 1,000 kgs while bulls can tip the scales at 3,330 lbs / 1,500 kgs. One record setting bull was Donetto who at the age of eight years weighed 3,858 lbs / 1,750 kgs. Another legendary bull named Desiderio (1884-1889), who weighed 3,688 lbs / 1,673 kgs, was so prolific that his likeness can found on the label of Merlot/Cabernet bottled by Avignonesi Winery who wished to commemorate his achievements.

No where in Italy will one find a Chianina feed lot. Rather the cattle are always range fed and are out of the pastures only when they come to calve or need veterinary attention. The breed has been protected and breeding is regulated by the Associazione Nazionale Allevatori Bovini Italiani Carne (ANABIC). Recently the Chianina achieved European Economic Community geographically protected recognition (IGP) as “Vitellone Bianco dell’Appennino Centrale.” In limited numbers the Chianina has gone global and the Italian breed can be found in the US, the UK and has been crossbred in much of Latin America with the Zebu Nelore.

One of the most unique purveyors of Chianina beef in Italy is the Macelleria Ricci located in the town of Trequanda. This multigenerational butcher shop, established in 1895 is more than just a place to buy Chianina beef. The proprietor, Enrico Ricci raises the cattle himself on his ranch not more than five miles from his shop.

Ricci got into the raising of the livestock many years back. He explained that at the end of the share cropping system in the 1960s tractors began to replace cattle and oxen in the field. As he says, the Chianina became “redundant.” Because the cattle were no longer needed to plow the fields their numbers dwindled to around 10,000. Rather than watch this once prized and venerated breed vanish Ricci purchased a herd, along with others in his area, and worked to bring the breed back. As a result of their efforts the Chianina numbers have risen substantially.

Ricci’s entire operation is a closed circle model. He has total control from farm to table. His deep admiration for the animal is apparent in his shop where he sells all parts of the cow and personally guarantees that the animals were raised cleanly and treated humanely.

Macelleria Ricci
Trequanda, Siena
0577/662252

Tours of Macelleria Ricci are also available through Food Artisans culinary workshops in Italy.

It is rare that a business of any kind makes it to the millennium mark but there are a handful in Tuscany. Astoundingly, some have been in operation under the guidance of a single family for ten centuries. One of these gems is the winery owned and operated by Prince Girolamo Guicciardini with the assistance of his daughter Princess Natalia Guicciardini Strozzi.

The first mention of the winery is found in Medieval documents written in 994 though the vineyards were in place and wine was being made long before that. As is to be expected, in the 1,016 years since the first mention of the winery in Cusona, Italy, near San Gimignano, the family has experienced its share of up and downs. Ups included a beneficial alliance with the Medicis who sent the regional white wine they and others produced to the pope. Downs, in later years the Strozzis broke from the Medicis and paid a heavy price in life and exile.

Over the centuries the family has been friends with or associated with some of the power elite of Europe and countless counts, dukes and other celebrities. In the years of Tuscan-European supremacy they kept the young Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli on as a secretary. In 2008 it was proven that the princess is a descendent of Lisa Gherardini, more commonly known as Mona Lisa. Racing into the 20th century the Guicciardini Strozzi became related to British Prime Minister to-be Winston Churchill. More recently the estate has hosted world leaders who have undoubtedly read Machiavelli's The Prince, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Nikoli Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi. And, adds Natalia, “I was great friends with Gregory Peck and I studied dance with Rudolf Nureyev.”

Away from the glare of power and glamour less dramatic but equally vital activities took place on the ancient estate. In the 1300‘s the cellar was dug then updated in 1850. They bought the first tractor Fiat ever made in 1919 and in 1933 they bottled their first vintage of Vernaccia di San Gimignano to commemorate the birth of a son.

Like the Guicciardini Strozzi family Vernaccia di San Gimignano has known its share of ups and down. Throughout the 13th through the 15th centuries the whites of the region were in demand and were even mentioned by Dante in his Divine Comedy as being the favorite wine of Pope Martin IV. As the primacy of Tuscany faded from Italian affairs so did the quality of the wines not just in San Gimignano but the entire region. The reputation of the wine sank so far that Vernaccia was not widely known outside of or even within Italy. Of those who had heard of it, and its detractors, both averred that it was lacking aroma, flavor and character. One wine writer remarked that Vernaccia, “...is welcome after a hard day of slogging around looking at the sites.” Then, starting in the 1966, Vernaccia was the first wine in Italy to be granted DOC status. The status was granted mainly because of the age of the region and little to do with the quality of the product being made. The recognition and the implementation of DOC standards marked the beginning of a new “up” for Vernaccia di San Gimignano.

Vernaccia the grape is thought to be a descendant, possibly, of Grechetto, used in the wines of Umbria to the south of Tuscany. The word Vernaccia loosely means common, local or native grape. More literally vernaccia comes from the same Latin root vernas- which roughly translates to “home-born slave” as opposed to a captured combatant turned slave — a distinction of some importance in Roman times. It is grown in Sardinia, Trentino Alto-Adige and the Marche though the most famous incarnation of this grape is the Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG¹. The sandy hills that surround this jewel of a town that is sometimes referred to as the “Medieval Manhattan,” have proven themselves to be the ideal home for this variety. “Vernaccia is a grape,” explains Letizia Cesani, president of the Consorzio della Denominazione San Gimignano, “that is very difficult to grow. It has gentle skin and bad weather is dangerous. Vernaccia is also a grape that really changes from place to place. In some parts of the region one it is more mineral and easy drinking, another one is more heavy and intense. It is always full bodied and a wine that you can age for a long time.”

There are 201 producers of Vernaccia di San Gimignano with a total output of about 5.5 million bottles annually, and, as Cesani states, “They can vary in flavor from the north side of town to south depending on the soil and the exposure.” One trait all Vernaccia possesses is a crisp acidity that the painter Michelangelo said, “...kisses, licks, bites, pinches and stings” and a subtle, pleasant bitter finish often described as green almond.

Another “up” for Vernaccia di San Gimignano, and all of the DOCG of San Gimignano  has been the increase in the quality and resulting rise in popularity of Vernaccia. Sales of Vernaccia di San Gimignano have soared within Italy where nearly 60% of the wine produced is purchased in its homeland (mainly outside of San Gimignano). Much of the remaining supply is sold in Germany where high acid whites are an ideal accompaniment to rich German cuisine. Most of the remaining bottles make it to the US and can usually be found at a reasonable price (read: cheap).   

