Barossa Farmers Market -A Basket of Plenty with Keith Conlon in the Barossa Valley region of South Australia
The first rays sprinkle gold over the autumn green hills that rise to form a cradle for the gathering of folk who’ve gained an international reputation for their wine. They are readying for another post-harvest-playup, the week-long Barossa Vintage Festival. It abounds in traditions and fare that have survived the transplant from Germanic villages a century-and-a-half ago. Early risers can now sample this special character every Saturday morning, crowded into the old Vintner’s Shed near Angaston.
Inside the barrel-maturation shed with its giant oval oak wine storage adding genuine colour, you can really savour the concentrated flavour expressed in the Barossa Farmers Market. In a few short months, it has become the only place to be if you want to know what’s going on in the region, but we were advised to leave the gossip until later, because the old-timers have twigged that this is about real food from the farms and home kitchens of the valley.
Amongst the early sell-outs were strawberry tarts from Netherhill and Lyndoch Bakery’s pretzels, beckoning from a ‘tree’ that was soon winter-bare. After an hour, a display fridge once laden with sumptuous fruit tarts and quiches is cleaned out. The stall is cheekily nick-named “The Old Tart”, which local chef Barbara wears with a grin, perhaps because she enjoys this Saturday ritual so much. She is not alone. A nearby trestle is loaded with temptation, the outcome of a previously private passion.
“I love it so much, I used to make the fudge mainly for me to eat,” Julie confessed. Her cellar-door work at historic Seppeltsfield spills over into the fudges, as was deliciously obvious in the muscat-soaked raisin and caramel titbits.
The market is also very much about freshly and locally-picked fruit and vegetables. The regulars left with baskets overflowing with greens and golden pumpkins. Market browsers often cruise to the accompaniment of a traditional mandolin tune, with John packing his instrument along with his wares for a breakfast busk close to the hay bale seating laid on for the well-patronised coffee-machine operation. His “Cornucopia” olive oil label aptly summarises this Saturday morning horn of plenty.
The Barossa Farmers Market attracts a batch of nationally applauded foodies too. Saskia Beer personally serves up tastes of her sought-after sausages.
“These are chicken and tarragon…try one”, she offered. “And we’re just cooking some duck”.
Across the way, celebrated Barossa chef, Mark McNamara, displays his legendary Pear Tree Cottage condiments. He investigated going national with a supermarket chain, but the arrival of this weekly regional showcase has meant he can happily stay with boutique outlets - supplemented by the sales and jovial company in the shed.
“Try the pear chutney. It’s not too sweet because it relies on the fruit to provide it,” he explained. Conversation is a compulsory ingredient here, and as he enthused about the overall recipe, Mark revealed that the giant midweek dinner he is co-ordinating for the Barossa Vintage Festival will take a mountain of produce from the stalls around him. Barossa B&B owners have the same idea, calling by early to get the makings for their guest’s breakfasts. Alternatively, they just send them up to the big galvo shed, knowing that joining the locals on the haybales will be a memorable experience.
A jolly scarecrow always presides over the whole affair, propped jauntily in the central block of stalls. They’re a Vintage Festival highlight round the Valley main roads and by-ways. At the foot of Mengler’s Hill, for instance, an olive-beating man of straw stands beneath a youthful scarecrow halfway up the “Maltara” orchid sign. Their produce features in the market, and tastings are de rigeur.
“What are these like?” I asked, dipping into a sample dish of pickled cucumber slices. “They should taste good, I’ve been making them for 30 years,” came the cheery reply. “And my Mum made them, too, in a four gallon kero tin”.
“The quinces have come, and we’ll have them until Easter,” I was told from over an inviting boxful.
“Have you ever seen a rabbit wear glasses?” questioned Gratton Lowke from a stall stacked high with carrots.
“Are they locally grown?” asked a youngster.
“Yes, certainly,” he responded with a quiet pride born of many years tilling the Barossa soil. “Only a kilometre from here”.
The Lowkes are the last of several commercial carrot-farmers in the Valley. Trevallie Orchards similarly hang up their shingle on the oak barrels each Saturday morning, with their colourful stall supplied from a long-surviving commercial orchard just out of Angaston past Yalumba’s clocktower. Its hillside of drying racks spread with cut plums and pears is a back-road autumn joy to behold.
Similarly, the captivating variety and colour of the veggie boxes tended by Michael Voumard and Ali Cribb are but the weekend front for a secret garden of your dreams on a Barossa creek. It is the hardworking paradise they have retreated to after high-flying in the Adelaide restaurant scene. Rockford Winery’s Robert O’Calloghan is involved, and he backs the market, while the barrel maturation shed itself is a weekly donation from the Hill Smith family of Yalumba. This market is also about the close-knit and indefatigably generous Barossa community.
“The mixed squash are a good bagful,” offered Joe Evans at one end of the happy throng. “I’ve been making these folded newspaper containers since I was four - good recycling.” His home veggie patch that produces squashes and pumpkins (so picturesque that they should be in an oil painting) takes all the wastewater from the little Ballycroft cheesery run by his wife Sue and sister-in-law Tracey.
“Would you like to try our quark? We call it Greenock Groth, and it’s made from milk that comes from an Eden Valley Friesian herd kept by Merv Steinert,” Tracey smiled. Go past Steiny’s butchery and Rebecca will recommend several metwursts to try, including their legendary “Ring of Fire”. It lives up to its name. The free tastings make the market a taste sensation to match its visual splendour. As old Bethany resident, Wally Stiller, put it as he left after his first revelatory visit, “This is just what the Barossa needs!”
Rosie brings in eggs fresh from her farm at Eudunda where 2500 hens roam free, and her cheeky mate Keith reckons she knows them all by name…chook chook chook. Passionate personalities, regional character, the colours of the seasons and real food… they have just grown another good reason for waking up in the Barossa. And it all comes together in the market burger - Steiny’s bacon, Rosie’s eggs, Lyndoch bakery’s bun and locally made chutney are all the more tasty for the fact that they are all sourced and cooked in the shed. The regulars issue a warning, however. Have breakfast last, because the produce goes so fast that, if you don’t, you’ll miss out!
Barossa Farmers Market
Vintner’s Shed
Nuriootpa Rd, Angaston, South Australia
Saturdays 7:30am - 11:30am (be early)
Barossa Vintage Festival 2003
21-27 April
Ph: 1300 852 982
