Re: Medit.-style eating

Medit-style eating is certainly very strong Down Under, and is not 
just a recent foodie fashion. It has been growing in popularity, and 
being assimilated into the general cuisine since WW 2. I remember 
as a child my home being surrounded by market gardens mostly 
operated by hard working Italians and Greeks, tho the italians 
tended to predominate the land and the Greeks the off shore fishing 
industry. Walking to school along the white dusty roads between 
the small farms we would see lost of Mamma's dressed in black 
bent over the rows of vegetables. Tunas, or prickly pears and 
bamboo (Arundo donax) made wind screens and protective 'hedges' 
around each plot. There were fig trees and almonds and citrus, 
small groves of olives and stone fruits, the odd pomegranate and by 
that era well established raodside weeds such as artichokes, 
fennel and endive which were regularly harvested for salads. There 
was a small grocery shop 'alimentari Italiano' called Mario's which 
was recently listed as a Heritage Conservation site - the case was 
lost and the building destroyed, but not without much discussion of 
the impact of the migrants on our culture. At this shop you could 
see great bins of dried beans and peas, multitudinous packets of 
pasta and spaghetti, home-made tomato paste sold in recycled 
brown beer bottles and the smelly and mysterious baccala - salted 
dried cod. Also dozens of different kinds of smallgoods - salamis, 
soppressa, mortadella and locally home-made proscuitto and 
sausages for grilling. And a coffee roaster and grinder. And huge 
demi-johns of vinegar, tins of olive oil, pasta machines, coffee 
percolators, A wonderful experience everytime I walked past the 
door hung thick with cooking implements. There was also a cheese 
display, mostly imported in those days; great wheels of peccorino 
and parmessan, and great 'sausages' of provolone. 

Nowadays we can get most things that were then imported as local 
products and not just in specialty gourmet shops but alsmost 
everywhere. Supermarkets have large selections of olives, usually 
about 10 kinds cracked, pickled, dried, made with chilli, garlic, 
lemon, fennel seeds as well as trays of roasted peppers, salted 
anchovies, fresh bocconcini, fresh mozzarella - even mozzarella di 
buffalo, local sheeps cheeses and goats cheeses. We frequently 
eat antipasto, even our 6 yr old grandson knows the names of the 
various ingredients and loves the style of eating. Last night we 
made mousakka to use up surplus eggplants and lamb leftovers. 
We frequently cook a mass of ratatoulle and I make tapenade, aoli 
and taramasalata to dip with raw vegies. In our nearest town we 
can buy breads from French, German and Italian bakeries, made 
with different stiffer flours and lovely textures and crunchy crusts 
baked in wood fired ovens. These are things we enjoy every day.

Oh, and I shouldn't have to tell you about Australian wine - should 
I? We drink wine everyday, mostly at dinner and pre-dinner, but 
also at lunch on weekends, and sometimes on Sunday mornings. 
Olive oil is made locally too, tho' like in the US the price tends to 
be too high to compete with Extra Virgin oils from southern Europe. 
We but 5 gallon cans of oil from Crete or Greece usually as it has 
a fine flavour.

There are still things I would like to see, especially in restaurants. 
We cook baccala at home but it is never seen in restaurants; the 
Italian and Greek restaurants seems to have produced a toned 
down, city-fied, gentrified and restricted version of their home 
cuisine that they think will suit Australian tastes. This may have 
been true after WW2 but now people want a more authentic version 
with a wider choice. Chicken or veal escalopes with marinara, 
bolognese, matriciana, diabolo, carbonara - in the style-of-the-
hunter, or putanesca in the-style-of-the-prostitute sauces are too 
dated and inappropriate now. There is a new wave of chefs who are 
using Italian, Greek and French peasant cooking techniques to 
merge with Asian styles and develop a new cuisine. Sometimes it 
works and sometimes it does not; there can be too much 
emphasis on exoticism and wild taste combinations with 
consequent loss of clarity of tatstes and simplicity of style.

But I will never go without polenta again, nor will I go without wine 
at meals or eat doughy white square bread from crustless loaves. 
And I am not afraid of garlic, if we all ate it no-one would be 
offended at the idea.

trevor n
Trevor Nottle
Garden Historian, Garden Writer, Designer, Consultant
WALNUT HILL, 5 Walker Street, Crafers, SA 5152 AUSTRALIA
Tel./ Fax. 61 8 83394210
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