Vernaccia di San Gimignano may yet see its days of high marks and high demand return. It is a wine whose reputation and fortunes, like those of the Guicciardini Strozzi family, has out-lived its detractors and the Medicis, who, though they are gone, still “dine” with the Guicciardini Strozzi family. “We keep portraits of the Medicis in our dining room,” said Princess Natalia, “it’s a small vengeance. They’re all dead and every time we gather for a dinner they watch us live.” 

Contact:

Guicciardini Strozzi
Loc. Cusona, 5
53037 San Gimignano, SI, Italia

Consorzio della Denominazione de San Gimignano
Villa della Rocca
San Gimignano, SI Italia
Info@vernaccia.it

1.) A quick word about D.O.C. and D.O.C.G.
Denominazione di Orgine Controllata and Denominazione di Orgine Controllata e Garantita are the Italian wines laws that protect consumers and assure quality. These letters on the label denote that the wine is from a specific region and was produced following prescribed guidelines concerning percentages of blends and aging. There are 316 D.O.C.s and 37 D.O.C.G.s in Italy.

Field, 16th century facilities and cellar worker at Uccelliera

The little brown one — with such a cute moniker one might assume the wines to be dainty, delicate, even simple but Brunellos¹ are among some of the most intense, ageable and complex wines in the world. Professional wine tasters relish a chance to get their lips on a glass of old Brunello, collectors hoard the stuff and many are priced in a range only the most comfortable of household budgets can afford.

What makes Brunello one third of Italy’s killer “B”s — Barolo, Barbaresco being the other two — is its relatively miniscule production. While Italy leads the world in wine production the average annual output of Brunello di Montalcino is but a drop putting out only about 6.5 million bottles. This may seem like a lot but consider that in the neighboring region of Chianti Classico the average annual output is 40 million bottles. As director of the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino, Stefano Campatelli describes Montalcino as, “An iceberg in an ocean of Chianti.”

Brunello is unique not just because of its scarcity. It is also a prized wine for its ageablity. One of the most esteemed names in all of winedom, Biondi-Santi, who has been making wine in the region since the 1880s is the winery that created the standards on which the Brunello D.O.C.G.² rules were written. A recent report regarding a tasting of the 1891 Biondi-Santi Riserva, exclaimed that all tasters were astounded to find the wine still so alive, vibrant and parfumed. How this is possible has to do with the uniqueness of the Sangiovese grown in the Montalcino area, the high acidity inherent in the grape and the meticulous winemaking methods practiced by most in the region. “The difference in Brunello di Montalcino and especially with Biondi-Santi,” said Franco Biondi-Santi, “is that we’re never in a rush.”

Winemaker and his product at Uccelliera

Newer producers adhere to the belief that time is needed to make great wine and in the case of Andrea Cortonesi of Uccelliera, great wine also takes enormous physical effort.

The largely self-taught Cortonesi purchased his vineyards in 1986 and after a few years of careful vine tending felt ready to produce his first vintage in 1991. “I learned by doing,” he explained, “so I worked the vineyards by hand with my father. I also went and worked harvests at other wineries to learn how others make their wines. Our first harvest was small and we made only 500 bottles. We started small but each year we learned what our vineyards could do and we learned what density to plant the vines. The next year we learned a little more and the next some more, and so on.”

Cortonesi continues to do everything by hand. From pruning to harvesting he is in the vineyard and winery overseeing every step of the production. The results of his efforts have earned him high marks in the world’s wine publications and the wines are now among some of the more pricy wines inside and outside of Italy. “It was great in the old days to be working out in the fields with my father, but that wasn’t feeding my family,” said Cortonesi. If one measures time using a Brunello clock, success came fairly quickly to Cortonesi and Uccelliera. A mere 20 years from their first vintage, not counting the six years he waited for his first release.

A little bit up the road is Cortonesi’s neighbor Laura Brunelli, winemaker and wife of the late Gianni Brunelli. Along with Brunello Laura makes some of the best “baby Brunello” or Rosso di Montalcino in the region. By law Rosso wines do not need to be aged as long as Brunellos and are thought of as interim wines as the Brunellos mature. She shares the same belief in the importance of time in wine making. “Now, in the spring” she explained, “is the only time we go fast. It is important now because of the rain and the sun. Overnight the vineyards grow. We have to work fast. It is also important now because the soil is soft on the hills. You respect the soil, to respect the ambience and atmosphere here. In doing this you respect the generations. All this work is for the balance. Here in the Montalcino, the wine is just as much an expression of the place as it is of the producer.”

Stefano Campatelli, local product, Franco Biondi-Santi

1.) Brunello is made from the Sangiovese grape. In Tuscany it is also known as Sangioveto, Prugnolo Gentile and Morellino. According to D.O.C.G rules, a Brunello di Montalcino is always and only 100% Sangiovese. It must spend a minimum of 2 years in an oak barrel and 4 months (6 months for Riservas) in a bottle before release. Most producers extend barrel and bottle time. It is available for purchase 5 years after harvest (6 years for Riservas).

2.) About D.O.C. and D.O.C.G.
Denominazione di Orgine Controllata and Denominazione di Orgine Controllata e Garantita are the Italian wines laws that protect consumers and assure quality. These letters on the label denote that the wine is from a specific region and was produced following prescribed guidelines concerning percentages of blends and aging. There are 316 D.O.C.s and 37 D.O.C.G.s in Italy.

The Italian D.O.C.G. wines are distributed in 13 different regions as follows:

Piedmont: Barolo, Barbaresco, Brachetto d’Aqui, Asti, Ghemme, Roero, Dolcetto di Doglianico, Gattinara, Gavi
Lombardia: Franciacorta, Sforzato della Valtellina, Valtellina Superiore, Oltrepo’ Metodo Classico
Veneto: Recioto di Soave, Soave Superiore, Bardolino Superiore, Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadine
Friuli Venezia Giulia: Ramandolo, Picolit
Emilia Romagna: Albana di Romagna
Tuscany: Brunello, Chianti Classico, Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Morellino Scansano, Carmignano
Campania: Fiano, Taurasi, Greco
Abruzzo: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Umbria: Sagrantino di Montefalco, Torgiano Rosso Riserva
Marche: Rosso Conero Riserva, Vernaccia di Serra Petrone
Sicily: Cerasuolo di Vittoria
Sardegna: Vermentino di Gallura

D.O.C.G. wines are considered to represent the typicity of a region and of the fruit grown within that region. Wines of the Brunello di Montalcino became the first wines in Italy to earn D.O.C.G. status on July 1,1980.

