This tin of San Marzano tomatoes was an unexpected find at Kirk Food the other day. They are an heirloom variety and are specifically grown as sauce tomatoes. San Marzano are in the plum family of tomatoes, along with Roma, but differ from others by being slightly longer and pointier, with thicker flesh and few seeds. Because they have less acidity than other tomatoes, they taste somewhat sweeter. Wikipedia says that, 'Many people describe the taste as bittersweet, like high-quality chocolate."

Grown in the region of San Marzano, on the fertile volcanic soils of Mt Vesuvius, it is the only tomato to have its own EU DOP, protecting it from imitation. Being an heirloom variety also means it is susceptible to disease and according to the International Society for Horticultural Science in 1997,

'This variety used to represent a major part of the canned peeled tomato production in the Campania region but is presently little cultivated due to both phytopatogenic and structural problems. Recently the UE Regulation nr. 1263/96 has given the "DOP" to San Marzano as typical regional product, thus renewing the interest in this ecotype.'

Italian growers seem to have found ways to overcome these shortcomings, which is fortunate, as it's the only type of tomato allowed in an authentic Neapolitan pizza. They also make wonderfully full-flavoured pasta sauces, but given that San Marzano tomatoes have a DOP and are a little difficult to successfully grow, they are a bit more expensive, but definitely worthwhile. As Kirk Food says on their website,

'Because the tomato known as the "San Marzano" is delicate in nature and highly regarded, Italian farmers have taken extreme measures to protect the new hybrid seeds. They have formed a consortium that regulates the production and marketing of the San Marzano tomato. Due the additional administrative costs associated with running the consortium, tomatoes purchased with the Italian consortium's official seal are definitely more expensive than tomatoes grown in the same region but not under the auspices of the consortium.'

If you baulk at the extra expense but have a green thumb, you can still try this variety as many nurseries around town are selling seedlings marked as San Marzano. If you are constantly looking for extra flavour from tomatoes, these are a worth a look. San Marzano tomatoes show off their best in this sauce, which is unexpectedly greater than the sum of its parts.

Marinara Sauce
(dresses 500g dry pasta)

50ml olive oil
8-10 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 800g tin San Marzano tomatoes
1/2 bunch basil, chopped or torn
pinch dry chile flakes - optional
salt

Heat the olive oil in a wide saucepan, large enough to accommodate the cooked pasta and gently sweat the garlic slices until softened. Place the San Marzano tomatoes in a bowl and with your hands squeeze them to a pulp, discarding any hard bits, alternately, blitz them with a stick blender, add to the saucepan, bring to the boil, add the basil, chile flakes if using, season to taste, then simmer for as long as the pasta takes to cook. Just before the pasta is ready, drain and add to the sauce for a few moments to finish cooking. Serve with grated Parmesan and extra basil to garnish.

Note: The amount of garlic may seem excessive to some, but it works really well in the sauce. Do try it.

We were at a dinner party hosted by some Mexican friends, when they asked why I liked Mexican cuisine. It was the same question asked of me by one of Melbourne's leading food critics at a dinner. Funnily, he didn't ask why I liked French and Italian food, as if the answer was a given, but in both cases my reply was the same - Mexican food has a way of making me feel connected, connected to an ancient culture whose food has hardly varied in some 10,000 years with few exceptions, and connected to produce that gives a sense of the very earth in which it's grown.

Mexican cuisine is very much dominated by just three ingredients, corn, beans and chillies, so nourishing that they have sustained a race of people through the millennia, but when held up to say French cooking, is easily dismissed as cheap peasant food, or just another type of takeaway, but according to Fiona Dunlop, in her new cookbook, Viva, La Revolucion!,

'Mexican cooking is considered to be one of the world's three original cuisines, along with those of China and France.'

But while the cuisines of the two latter countries has continued to develop, Mexican cookery, apart from major changes wrought after the 1519 Spanish invasion, appears stagnant by comparison; it seems there is only so much that can be done with corn, beans and chillies. Or perhaps poverty has played a part. People more concerned with survival, tend less to play around with their food. Maybe the gutsy nature of the flavours inhibited experimentation, making nuance an alien concept.

But in the last twenty years, there seems to be a movement to modernize Mexican cookery, so while tacos and burritos will always be loved (Mexicans consume 300 million corn tortillas daily, not counting the wheat ones eaten in the north), it is possible to eat Mexican food that is both light and refreshing.

