It’s slow. It’s sumptuous. It’s a sensational way to warm up winter while savouring some seriously good food, wine and festivities. The
West Gippsland Slow Food Festival features twelve fabulous, not-to-be-missed food-lover’s events in Pakenham, Drouin East, Yarragon, Warragul, Labertouche and Tynong North from Saturday August 8th to 31st.
Dip into a Souper Duper cooking demonstration at the
Cardinia Ranges Farmers’ Market on Saturday the 8th. It features nourishing, budget-friendly soups made with fresh, local produce, and some delicious, winter-warm tastings.
Maybe all things Spanish might hit the spot. The Spanish Paella Feast on the 15th sounds delish, while Get Digging, a workshop in which you will get your hands well and truly dirty, teaches you all about organic vegetable gardening. It’s on Sunday the 23rd at
Peppermint Ridge Farm.
Bake bread at
Hope Farm Bakery (great name and great bread!), learn all about fragrant, flavoursome bushfoods, and explore the aromatic curry styles of Asia. Then there’s Shanks & Shiraz, finished with some warm ginger pudding with butterscotch sauce. Hungry yet? See the
program for plenty of other events sure to tantalise the tastebuds.
It goes without saying that the food and wine will be stunning, but the festival is also about the celebration of
Slow Food. It’s a somewhat mis-understood term. Many assume it’s about cooking food slowly for hours. Wrong!
It’s a large, committed, global organisation founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986 to protest the opening of a McDonalds store in Rome.
It aims to slow the modern, fast food lifestyle (hence the snail logo). It promotes the use of locally grown, seasonal produce, safeguards important food traditions and endangered food species and techniques, and helps preserve agricultural diversity.
It also promotes conviviality, or the sharing of good food and wine with family and friends. Hola!