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To learn more about the wines mentioned in this story contact:

Tenuta “Greppo” di Franco Biondi-Santi
Montalcino, SI, Italia

Azienda Agricola Ucelleria
53024 Castelnuovo dell’Abate
Montalcino, SI Italia

Gianni Brunelli
Azienda Agricola Le Chiuse di Sotto Montalcino
Loc. Podernovone, 157
Montalcino, SI Italia

Nestled in the hills near Cortona, Tuscany cookbook author Pamela Sheldon Johns and artist Johnny Johns make the most of Siena’s rich soil. They own and operate the agriturismo Poggio Etrusco where they teach cooking classes based on the local cuisine using ingredients from their own organic garden. They also produce their own organic olive oil and red wine. Cooking and eating with the pair is a genuine slow food experience that we were lucky enough to experience recently.

Our lunch menu consited of zucchini blossoms filled with fegatini flavored with vin santo, fried elderflower blossoms, roasted pork with apricots and swiss chard, and orange scented olive oil cake with strawberry gelato. As a visitor to Poggio Etrusco you too can learn to cook authentic Tuscan cuisine in beautiful surroundings.

POGGIO ETRUSCO OLIVE OIL CAKE
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups milk
zest of 3 oranges
2 cups flour
1/2  teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans.
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Add the olive oil, milk, and zest; mix well.
In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to egg mixture, stirring just blend. Do not overmix.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

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Agriturismo Poggio Etrusco is located in Siena near Montepulciano. Rooms with full kitchens are available and there is a swimming pool on the property.
Contact Information:
http://www.poggio-etrusco.com/
Agriturismo Poggio Etrusco sas 
Via del Pelago 11, Loc. Fontecornino
53045 Montepulciano (SI)
Italia
Tel/Fax (39) 0578 798 370 
Email: info@Poggio-Etrusco.com
Please note the time change when calling Italy (from USA: 6 hours later than EST)

Ever imaginative, Italy is the only Western nation to make a movie devoted to rice. It is called Riso Amore (1949). The title literally means ‘bitter rice’ but is a bit of word play that can also mean ‘bitter laughter.’ The movie stared Sylvia Mangano (1930 - 1989) as “Sylvia,” the mondina, or a woman who picks weeds in rice fields. The leggy Sylvia falls for a gangster and by the end of the film there is a lot to laugh bitterly about. Off screen Mangano had little to be bitter about, she had a long career and a long marriage to famed producer Dino de Laurentiis. Her grand-daughter is food show hostess Giada de Laurentiis.

The popularity of Riso Amore drew attention to the lives of the mondine and the rice fields of the Po Valley. The mondine, or the ‘women who went to the rice’ were some of the last in a long line of Italian peasants. This now vanished strata of itinerant workers labored for roughly a century that ended in the late 1950’s. As one might expect, working conditions were unpleasant. Rice planting is sweaty, back-breaking work with hands and feet submerged in mud. The still water meant the mosquitos and frogs were plentiful while the pay was not. And, as the age of the mondine was a time of less-then-subtle Communist leanings, the work was politicized, romanticized and bureaucratized.

To allay the tedium of their work the mondine sang. Some of the more popular songs were: O Marinaio Che Cosa Rimiri? (O Sailor, When Are You Coming Back?), Lavoro è Molto Poco (Work Doesn't Amount to Much) and, La Mia Mamma L'è 'Na Ruffiana (My Mama was a Hooker). One of the most sung songs was, La Morte di Una Mondina (The Death of a Mondina), a musical tribute to a slain field worker named Maria Margotti. In those factional, highly charged, political times the sacrificial Margotti was remembered in song as a martyr to the cause of worker’s rights.

So how did rice, the popular subject of movie and song as well as a non-native cereal grain that requires enormous effort to cultivate, come to be such a high-profile staple in Italian culture and cuisine?

There are so many possible answers to this question that perhaps it is best just to say no one really knows. It is certain that the grain was available in Roman times though it was used exclusively for medicines often mixed with honey or wines. In the 10th century records show that rice moved through Sicily en route to Spain by Arab traders who were introduced to the grain by Indians. In true Sicilian fashion it is likely that a portion of this rice shipment was appropriated, shall we say, and began its slow agronomical climb north. Sometime between the 13th and 14th centuries the plains of northern Italy’s Po Valley were cleared for agriculture and grazing and starting around 1475 rice begins to appear on invoices and tax documents with regularity.

Evidently the rice business took off quickly in the north of Italy. By 1533 changes in Venetian law ended the excise tax on rice because it was considered a vegetable and in 1590 Lombardy enacted one of the earliest child labor laws to keep children out of the rice fields. Other evidence of the budding popularity of rice is its appearance in cookbooks. A 14th century recipe called rixo in bona manera is rice boiled in almond milk then topped with sugar. (From this dish comes the Italian expression applied to giggly people: “Che aveva mangiato la minestra di riso.” Translated: He has eaten laughter/rice soup). According to legend the dish we now know as risotto Milanese came into being in 1574 when a stained glass artist named Valerius tinted the local rice dish with the same saffron he used to color glass.

It wasn’t until after the end of WWII that Italy diversified its rice production and the industry grew to the degree that the nation is now the largest producer of rice in Europe.¹ The lone type of rice grown for centuries was called “nosetrale” and may have remained alone had it not been for a Dominican friar who smuggled in other species of rice from the Philippines. It is tough to pinpoint a year in which something is smuggled but it appears that this religious rice trafficking took place in the early 1830’s. The Dominican order planted a test field to determine which rices produced the highest yields and were most resistant to disease. By the middle of the 20th century the weed picking mondine were gone, replaced by better crop management techniques, herbicides, bug-eating carp, row-lining laser beams and machines.

Italian riso is a short grain rice that falls into four categories based on grain size. Large to small they are: commune, semifino, fino, and superfino. The superfino rice is the size of rice most used for risotto though each variety has its own merits when it comes to the thickness, starchiness or soupiness in the risottos it produces. Often used varieties of Italian rice are: Aborio, Carnaroli, popular in Venice, Baldo and Vialone Nano. The Vialone Nano variety grown in the Province of Verona has been given Indicazione Geografica Protetta - IGP (Protected Geographical Indication - PGI) status by the European Union. The IGP statement from the European Commission on Agricultural and Rural Development reads: “Quality is an issue for every farmer and buyer... EU law lays down stringent requirements guaranteeing the standards of all European products… EU quality schemes identify products and foodstuffs farmed and produced to exacting specifications.”