Ceviche is considered a Peruvian dish, whereby seafood is cooked only by the acidity of lemon or lime juice and is a technique fully embraced by chefs in Mexico, who have made it their own. A beautiful, light dish for a hot summer's day.



red, white and green, colours of the Mexican flag

Prawn Ceviche
(serves 4, adapted from Viva, La Revolucion!)

1kg raw prawns, cleaned and butterflied
juice from several lemons, enough to cover prawns
1 red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
4 green and red chillies*, deseeded and thinly sliced
1 avocado, peeled and cut into small chunks
12 baby plum tomatoes, sliced into rounds
salt and fresh ground pepper
2 limes, juiced
few coriander leaves to garnish

Place the prawns, red onion and chillies in a non-reactive bowl and cover with the lemon juice, leave to marinate 15 or 20 minutes. When the prawns are fully cooked through by the lemon juice, drain and mix in the avocado and tomato and season with the salt and fresh ground pepper. Place decoratively on serving plates, give each plate a good squeeze of lime juice and garnish with coriander leaves.

*The original recipe called for 12 jalapeno chillies. Use any chillies with which you are familiar, or, leave them out altogether and add capsicum strips instead.

We're standing on an asphalt covered carpark, being told that Melbourne's famous Queen Victoria Market had a rather controversial beginning.

Much of the land on which it stands was Melbourne's first official cemetery and there was a public outcry when the market was established there. Some 914 bodies were exhumed and reburied elsewhere, including the remains of John Batman, Melbourne's founding father, which in a final indignity were reinterred in Fawkner Cemetery, named after his nemesis, John Fawkner. Perhaps the monument erected to him at the market is some slight appeasement.

Then, our host of The Haunted Melbourne Ghost Tour, Drew Sinton, eerily dressed in black cassock and flat black hat, points out, we are standing on the remains of some 9,000 souls, including murderers and bushrangers! We walk uneasily towards the line of market sheds and Sinton points to a long brick wall which he says is the original northern cemetery wall and shows us concrete blocks on which the column supports for the roof rest, placed there so as not to disturb the ground beneath.

I won't give more away, but there is a definite food presence on this 2.5 hour walking tour, showing parts of Melbourne normally unseen. Hear the story of a chef and how he met his grisly end. Why are the corners of some old buildings rebated? We didn't encounter any ghosts, but what we got was a fascinating oral history of Old Melbourne, plus reminders of some dark recent history, giving rise to hairs on the back of your neck.

Even for skeptics it's worth a look, oh, and Sinton knows who you are.

I've never been a big fan of 'Buy Australian' when it comes time to purchase something. For better or worse, we live in a world economy and if we want to export our goods overseas, we, in turn, must take goods from overseas. In an ideal world it works that way.

However, the world is far from ideal. Kitchen hand has just revealed that none of the tested, imported olive oils on shelves, actually meet the German standard, which Australian olive oil producers want to adopt here.

Several brands tested were not entitled to be called extra virgin as they contained refined oils, one brand contained canola oil and another a solvent. Nor is the scandal confined to Australia with both Canada and the USA also having cases of suspect oils, which mostly seem to be coming from Europe, where, ironically, their laws are far more stringent than ours. It may well be, that other countries with lax laws, are a convenient dumping destination for those oils which fail European standards.

In the mean time, buying Australian olive oils seems to be the best way to guarantee that you get what you pay for.

Walking past Crown's big name restaurants sends a shiver up the spine, the same feeling football lovers have when turning up to the MCG, but instead of seeing Judd, Ablett or Franklin, it's Perry, Brahimi and Mouchel, the superstars of Australian cooking.

So it was a little disconcerting being unable to locate Crown's newest addition (opened September, 2008) anywhere amongst the greats, until a little advice pointed to the main gaming floor of the casino itself and there amongst the flashing lights and noisy throng was the smartly designed space (Bates Smart) with low hanging mesh chandeliers, a silk appliqued wall and custom designed furniture. As you would expect, Feng Shui principles are at work, with tea mountains meant to greet diners and bring good luck.




