Autumn Food & Music Festival 2014 - Chinese & Italian

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Posted 2014-03-21 by Nadine Cresswell-Myatt ⇒ follow

There is a bit of a myth going around that Marco Polo brought the Chinese noodle back to Italy and it became pasta. It's a myth because pasta was already in Italy.

But as in the Lady and Tramp illustration above, whether you call them pasta or noodles, they are long delicious slurpy things which bring people together.

Which is exactly what will be happening at the inaugural Autumn Food and Music Festival held on Saturday, 29 March 2014 at Flemington Community Centre.

Moonee Valley's local Chinese and Italian community groups have come together to host a festival showcasing traditional Chinese and Italian culture to the wider community.

Apparently the Italian and Chinese are amongst the top 10 most common backgrounds of people from overseas in Moonee Valley. There are over 18,000 Moonee Valley residents with ties to Italy through their ancestry, and close to 4,500 with ties to China.

So getting together over bowls of pasta/noodles is a classic way of enjoying each other's company.

There will be food stalls of Italian biscuits, pasta, ice-cream (gelato) Beijing duck , dumplings and much more.

There will be free Chinese tea and not to be outdone there will also be free tastes of Italian coffee.

You can watch the interactive cooking demonstration of traditional Chinese and Italian cuisines including a Chinese noodle and Italian pasta cook of.

You can join in, in some interactive karaoke sessions and there is a Chinese orchestra concert which lets people participate in their music making.

This is a great family event with lots on for the children including face painting, a jumping castle, fairground organ and arts and crafts. And what kid doesn't love a big bowl of noodles. Or pasta should I say just to keep this balanced.

The event is being run by local Chinese and Italian community groups and is part of the Cultural Diversity Week celebrations.

It is probably a World first getting these two such distinct cultures into the same venue with a common purpose.

Glad they we are all invited along as well.