Growing and milling the Vialone Nano rice outside of a town called Isola della Scalla (9.3 miles /15 kilometers south of Verona) are the brothers Gabriele, the jet-setting chef and Maurizio, the logistical and operational overseer, Ferron. The Ferron brothers are sixth generation rice farmers and continue to mill their grain at the Pila Vechia, a facility that went into operation in 1650. The same water driven mill wheel, turned by the passing Zenobio Creek, drives the pestle that pounds the grains to remove the hulls to make white rice. With such equipment, along with another huller built in 1950, the process of refining their rice is slow and painstaking. The end result is a simple, clean, rice grain that has not been subjected to any treatment apart from the abrasion necessary to remove the hull.

The rice produced at Pila Vechia has been part of the local economy and lore for centuries. In its earliest, semi-feudal times the farm was managed as a fief and supported the many families who worked the paddies. In the days of the Risorgimento (Italian unification) the rice was a staple in the diets of Veronese radicals, moderates, unitarians, federalists, republicans and monarchists. During the Second World War the farm was saved from being bombed due to the proximity of a British prisoner of war camp. Able to bring in harvests during wartime the farm fed many nearby families and the POWs. Today the Ferrrons have expanded the scope of their efforts and regularly consult and visit with rice farmers in Africa and Asia on how to increase yields, farm cleanly and improve the nutritional value of the food they grow. They also offer lessons on how to make the perfect risotto and have two restaurants offering tasting menus with wine pairing.

There are as many ways to prepare rice in Italy as there are kitchens. Oftentimes cooks utilize the ideal combinations of their local ingredients to produce plates both savory or sweet, appetizer or main, even dessert. The recipe below is courtesy of the Ferrons. It is the traditional risotto dish of Isola della Scala.

Chef Gabriele Ferron’s Risotto All’Isolana
4 large portions

4 cups (400 grams) Vialone Nano rice
3 1/3 cups (8 decilitres) vegetable broth, boiling hot
3 1/3 cups (8 decilitres) chicken broth, boiling hot
¼ pound (100 grams) pork loin, minced or ground
¼ pound (100 grams) lean veal, minced or ground
2 ounces (60 grams) butter
2 ounces (60 grams) grated Parmigiano cheese
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup (1 decilitre) cognac or dry, unoaked white wine (pinot grigio works well)
1 sprig rosemary
salt & pepper to taste
ground cinnamon (optional)

In a pot melt the butter over low flame with the rosemary sprig. When the butter is golden, remove the rosemary and add the two meats and the cognac and raise the heat to medium. Cook a few minutes, add salt and pepper to taste, then continue cooking on low until the meat is done.

To a large saucepan heated on low add the olive oil and rice and let the rice toast a few minutes. Add the broth, stir gently, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add meat and recover, cooking until the broth is completely absorbed. Remove from the heat. Replace lid with a clean kitchen towel and let sit for 2-3 minutes. Add the cheese and optional cinnamon and stir gently. Serve on single plates or in a large serving dish.

Where to find Ferron rice in the US:
A.G Ferrari & Sons

Contact information:
Antica e Rinomata Riseria Ferron
Via Torre Scaligera, 9
37063 Isola della Scala, VR
Italia
+39 045 730 1022
www.risoferron.com

1.) Italy is also the largest grower of kiwis in Europe. For more on Italian kiwi crops see: New Zealand’s Little Green Goddess on this site.

It is hard to imagine now, but once the young Eternal City was surrounded by pastureland where sheep grazed in great numbers. These sheep, obviously, provided a steady stream of milk. Also, there was a ready supply of salt from the seaside town of Ostia and the Romans had a monopoly on salt after winning the Punic Wars, therefore the cost of making cheese in Rome was low. In plentiful times pecorino became a staple in the Roman legionaries rations and the patriotic, or just plain hungry, citizens of Latium were eating only sheep’s milk cheese since drinking or eating anything made from cow’s milk was considered barbaric or worse, “Germanic.” Later in Rome’s history sheep’s milk and cheese became more of a premium commodity, one so valuable that the Emperor Diocletian, a man who might rightfully be called the father of Italian bureaucracy, personally set sheep’s milk prices.

Pecorino remained a predominantly Roman delight up until 1884 when the local administration  banned the salting of cheeses in local cheese shops and pecorino production moved to the island of Sardinia where it flourished until the end of WWII¹. This may have been a result of an increase in salt tax.²  After the war Italy was a ravaged and poor place causing mass migrations within and beyond the country. Many Italians left while others, notably Sardinians, moved to Tuscany where the Toscanos were abandoning their farms for factories. Naturally, the Sardinians brought along their sheep and their cheese making methods.

A descendent of one such Sardinian is Salvatore Farris, owner/operator of La Torraccia in Reggello, whose grandfather was among the early Sardinian arrivals. Here, in the shade of a Florentine castle, Farris, along with Elisabetta Focardi, make formaggio pecorino by hand using the method that is over 35 centuries old. 

Pecorino is a “cooked” cheese. The process begins by raising the temperature of the fresh sheep’s milk to 70℉/21℃ degrees and adding rennet³ which causes the milk to curdle as it heats. To make about three standard size wheels of Pecorino Toscano you’ll need around 16 gallons/60 liters of sheep’s milk. To get this amount of milk you will need at least 60 sheep as each ewe only produces one to two liters of milk a day. When the milk reaches 40℉/4.5℃ salt is added. At 60℉/15.5℃  more raw sheep’s milk is added. Once the milk comes to temperature the cheese curds separate from the whey (siero in Italian) and sink. The cheese-maker then shapes the sunken curds into a log shape, cuts off sections and places the sections in a basket where they are shaped and pressed further to release the excess liquid. This liquid whey drains back into the original cauldron where it is reheated with the leftover whey and made into to another great Italian cheese, ricotta. (Ricotta meaning, of course, “re-cooked.”) Once shaped and fully drained the wheels are aged in a 50℉/10℃ refrigerator for 20 days then moved to a 57℉/14℃ cellar for a minimum of four months after which they are known as Pecorino Toscano stagionato.

Due to the increased industrialization in the world of cheese handmade pecorino is becoming less the Italian kitchen staple it once was and more of a specialty item.  At La Torraccia, Farris, like the best artisanal cheese makers, oversees the entire process from the tending of his flock, to the shaping of each wheel, to selling his product right out the front door of the dairy. The end result are cheeses that are true expressions of Tuscan terroir.  