A Master Chef, Pin Tan, not only cooks authentic Asian cuisine but also makes the restaurant noodles by hand. Fitting in with the interactive feel of the place, there are noodle making demonstrations and a tea master, a sort of wandering minstrel who prowls the restaurant, giving tea ceremonies with water overflowing everywhere and a funky tea kung fu show with the deadliest tea pot you'll ever see, don't sit too close!

There are a choice of 24 different teas, including Pu'Er, which is aged a minimum of 5 years and Sho offers 4 different Pu'Er teas aged for up to 35 years.

We sat at the open kitchen and the energy from the chefs equalled that coming from the gaming floor, giving a busy, bustling street hawker feel. Three delightful dumplings were presented in their steamer. With light clean flavours, they were the best I've had in a very long while. Next were slices of roast - char siu pork, duck and soya chicken, each cooked to juicy succulence, hardly needing the hoisin and plum sauce offered.

One dish that needed a little more loving attention was the wok fried crayfish; chunks of pearly white meat had been just overcooked and coated in a somewhat overly sticky sauce. It's a dish that could really shine if properly done, but the next dish caused all that to be forgotten. A baby barramundi had been given an ethereally light coating and deep fried whole then splayed out on a plate in the Asian manner, dribbled with a chilli oyster sauce and coriander leaves.





It was a triumph of deep frying, beautifully moist flesh with its counterpoint in the crisp crunch of the skin, all sweetly married together by the sauce.

That Tan can also handle spices was evident in his version of beef rendang. Slow braising had brought the meat to absolute tenderness and surrounded it with wonderful curry flavours, carried along with coconut cream. The heat level was towards the high side, not uncomfortably so and offset by rich flavours.

The heat level was kept ramped up with the next dish of chicken and dried chillies, tender nuggets of chicken with dried chillies innocently nestling against them. Hot to the bite, but easily avoided, they still gave up some their heat and earthy taste.

Classic char kway teow made an appearance, the wok hei (wok breath) working its magic on the slippery rice noodles, prawns and Chinese sausage, though there was a slight touch of oiliness to it.

A soothing dessert of mango served three ways, belied the notion that Asian desserts aren't worth the trouble. The ice cream lost none of its fruity intensity, the jellied mango was perfectly executed with just the right gentle wobble and showcased against sweet little cubes of fresh mango.

It's probably stating the obvious to say that Sho is probably aimed at the gamblers on the surrounding tables and slot machines nearby, but what has been created is a restaurant of some substance ($6,000,000 fitout), style and quality, a little haven amongst all the hustle and bustle, with its soothing teas, light snacks or substantial meals. There are definite showy elements as well, so, even if you didn't feel like taking a punt, it's no gamble that this is a worthy destination for a meal.

Pinot noir. It is a difficult grape variety to coax the best out of, but when someone does, the wine experience is said to be out of this world, with many believing it to be superior to the best Bordeaux wines on offer.

Many people have been bitten by the pinot bug, pinophiles, as they have become known and their quest for the best of this most noble of wines knows no bounds. One man bitten hard with this obsession is Phillip Jones, who not only wanted to drink it, but also to make it.

The search for an ideal pinot noir site led Jones to the Victorian countryside in Leongatha, South Gippsland and its cool, humid, maritime climate. In 1979 he started planting and planning to make the best pinot noir wines he could, ones that would rival some of the best pinot wines coming out of their ancestral home in Burgundy, France.

That Jones's wines are considered the finest example of pinot noir grown in Australia, is a testament to how well he has succeeded. His top-of-the-range wines are the hardest to obtain as they are eagerly snapped up by the restaurant industry and those in the know.

However there is an opportunity to experience the unique ephemeral beauty of Bass Phillip wines this coming Tuesday, 21st October at the brasserie by Phillipe Mouchel, where there will be a six course dinner with matched wines. Phillip Jones will be in attendance, talking about his wines. For all those who love great pinot noir, or wish to experience it, this is a dinner not to be missed.

Bookings essential, (03) 9292 7807

I wandered into my favourite local cheese shop to pick up some pecorino Romano. As they were cutting a wedge for me, I noticed a wheel of Heidi raclette nestled amongst some of the more pungent cheeses on display. It piqued my curiosity, for during last winter, I bought a thick wedge of a Swiss raclette to turn into, well, raclette, that dish of the same name, consisting of plain boiled potatoes along with some cornichons, topped with melted raclette. We've done it before, rather romantically in front of our open fire.

