As part of Slow Food Victoria’s third ‘A Taste of Slow’ festival, a special dinner was held on Saturday 23rd February at Tjanabi restaurant in Melbourne’s Federation Square. The dinner was designed to showcase the diversity of Australian food and Indigenous produce with ingredients sourced from the Northern Territory and Victoria, writes Charlotte Francis.
“As Australia’s only Indigenous-owned restaurant, Tjanabi seemed the perfect place to hold the event,” says President of Slow Food Victoria, Kelly Donati.
The Slow Food movement is an international movement, founded in Italy in 1989 and has more than 80,000 members around the world. Slow Food is the antithesis of industrially produced fast food and promotes locally sourced traditional produce, respects seasonality, cultural diversity and sustainable farming practices.
The dinner was a collaborative event organised by Tourism Northern Territory, the evening’s main sponsor, Slow Food Darwin and the Top End, and Slow Food Victoria.
Food artist and chief organiser Fofi Cristou from Slow Food Victoria admits there were challenges in organising an event that involved long-distance communication and no face to face meetings. “Thanks to the passion and commitment of everyone involved – many of them volunteers – we managed to overcome the logistical hurdles.”
Guests mingled in Federation Square’s Atrium for welcome drinks of sparkling rosé wine and natural blond beer accompanied by exotic canapés featuring wild rabbit and wild, line-caught barramundi. The evening was officially opened by Tjanabi owner and Boon wurrung elder Carolyn Briggs.
“Womin Jeka,” she said, welcoming guests in her traditional language before going on to explain the tradition of the Boon wurrung and Woi wurrung people of dividing the year into six seasons. Food at Tjanabi incorporates this six-season approach to produce and features a range of native ingredients.
The One Fire Aboriginal Dance Troupe then took the floor with their energetic emu dance. Telling the story of an emu being stalked by a dingo, their powerful performance was accompanied by a rhythmic, earthy song in the Tjabukai and Gugalanji dialects. True fire in the belly stuff, this had everyone captivated and was the perfect prelude to dinner.
Further words of thanks and welcome were extended to the 180 international, national and local gathering of guests including Slow Food representatives, festival speakers and panellists, media and those who enjoy sitting around a convivial table sampling some of the best foods from both ends of Australia.
Guests were seated at long tables decorated with native flowers in Tjanabi’s restaurant and courtyard area looking out over the metallic honeycombs of Federation Square. Celebrity chef Jimmy Shu and Tjanabi’s chef Mark Mills worked together to cook up a 6-course gourmet dinner.
Jimmy, who owns Hanuman restaurant in Alice Springs and Darwin, was delighted to work with Tjanabi and Slow Food. “It was challenging working out of my comfort zone, but it was a great to learn new things and share my own experiences,” he says.
The first two courses showcased iconic Northern Territory foods and flavours, chosen by Jimmy. Along with an exquisite crab and prawn dumpling, wild line-caught barramundi set off by a sharp lime pickle and red emperor filets in a rich saffron coconut cream, the pièce de résistance had to be the pearl meat supplied by Paspaley pearls in Darwin. A rare delicacy, pearl meat is the muscle of the mollusc that produces the pearl.
By the third course of ‘tomato trifle’ featuring goats cheese and lemon aspen, guests were sampling their fourth and fifth glasses of wine from a range of eight select wines supplied by co-sponsors of the evening, Pizzini Wines located in Victoria’s King Valley and Mac Forbes Wine from the Yarra Valley and Strathbogie ranges.
With wine and conversation flowing, there was plenty of time to savour the subtle flavours and textures of each course before the next glorious gastronomic combination arrived. Aged Gippsland beef served two different ways: a rump fillet with a pepperberry rub and slow-cooked beef with Thai mussaman spices concluded the savoury dishes.
The feast of flavours ended with two spectacular deserts featuring Tjanabi favourite native ingredients wattle seed, quandong and Davidson plum syrup along with Northern Territory zesty limes. In an interesting and delicious twist the quandong and chocolate frozen nougat was served with a dark ale from Gippsland’s Grand Ridge Brewery, also sponsors of the event.
By eleven o’clock guests were enjoying their last leisurely mouthfuls of a once-in-a lifetime meal. The spirit of Slow Food had clearly caught on. As Jimmy Shu says, “Slow Food creates awareness of what we are eating and looks back to the traditions of the good old days.”
Event details:
Catering: Tjanabi Restaurant
The Atrium
Federation Square
Flinders Street, Melbourne
Contact: Carolyn Briggs or Larry Steel
Phone: (03) 9662 1225
Email: info@tjanabi.com.au
Group Catering: Tjanabi can cater for up to 180 guests. Set menus start from $50 a head.
Organisers: Slow Food Victoria – Abbotsford Convent, Room C2.24 Convent Building, 1 St. Heliers St, Abbotsford, VIC 3067 Tel: (03) 9416 2099 Email: office@slowfood.com.au
Entertainment: One Fire Aboriginal Dance Troupe – John Tye, Tel: 0423 645 589 Email: johnetye@hotmail.com
Jimmy Shu’s Hanuman Restaurants – www.hanuman.com.au