Pecorino cheese gets its name from the Italian word pecore, which means, sheep. It is one of Italy’s oldest cheeses. The ancient author Varro wrote about cacio Marzolina (March cheese) in 20-something BCE. Pliny the Elder describes the Tuscan pecorino in book XI of Naturalis Historia written around 70 CE.

Some of the pecorino made in Tuscany is designated DOP. Only with this designation can one call their cheese ‘Pecorino Toscano’. “Denominazione d'Origine Protetta” (DOP) along with “Indicazione Geografica Protetta” (IGP) are the certification titles attached to unique, regional products. The Byzantine legalities and bureaucratic verbiage attached to these certifications are reducible to this idea: The DOP and/or IGP marks guarantee the authenticity and genuine characteristics of certain food and agricultural products from specific locations.

Only 35 out of about 600+ Italian cheeses are protected. Not protected as in behind glass, in a safe or moved from farm to table in armored cars, but protected by the EU and the Italian government. These safeguarded cheeses, along with other artisanal food products such as hams, olive oils and vinegars, are not just regional, national and cultural assets, they are monetary assets.  Assets of such value that the Italians have fought and won international court battles to protect what can only be called their regional copyrights; the most recent and highly profiled was the fight to make make it illegal to call a cheese Parmesan unless it comes from Parma.

Fellow sheep’s milk cheeses that are also protected are the pecorinos of Romano, Sardo, Siciliano and di Filiano — being the most recent addition to the in-crowd earning DOP statues in 2007.

Recipe - Fava Beans and Fresh Pecorino

 
1.) The pecorino cheese makers of Sardinia have staged a come back and most of the Pecorino Romano available today comes from the island.   

2.) Salt taxes have been a part of Italian culinary life, indeed global culinary life. Salt taxes in Italy were a burden to the populous even in ancient Roman times but came to a head in the Renaissance. For a complete picture consult: Papal banking in Renaissance Rome: Benvenuto Olivieri and Paul III, 1534-1549 by Francesco Guidi Bruscoli, chapter 7, pages 145-153.

3.) Rennet is used in most cheese making. When added to milk it causes the milk solids to curdle. There are now several types of rennet. The first rennets were made from the lining of calf’s and kid’s (young goats) stomachs. Their stomachs contain enzymes not found in the stomachs of older cattle that are essential in offspring being able to digest mother’s milk. Other rennets are made from artichoke. Farris uses artichoke rennet in his Marzolino. There are also other rennets available today that are vegetarian friendly. The most commonly used is called chymosin and it is produced using genetically engineered bacteria.
 

Contact:

Salvatore Farris/Elisabetta Focardi
La Torraccia Pecorino Cheese & Ricotta
Az. Agricola Farris, Salvatore
Via Cetina La Torraccia, 47
50066 Reggello, FI, Italy
T: (+39) 055 863332
E-mail: info@latorraccia.it

Pecorino Toscano D.O.P.
Via Mameli
17
58100 Grosseto, 
Italy
T: (+39) 0564 20038
Email: info@pecorinotoscanodop.it

The last of the mobile food hawkers were banished from the streets of Singapore in 1986. Over were the days when the food hawkers of the country were allowed to roam neighborhoods clanging bells or clacking bamboo poles enticing customers to buy their “siew yeh” (supper) from them. It had taken the Singaporean government over 15 years to get the hawkers off the streets and into an enclosed space. The reasons for their being relegated to open-air, urban food courts or hawkers centres had nothing to do with the love of rule-making that Singapore is infamous for and more to do with matters of hygiene. People were getting sick. Some were getting very sick, even fatally so. To combat this the government reorganized a socioeconomic and cultural institution that sprang up after World War II and grew as a result of the rapid urbanization of the 50‘s. Understanding early on that by eradicating the street hawkers the government would be tearing a wide hole in the social fabric, mainly by wiping out a hawker’s income and eliminating one of the few ways a person could purchase a cheap, cooked meal, then leader Lee Kwan Yew, ordered the construction of the outdoor food courts now found throughout the country.

Like everything in Singapore, the planning and location of the new vendor stalls was extremely well thought out. Nearly all were placed in established market areas, public housing centers or near bus and subways interchanges. All were fitted out with running water, sewage lines, public toilets, washing facilities and gas and electricity lines. In terms of improving food safety the move was remarkably effective, reducing the average number of food poisoning incidents linked to hawker stalls to around just four a year.¹ And, in terms of modifying, rather than losing a cultural institution completely, the emergence of the hawkers centres ushered in a new era. Now locals head to the hawker’s food stalls for their makan (literally makan translates as, “to go out for a stroll” but has also come to mean “dine out”) instead of the food hawkers coming to them.

Since the inception of the system the hawkers centres have been watched over by three separate government organizations. The National Environment Agency, the Ministry of Environment & Water Reserve and the Housing & Development Board. This is Singapore after all and why have one oversight committee when three will do? These agencies oversee about 120 public food centers. Each center houses about 150 stalls making for roughly 18,000 individual vendors nationwide. Along with the food courts there are numerous cafés, coffee houses, noodle and soup joints and restaurants across the country offering Singaporeans more dining options than most of their southeast Asian neighbors. A recent count determined that in a nation of 5 million people there is one food vendor for every 570 people.

In a hyper-productive microstate that marches on its stomach people have transformed the act of eating into a form of communication with its own rules. Over the years a hawker centre form of etiquette has emerged. Some food court rules might strike some as rude. For example, when tables are full it is not considered bothersome to linger very near an occupied table and wait for the occupants to finish eating and leave. It is bad form to not hurry up if you occupy a table in a busy hawker centre and you are aware that others are waiting for your place. Another practice some might find bothersome is the art of the “chope.” Definition of chope: verb, from Singlish; to place a package of tissue on a table or chair to signal to others that that place is taken or reserved.

Not all Singaporeans care to perform the hawker stall courtship dance. Many now prefer the indoor food courts that have opened in many of the nation-state’s shiny, new shopping malls. Most of the indoor versions sell many of the country’s signature dishes like kampong chicken, roti prata, chili crab and black pepper crab, nasi padang and the less ordinary plates of gong-gong (periwinkle) and chut-chut (snail), however most of the mall vendors operate as entities of large, national franchises.

Fans of the indoor food courts like the air-conditioned climate, the relative calm of the dining setting, the absence of open flames and smoke and the fact that none of the vendors aggressively approaches and attempts to coerce customers into eating at their stall. Detractors of the indoor food courts dislike them for the same reasons in the inverse.  