But this time, there was an unexpected problem, I let my wife, D, try some, uncooked. Those who know raclette can probably guess what happened, she has issues with a certain class of smelly cheese and literally turned her nose up at this particularly odorous example and that was that, no raclette.

Now since we had had it before, it must have been that D didn't taste it beforehand, for when raclette is cooked, it loses a lot of its pungency and sensitive souls are able to taste its delights, but that moment was now long gone.

So when I saw this other wheel, from a well regarded Australian maker, the thought hit me that it was perhaps milder and what I might have used last time around, so I asked for a taste. The willing assistant said as she cut me a piece,

"This is from France!"

"No it's not, it's from Tasmania!"

"No, it's French," then called out to the shop owner hesitantly, "This raclette, it's from France?"

"Yes it is, that's what the rep told us."

She wandered over and began to examine the label on the cheese.

Now I'm no expert on European nomenclature and the French do have some issues, like bombing out of existence a coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific, contaminating it for the next 100,000 years or so and then sinking a boat in its home harbour that had been exposing them, killing a crewman in the process, this in a country that had helped to liberate them during the Second World War.

They might do all of that, God love 'em, but I don't think they would pinch such a dyed-in-the-wool Swiss name as Heidi and stamp it on one of their cheeses, that would be a sacrilege; an Aussie would, but then again, we don't have a nuclear arsenal to play with and pinching things is a long ingrained tradition here, think Waltzing Matilda, a song about sheep stealing, which we like to lustily belt out at the Bledisoe Cup rugby matches we play against New Zealand. They do have an awful lot of sheep, wonder if it makes them nervous? We also have some form, having already taken their pavlova as our own.

The two women continued their examination of the raclette wheel.

"Look, it is from Tasmania." said one

"Wait till I get my hands on that rep!" said the other.

I wonder if the journalists from Epicure and their colleagues from other lifestyle sections in The Age newspaper, spluttered into their lattes this morning as they read the words of Michael Gawenda, their former editor-in-chief.

He described the decision by Fairfax Media, owner of The Age, to cut between 45 and 55 editorial staff as "chilling" and "a failure of imagination."

So how does Gawenda imagine the future?

How about, "smaller circulations and fewer readers, a premium cover price, no lifestyle sections and no special circulation deals, which basically involve giving the paper away." Lifestyle sections such as Epicure wouldn't disappear, they would be moved online.

The Age's current editor-in-chief, Paul Ramadge, responded, "My reaction is that Michael is being provocative rather than deeply reflective and analytical..." Which is a journalist's way of saying Gawenda is being silly.

I wonder if Ramadge has ever wandered into a newsagents first thing in the morning and looked at the pile of The Age newspapers next to the pile of its rival, the Herald Sun -- it would be about 1 tenth the size and the only thing that has kept it going is its advertising revenue, which is now in sharp decline. Epicure already has an online competitor, I eat I drink I work, who is nibbling away at its advertising revenue, not to mention, under siege from the Herald Sun's revamped lifestyle section, extrafood.

Is Gawenda being silly, or is Ramadge living on past glories with his head firmly stuck in the sand? Tellingly, savvy online people refer to newspapers as the dead tree media; has the new online world ringbarked The Age into a slow death, dying from its branches and reaching into the trunk?

Book Review

The cover really says it all with juxtaposed images of plastic and high end cutlery, along with the sub-title, Food & Equality In Australia. Rebecca Huntley's new book is a panoramic snapshot of the eating habits and customs of today's Australia. She's diced and julienned her way through the social strata, to reveal complex issues regarding the way we obtain, cook and eat food, including some, at times, uncomfortable insights along the way.

Huntley's background is as a writer and social researcher and meticulous, documented research is the hallmark of this book, but it's not used to bog the reader down in detail, rather, it simply forms part of the narrative that carries you along with it, though there are times when it's necessary to pause and reflect upon certain passages.

It is not a book making grand statements, but allows you to reach your own conclusions by carefully showing the reader, through a careful combination of interview, research and observation, how the issues raised pertain to Australians in general, whether you are a welfare mum, a male weekend cook, harried housewife or just plain ultra rich.

