Here is a discussion on slow food from the SA Stateline television programme.

Transcript

The joys of slow food in the Barossa Valley
Broadcast: 19/03/2004

Reporter: Michael Smyth

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Now for a complete change of pace -- and somewhere in the world, a new McDonald's store opens its doors almost every day, but just as the golden arches continue to expand around the globe, so too is a movement called 'slow food' -- a sort of gastronomic back to basics.

The Barossa Valley is about to host a Slow Food weekend.

Michael Smyth went to find out what all the fuss is about.

MICHAEL SMYTH: They may sell chicken and beef, but they seem to be multiplying like rabbits -- McDonald's alone serves 47 million customers around the world every day.

Fast food is seen as quick, reliable and it's always the same, so what's slow food?

MAGGIE BEER, FOOD PRODUCER & EXPORTER: It's the antithesis of fast food.

MICHAEL SMYTH: The slow food movement is using the Barossa Valley as a base for spreading its message.

The region best known for its viticulture also has a rich culinary history -- from German smallgoods to wood oven bread -- traditions now more than ever being preserved and embraced.

MAGGIE BEER, FOOD PRODUCER & EXPORTER: It's about tradition, joy in food, flavour, celebration of food, sharing of the table.

It's all those simple things, nothing tricky, just about the way it was for many people.

MICHAEL SMYTH: For many, Maggie Beer is the face of contemporary Barossa cuisine.

Her enormously successful export kitchen packages pates, pastes and preserves for the world.

But as much as she's about innovation, she's also about preservation.

MAGGIE BEER, FOOD PRODUCER & EXPORTER: We have to hold on to what we have, and therefore everything we can do to celebrate the ethos of the valley and of slow food is to encourage those that haven't been brought up in it to know more about it.

MICHAEL SMYTH: The slow food movement began in Italy in 1986.

Its manifesto describing it as a "movement for the protection of the right to taste."

It now has 77,000 members in 48 countries.

VICTORIA BLUMENSTEIN, BAROSSA CHEF: It's not about people with lots of money who have nothing better to do.

It's about people who really genuinely care about the earth, because traditional farming methods tend to be kinder, and who care about the food they're putting in their body.

MICHAEL SMYTH: Victoria Blumenstein moved to the Barossa 18 months ago.

Originally from Seattle, she wanted to work in an area proud of its regionality and aware of its food.

VICTORIA BLUMENSTEIN, BAROSSA CHEF: From the Barossa market to slow, there is a huge involvement with so many people in the community with food and with wine, and that's fantastic.

MICHAEL SMYTH: Former Adelaide restaurateur Michael Voumard embodies the slow food ideal.

He took over this old vegie garden near Tanunda three years ago, and has slowly rebuilt it, playing culinary detective along the way.

It's now very much run as it would have been by the German settlers who planted it, and he's had no end of support from the local community.

MICHAEL VOUMARD, ORGANIC VEGETABLE PRODUCER: And I think that's what's so special about the Barossa -- it's a living slow food region.

I mean the people on the corner of the road have traded me seeds for their cucumbers, right, because they've been saving them for years and they got them through somebody at the church.

But it's not blown out of proportion, it's just daily life for them.

MICHAEL SMYTH: Each Saturday, Michael takes his organic vegies to the Barossa Farmers Market, where other local producers proudly sell their herbs, preserves and chooks.

MICHAEL VOUMARD, ORGANIC VEGETABLE PRODUCER: Slow food will hopefully say to the people of the valley that this is another set of people that are considering that what you have been doing -- and are doing -- is an important thing.

KATH NEWLAND, CHAIR -- BAROSSA SLOW: We've got a real food culture that is still thriving today.

MICHAEL SMYTH: Kath Newland is chair of Barossa Slow -- a weekend designed to challenge concepts of food.

The program includes a brunch, dinners and a series of food journeys, including one all about pigs.

KATH NEWLAND, CHAIR -- BAROSSA SLOW: We're actually going out to a pig stye and having a look at these special pigs that are grown with high fat content, then we're going to actually go to a smoke house and, you know, experience what happens there at the butchers, and then we're going to eat it afterwards which is fantastic.

MAGGIE BEER, FOOD PRODUCER & EXPORTER: People are hungry for food knowledge.

They're hungry for where their food came from, how it's been grown, and this movement helps that to happen.

MICHAEL VOUMARD, ORGANIC VEGETABLE PRODUCER: It's an underpinning of regional foods -- that's the important thing about slow food -- is that it's not growing in a great momentum itself.

It's growing of course in membership and awareness, but it has no particularly necessity to go anywhere other than keep on going throughout the world and telling people that traditional stuff is worthwhile.

IAN HENSCHKE: And the Barossa Slow weekend is being held from April 2 to April 4.

http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/sa/content/2003/s1069939.htm