Not surprisingly there is the new “retro” view as expressed by a local cab driver.  “I am third generation here,” the driver explained, “I have been here my whole life and the one thing I miss the most about the old Singapore is the food hawkers who used to come to our neighborhood and sell their food to us right there off the street.”    

Like much else in Singapore, the well-intentioned relocation of the food hawkers and the increased regulations that improved the overall safety of food preparation has resulted in an unfortunate byproduct and that is: vigilant oversight has flattened the experience. This difficult to define character, energy, type of élan, je ne sais quois, whatever it is called, has been quietly smothered under a nice yet obnoxious governmental wet blanket. There is no denying that maintaining public safety is a top priority and Singapore is still rightly famous for its food scene and there are vendor/chefs who are masters of their craft. However, the once rough-edged personality and excitement that was part of the makan experience has been polished to a lusterless dull by institutions more interested in soothing the senses rather than igniting them.

1.) In February 2010 there were fatal food poisonings that claimed two victims. The tainted food was traced back to an Indian rojak stand at the Geylang Serai Market. The incident triggered stricter governmental enforcement of hygiene standards. The State Coroner Victor Yeo issued a verdict of “misadventure” regarding the fatalities.

Undoubtedly each of the first explorers, colonists and convicts who arrived in Australia remarked on how everything seemed ineffably peculiar. One of the earliest arrivals (1688), Dutchman Dirk Hartog, wrote in his journal that: “The land is cursed; the animals hop not run, birds run not fly and the swans are black not white.” Two more elemental differences that drove colonists and convicts crazy were, the seasons are opposite and the trees lose their bark rather than their leaves.

Then there were the native people who we now call the Aboriginals to add to the colonist’s befuddlement. The arriving whites were amazed to observe that the indigenous population had no concept of ownership, no farms and only rudimentary hunting equipment. When efforts were made to finally learn some of the many Aboriginal dialects colonists were surprised to learn that there was no word in any of them for thank you. (The expression of gratitude was never necessary in a society in which there was no concept of ownership and shared what it had out of a sense of duty rather than munificence or generosity.) This nuance, like many others, was lost on most arriving settlers, among them Englishman William Dampier who said of the native population, “...they are the most miserable people in the world.” Only a few of the journal keeping colonists bothered to record in their accounts of early colonial life that had it not been for these “miserable people” and their intimate knowledge of the land, many settlers would have surely died of exposure, starvation or self-inflicted poisoning.  

The Aboriginals, with their 40,000 years of experience on the continent, had amassed effective solutions to nearly all of the natural difficulties they, and the early settlers, encountered. If ever there has been a people of their land it is them. Whether it was keeping flies out of one’s eyes, ears and nose by wearing a shucked oyster on the brim of one’s hat, or in one’s hair, to finding ample forage in areas that to the uninitiated eye appeared barren, the native people demonstrated repeatedly that they were capable of doing the impossible. Such as setting off on foot into the outback, an act the whites considered a death sentence, only to return in fine health many days, weeks or months later.

The whites were just as dismayed by the local food stuffs that their Aboriginal neighbors ate. Beyond the visibly unappealing witjuti grubs and certain insects eaten by the locals the colonists turned their noses up at many of the native fruits and vegetables. Some diarists described the wild foods as “repulsive,” “dangerous” and “unpalatable.” A 19th century English botanist named J.D. Hooker, author of Flora of Tasmania, wrote that, “...although eatable not much of what grows here is fit to eat."

Until recently a dislike, even a distrust, of native foods, was the norm. For example, the sale of kangaroo meat, a delicious, plentiful, sustainable food source and one that some Aussies still refuse to eat, was legalized nationwide fairly recently in 1993. (There are approximately 40 million kangaroos in Australia, there are 22.1 million people. Kangaroos out number people nearly 2 to 1.) This distrust, however, has begun to erode and what the Aboriginals of old ate to survive has come into vogue with the resurgence of a style of foraging and preparation neatly categorized as “bushtucker.” Basically, bushtucker is food that has grown wild in the outback for centuries and was harvested by observant Aboriginals. Some items regularly found in the New South Wales and Queensland areas, where the the largest concentration of Aboriginal people can be found, are kangaroo apples, a faintly sweet fruit that contains a series of steroids of commercial value as raw material for the manufacture of contraceptives and fruits like  the finger lime, kakadu plum, and the lady apple. Also common are pepperberries, now grown on plantations and used as a spice and in medicine; salt bush, a leafy green that grows in soils with high salinity and has a salty flavor and various wattle seeds from acacia trees that were gathered, ground into flour and made into bread. 
 
As the colonization of Australia spread the decades that followed were tragic for the Aboriginal race. Families were forced to split up and children were taken from their parents and sent to schools where they were encouraged to forget their heritage. Lands, both sacred and profane were appropriated in the name of the Crown. A people whose life cycles were relegated by migration were forced to stay put. To make matters worse new diseases that the natives were not able to resistant took their toll and in less than a century the Aboriginal population, once estimated to be around 750,000 (other estimates place the figure at 315,000) had shrunk by 90%.  

Disease, marginalization and unfair laws designed to deny the native’s basic rights nearly destroyed the Aboriginal culture and until recently it appeared that the knowledge amassed by generations of Aboriginals would be lost.

At the beginning of the 20th century members of the Aboriginal community organized to prevent this from happening. Though their numbers are small (an accurate Aboriginal census figure is difficult to pin down. Some sources say Aboriginals make up 2% of the total population while others claim 6%, which ever figure is accurate it is rare to see Aboriginals in mainstream life) a vocal minority began to force changes in the colonial system and protested to earn native peoples greater freedoms and equal rights. As the system began to evolve all that was left to do was undo the damage 200 years of cultural oppression. 


Two native Australians involved in this are Aunty Beryl Van-Oploo of the Kamilaroi clan and Chef Mathew Cribb of the Waradjuri. Together they run the Yaama Dhiyan Hospitality School in Sydney, Australia. The school opened in 2005 and is based in the Red Fern district of Sydney, a predominantly Aboriginal community. Red Fern, Van-Oploo explains, “...has always been our meeting place for as long as I can remember.” The nine week program is offered four times a year and teaches courses in cooking and hospitality service training with an emphasis on native cuisine and Aboriginal cultural programs. “We open the program to 20 people and then we allow for drop outs,” says Van-Oploo, “If we can graduate 15 or 16 then we’re happy. At the end of the day the focus is to put people in a job. It’s like a stepping stone. It’s been a long time coming for Aboriginal people. The school has got a good feel about it and we’re getting outcomes, that’s the main thing. My three words are communication, education and respect. With those three things and it’ll happen for everybody.”

