adel city

Central Markets The Central Market Previewing Tasting Australia
with Keith Conlon

"We've got the best! We've got the best in the world!"

Michael the market stall spruiker certainly stands by his fruit and veg. Adelaide's Central Market is a cornucopia in everyway, with product familiar and chaotic, prices from premium to cheap and characters everywhere. There's nothing to match this 200+ collection of stalls and shops in any other Australian City.

We chose it as the perfect place to preview the expansive Tasting Australia events program over the next week, culminating with the Feast for the Senses in Botanic Park next weekend.

Its 130 years exactly since eight market gardeners wheeled their barrows up from the old East End site and set up here. Now, there are a couple of dozen fruit and vegetable stalls alone, completed by 6 bakeries, 3 cheese specialists, 6 gourmet and another 6 continental stalls and so on. It is a permanent food festival between Grote and Gouger Streets in the centre of the city.

Does Australia have regional cuisines? The French call it 'terroire'.... loosely translating, we might say the food and wine is better on our side of the fence than yours. The chefs and food writers and TV Cooks of the world will by trying a little practical research in the market, as they are staying at the Hilton next door.

In a national food festival called Tasting Australia, the fruits of the sea would have to make it into the pot, wouldn't they?

"Ooh Aarrgh!" There's a boggling display of undersea treasure at the seafood shops in the Central Market. Tasting Australia will bring the industry behind it into town for a major seafood industry conference, and during next weekend's Feast of the Senses, they'll be inviting us all into the Seafood Pavilion there.

A feature of that giant public gourmet weekend will be the Aussie Barbecue Challenge, and so I checked with Gordon at the Samtass shop for ideas. He was sealing whole mulloway from the Coorong and Snapper from the Australian Bight.

"Wrap them in foil with some lemon and butter - beautiful on the barbie!"

If you are Tasting Australia, you're tasting the world. There are flavours of old Silesia in Europe in one of our best-defined regions, the Barossa Valley...and they're on Angela Heuzenroeder's shopping list. She recommends Barossa corn-fed chooks, for instance, all plump and flavoursome.

A teacher and local historian, Angela celebrates two great loves in her new book, "Barossa Food". This week, she will take a train full of international tastebuds there. Food and wine TV and writing celebrities from several continents will take a break from the International Food and Wine Writer's Festival, not to mention the World Food Media Awards, and find out what we enjoy all year round on the ground - in the Barossa. They'll have the added pleasure of travelling on the Bluebird railcar service that runs along the Barossa range and into Tanunda.

Angela took me to Con's gourmet stall to sample what she would spring on the world foodies. Zimmy's sauerkraut, for instance, which she'll cook with honey and Linke's smokehouse bacon, according to her friend Bertha's recipe in the book. Any they'll all be offered Joylene Seppelt's famous Barossa Gourmet Slice, a selection of glace local fruits mysteriously bound together. We found some to taste at Gourmet to Go Dreamy.
There'll be seven international crews making food and cooking shows and segments this week in South Australia. Their combined audiences will be in the hundreds of millions. Angela's delicious book will be just one guide for them. If you want to join the foodie talkfest, the foodwriters of the world will gather from Tuesday to Saturday (5/10 - 9/10) in a marquee next to the Torrens Parade Ground. It's free.

In a packed Tasting Australia program, the are olive oil tastings and awards too. There's dramatic evidence of olive oil's increasing role in our cuisine at Providore in the Market - Mark showed me 46 different products on sale. They range from $17 a litre to $80 a litre for the premium drop.

It surprised me to learn that colour plays no official role in judging fine oil. It is all about fruit, freshness (that bitter edge) and pungency (the bit on the tonsils). And they must all be 'equilibrato'.

The Central Market is also a treasured spot for adventurous eaters. A couple of generations now have tried their first marinara at Lucia's or their first Laksa at the Malacca Corner. They are now pillars of certainty in the ever-evolving Market.

If you haven't tried Korean Sushi, Sun Mi's stall cafe could be the spot. I went with her recommendation, Bi Pim Pab, or taxi driver food. It's quick and tasty, with rice, vegetables and marinated beef with a fried egg on top, with Go Chu Chung (Korean chilli sauce) you add yourself.

At the other end of the market, the Big Taste (it's actually more of an L-shaped bar stool bench) pioneered the baguette for lunch in Adelaide. They're every where now, but five years ago, Leonie opened her retro-country-cow-funk outlet and started putting the joy's of the market in interesting combinations into a bread stick. They're another celebration of good ever-changing food in the Market.

We even spied Ian Parmenter, the 'Consuming Passions' TV food enthusiast, doing a little stocking up. As the great stimulus behind Tasting Australia, he chose Adelaide as the site because of its fine food and wine reputation (and, I suspect our well-established ability to turn on a top festival, too).

He's certainly brought a host of savoury and sweet twists to the coming week. The Tasting Australia Menu of Events is well worth a look.

And there are two that are already on my list. Tasting the Market is an extra free sampling bonanza during this week's normal trading (Tuesday and Thursday to Saturday). Finally, the Feast for the Senses, an all in gourmet festival weekend in the Botanic Park runs next Saturday and Sunday (9th and 10th October 11am - 6pm).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

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