At the completion of the nine weeks students earn three certificates that will enable them to to find work in the hospitality industry. In the five years of its existence Yamma, which means ‘welcome,’ Dhiyan, which means ‘family’ or ‘friends’ in Aboriginal, have formed relationships with large local companies, among them Qantas, and place 80% of their students in jobs. Many others have gone onto to further their studies in either hospitality or the culinary arts. “It’s been really good,” says Van-Oploo, “some of our students are as young as 15 and I’d rather see them here than be on the streets doing nothing. Then, hopefully I can get them back in school or into a trade. You know, if they go into a trade so be it. A lot of Aboriginal people like doing things with their hands.” 

Australia’s first and only hospitality college specializing in indigenous culture and cuisine has been one of Van-Oploo’s goals since becoming an educator. “This has been a dream of mine for over thirty years,” explains Mrs. Van-Oploo, “it just didn’t happen over night. It’s been about getting out there and having a go and showing that we can do these things. And when you haven’t been given a go, like when I was eighteen I didn’t have any rights and Aboriginal people weren’t allowed to own anything until 1969. If we were given the chance to have our own land and our own collateral then we wouldn’t be in this situation. You don’t forget your past but you move on to make a better future for your children and your grand children.”

On our visit to Yamma Dhiyaan Mathew Cribb cooked us a fabulous kangaroo pie - not quite an Aboriginal recipe but a nice combination of cultures and ingredients. His recipe follows.

Chef Mathew Cribb’s Drunken Kangaroo Pie
If kangaroo meat in unavailable elk makes a wonderful substitute - they both are lean and rich with a faint gaminess. A lean cut of beef would also work but may lack some character.

1/2 onion, diced into 1/2” pieces
1 carrot, diced into 1/2” pieces
2 stalks celery, diced into 1/2” pieces
1.3 pounds (600 grams) kangaroo rump meat, cut into 1/2” pieces
2-12 ounce bottles of ale
2 pints (1 liter) water
pie dough (short crust) enough for top and bottom of standard pie
puff pastry
1 egg
2 tablespoons canola or other oil suitable for high heat
salt & pepper to taste

Heat a stock pot over medium. Add oil and vegetables. Sauté until soft. Add meat and brown on all sides. Deglaze the pot with beer then add water. Cover and simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours or until meat is tender. While meat braises brush a pie dish or cupcake tins with oil then line with pie crust. Season the meat with salt & pepper to taste and allow it to cool thoroughly, then place in prepared dough. Cover with puff pastry. Prepare an egg wash by scrambling egg. Brush egg wash on top puff pastry crust and seal with fingers. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until crust is golden brown and flaky. Allow to cool for a few minutes then serve and enjoy immediately.

Contact Information:
Yaama Dhiyaan Hospitality Training College
255 Wilson Street
Darlington, NSW
2008
T: 02 8399 0924

Many of those original land-owning families who made the Barossa Valley into Australia’s preeminent wine region are the same today as they were in the late 1800s. The work that was started by men like Johann Gramp, who created the first commercial winery, Orlando Wines in 1847, continues today in the form of the Jacob’s Creek line — which is owned  by Pernod Ricard. Or Joseph Seppelt whose original vineyard holdings still engulf a large section of the valley and whose organization founded in 1851, now makes wine for the Foster’s Group. William Salter, whose Saltram winery began in 1844, is now also a part of the Foster’s Group portfolio. As is the Wolf Blass product line; though Wolfgang Blass is a relative upstart who established his business in 1966. There are plenty more, like the third and fourth generation grape growers who banded together to form Barossa Valley Estate — which is owned by Constellation Brands. A tiny few, such as Henschke, Bruge and the Smiths of Yalumba (Australia’s oldest family owned winery) remain family owned though this has not made them immune to the urge to expand in the same manner as their corporate competitors.

The biggest changes to the Barossa wine industry began to take place in the 1980s. At the start of the decade a measly 2% of all Aussie wine produced was exported. Then something happened. Australian wine, predominately, Barossa Valley wines, got the attention of the English wine buying market, mostly because it was cheap. As the wine consumer grew more interested in the Aussie product many of the already huge wineries of the Barossa stopped making rot-gut fortified wines and switched to still wines as they expanded to accommodate the increased international demand. During these years several wineries turned themselves over to corporations or bought more land, some of it far from Barossa, and doubled their vine planting. From 1985 to 1999 exports multiplied by 100 times. In 1999 the industry nationwide cracked the AU$3 billion mark in export business. To demonstrate the leap in exports: total US revenue from wine exports in 1999 totaled $548 million. By 2000 Aussie wine was selling at a rate of 300,000 bottles a day in England. Through increased production, corporatization and innovative use of mechanization, like the machine grape harvester and rotary fermenter (a rotating cylinder that shortens ferment times down from around 2-3 weeks to five days) Australia was able to literally flood the market with affordable wines that were pleasing to most palates.

Despite the booms and busts the Barossa has held its global position as the most famous and significant wine region in Australia, though it seems now that it, along the rest of South Australia retains our awe less because of the quality of the wines produced and more from the astronomical amount that pours out. In a good year like 2003-04 about 194 million gallons (733 million liters) of wine were produced keeping South Australia at the top of wine production and exportation in the nation. In 2009 the state shipped out 118 million gallons (448 million liters) worth AU$1.574 billion.³

Through the years of incredible growth there were a handful of Barossa winemakers and vineyard owners who managed to, or just plain refused to, be lured by the quick cash to be gained from taking short cuts and making mostly over-hyped bulk wine. Robert O’Callaghan who founded Rockford Wines is locally regarded as the individual who most assertively bucked the trend. Unlike his larger, more industrialized competitors O’Callaghan opted to stay small and his operation still makes wines by hand using minimal equipment and antique gear, like his wooden stemmer and basket press that date back to the days of the valley’s settlement.

Over time O’Callaghan won converts, built a loyal customer base and helped start the careers of David Powell, who went on to launch Torbreck and Chris Ringland, founder of Three Rivers. Both winemakers are now world renowned and both handcraft wines in the same slow, deliberate manner as O’Callaghan.

Now there is a third wave in the Barossa. Most of this generation have worked for or alongside guys like O’Callaghan, Powell and Ringland. Most have also worked vintages in France, Italy, Spain, South Africa and California. And each has seen enough of the wine industry to aver that wine making comes first. Fraser McKinley, one of the wine makers at the Standish Wine Company and maker of his own Sami-Odi wines said, “Wine making for us is extraordinarily simple. We learned from guys like David Powell, who formed their views from working with Robert at Rockford.” Which means forming solid relationships with grape growers, thoughtful, oftentimes biodynamic, vineyard management, overseeing production from start to finish and making wine that reflects the place.  

Ben Radford, now the chief winemaker at Rockford is one of these new faces on the Barossa scene. He along with his wife Gill, who makes her wines under the Radford label, own some of the oldest vineyards⁴ in the region, if not the world, and work their land bio-dynamically. The couple met in Stellenbosch, South Africa and moved their operation back to Australia firm in their belief that there is more to Australia and the Barossa than just mass produced wine.

Another of the third wave is Dan Standish. He founded the Standish Wine Company in 1999 and like many in this group found that the personal touch makes for better wine. “Each batch is treated differently and separately,” says Standish. “There’s no typical regime. We look at our wines and we taste and the wine tells us when it’s ready.” He  attributes his belief in wines being able to speak for themselves, in part, to Robert O’Callaghan. “He is sort of the godfather of the rebirth of old world winemaking practices in the Barossa Valley. He was the first one to step away from the technical winemaking methods that said, you must add tannin, you must add acid, you must do this and the numbers must add up to this. Now there’s a lot of guys in this valley who are using the old world techniques and it all goes back to Rockford, for sure.”    

Presently, there are producers in the Barossa enduring another bust period brought on mainly by corporate shortsightedness. The major players in the industry have found themselves with a glut of wine producing up to 40 million more cases than they are selling. Analysts report that if the wine industry hopes to operate profitably it will have to cut at least 10% of Australia’s 437,000 acres (177,000 hectares) of vineyard from production — 10% amounts to an area slightly smaller than the state of Rhode Island. At the moment there is no market for what are sometimes referred to as “factory wines” despite appealing to Australian’s patriotic side and pleading with them to “drink local.”

Interestingly, producers like Rockford, for example, who move 70 to 80% of their wine via direct sales through their cellar door/tasting room, suffer from the opposite of a wine glut, selling out vintages regularly. Nationally the demand for better quality is apparent and internationally consumers of Aussie wine have tired of what Brain Croser, former owner of Petaluma wine company calls, “branded commodity wines.” While the big production wineries have seen an overall 6.8% drop in sales “icon” and “super premium” sales remain steady. “Some of us in the Barossa have been quite lucky up to this point,” says Fraser McKinley, “I guess you better touch wood and hope it stays that way.”

Wine tasting with Dan Standish and Fraser McKinely

1. The Silesian immigrants came from what is now part of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. Despite exaggerated claims, only about 5% of the newly arrived Silesians to South Australian had emigrated to escape “religious persecution” because of  changes made by Kaiser Fredrick Wilhelm III to the “Old Lutheran” faith. The nation-state of Silesia existed in one form another until after WWII when it was absorbed into Soviet controlled Poland. Today Silesian regions remain however the German speaking population has dwindled due mainly to post-WWII politics.

2. There are still pockets of Barossa Deutsch speakers and at least one German speaking radio station in the Barossa Valley. During WWI and WWII the Australian government discouraged German language use and closed schools that taught lessons in German.  

3. In 1999 South Australia produced nearly half of the nation’s wine output. Today, as a state, SA accounts for 21% of the national output. This is an interesting indicator of just how rapid the growth of the wine industry in other Australian wine regions has been.

4. Some of the oldest vines in the world can be found in South Australia. Given the sandy soils in the valley the region has never been plagued by the phylloxera louse. Some vines are around 120 to 125 years old. The Freedom Shiraz vineyard, planted in 1843 by immigrant Christian Auricht is thought to be the oldest Shiraz vineyard. The vineyard is owned by Langmeil Winery who recently bottled the 164th vintage from this block.

Contact information for wineries mentioned in this story:

Rockford Wine
Krondorf Road
P.O. Box 142
Tanunda, South Australia  5352

Torbreck Wines
P.O. Box 583, Tanunda SA 5352
Lot 51, Roennfeldt Road,
Marananga, SA, 5355

Radford Wines
RSD 355 Eden Valley
South Australia 5235
Australia

Standish Wine Company Pty. Ltd.
P.O. Box 498
Angaston, South Australia
5353
Info@standishwineco.com
or
Massena Vineyards Pty Ltd
P.O. Box 54,
Tanunda SA 5352

Sami-Odi Wines
P.O. Box 280
Grunock, SA 5360

Under the high roof of what was once a railway carriage works is Sydney’s newest farmer’s market. The Eveleigh Market was started in February of 2009 and though it is just a year old it is already highly popular and has become a place where many Sydneysiders do their weekly shopping. The market wears its vestigial industrial wardrobe with great panache and the revitalized structure is ideally suited to be a farmer’s market.

Every market has it’s one of a kind items and the Eveleigh Market is no different. One such item that is not seen at farmer's markets very often is ice cream. Ben Dutton from Pat & Stick’s Homemade Ice Cream Co.  has on offer one of the the world’s greatest ice cream sandwiches. It comes in a number of flavors all of which are handmade using only the finest, all-natural ingredients available. Other unique fare includes the pork products made from the Berkshire pig. The pigs are all range-raised on Severn Rivers Farm in Ashford, New South Wales and processed at Dulwich Hill Gourmet Meats. The Berkshire, also known as the Kurobuta, is an extremely rare breed of pig whose origins can be traced back 300 years to England’s House of Windsor. Those who have read George Orwell’s 1984 will recall that Napoleon, the pig in charge, was a Berkshire.

Unique not just to the market but to all of Australia is the Achacha fruit sold by the Achacha Fruit Group.  This sweet/sour, powerfully perfumed fruit comes from the Amazon River Basin in Bolivia. The fruit was planted several years ago in the Burdekian Shire of Queensland. It’s taken many years but the plantation is now producing fruit in enough volume to begin to distribute and sell in Sydney gourmet markets and direct at farmer’s markets.

And, there is the one and only Rocco Marando from Grower2u, vendor of figs, pear cactus and Valencia oranges. Not necessarily unusual produce but these goods are dispensed by the unusually pleasant Rocco Marando and his father.

Eveleigh Farmers' Market
243 Wilson St, Darlington, NSW
Every Saturday 8 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Artisans' Market 1st Sunday of the Month 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
02 9209 4220