Some of the saddest moments come when reading about indigenous Australians and how their health has suffered by adopting the worst parts of the white man's diet and mentions the suggestion from health experts that bush tucker may be the way to solve the nutritionally caused crisis in diabetes, kidney and heart disease, but Huntley doesn't fall for such easy answers and lists other more constructive ways to improve their diet, for that genie long ago slipped the lamp and no amount of well intentioned hand wringing is ever going to get it back in.

Some feminism creeps into one chapter with the saucy title, Sex in the Kitchen -- not about Fatal Attraction style steamy shenanigans on the kitchen sink followed by a rabbit dinner, but as Huntley explains is more 'an attempt to understand why men cook; or more accurately, why they don't.' As one of those apparently rare men who not only cooks for pleasure, but at times just to get food on the table, I thought it telling that quite a few of the participants in a men's cooking class were there as a result of women sending them. Why weren't these women teaching their menfolk how to cook themselves?

Paradoxically, for me, the answer may lay in men's sheds.

Just as men have their special place to potter about, women do too, it's the kitchen, the woman's equivalent of a man's shed and when we men are invited in to cook, it's to the sight of the woman firmly holding open the back door and pointing straight at the barbecue. If we are allowed into the kitchen proper, it's to chop an onion or some other basic task, then told to skedaddle. In two marriages, I've learned that a kitchen is not a safe place to be at the same time as your wife. We also have to deal with subtle backhanded put downs of our efforts, such as the common women's lament...'I like him cooking, but it's just not worth it. He uses every single pot, pan and dish that he can find.' Even I hear this, despite also doing the washing up!

While I found myself arguing with the occasional premise, this is a book which outlines Australian food culture and at times, forces you to think about the issues. There isn't any preachy self-serving manner to be found anywhere, it's more along the lines of the late Professor Julius Sumner Miller who always questioned, 'why is it so?'

Is perhaps the reason that 4 Ingredients is the best selling cookbook in Australia tied up to the statistic that 35% of women in a 1990 study actually disliked cooking? What are Sydneysiders going to do for fresh food when the market gardens which supply some 90% of their perishable vegetables are all but forced out of the Sydney basin in the battle between cheap, fresh food and cheap housing? Why is it cheap fats feature heavily in the diets of the poor and are vilified for causing a raft of health complications, yet other fats are in the process of being rehabilitated by the well off, whom are paying a fortune for goose fat, extra virgin olive oil and especially imported butters and cream?

Huntley comes across as someone who has a deep appreciation of food and understands its role as a binding force in society, as well as the politics involved it its production, distribution and ultimately, consumption. There are some hard truths in the text for those who care to look. It is a very worthy, timely and well written addition to the class of books about food and culture.

Eating Between the Lines
by Rebecca Huntley

Published by Black Inc.
email: enquiries@blackincbooks.com
website: http://www.blackincbooks.com/

The humble sausage has always been a barbecue staple which everyone loves, especially kids. They come in such a huge variety of flavours and types that there is one for everybody. Buy a couple of kilos, invite a few mates around, crack open a robust red or simply a coldie and it's an instant party.

Having just had a Grand Final party we were suffering something of a sausage surfeit, an overload of snags. Despite everyone eating their fill on the day, there were a couple of meals worth of links still to be eaten and I don't know about anyone else, but two days in a row was quite enough for me; I was sausaged out.

So what to do with the half a dozen remaining? A sausage is a sausage, right? Well, no! A sausage is really just ground or minced up meat, that has been well seasoned and possibly flavoured, all contained in a casing of some kind. If you remove this casing, a sausage can be anything you want it to be. For a change, you could coat it with breadcrumbs, make it into hamburgers, turn it into a patty and surround with bacon, you can even use them to make a pasta sauce, which was exactly the kind of anti-sausage thing I needed.

Sausage & Cream Sauce
(serves 4)

25g butter
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
6 sausages*, the fresh kind, skinned
250ml single or whipping cream
salt & fresh ground pepper

Melt the butter in a frypan and sweat the onions and garlic till soft, but not at all coloured. Turn up the heat and add the sausage meat. Use a potato masher to crumble the meat into small pieces while it's frying. When it has all changed colour, add the cream, stir in well, then season to taste, a couple of extra grinds of pepper gives it a real lift. Cook 500g dry pasta, preferably a shape that will hold the sauce to it, mix with the sauce and serve with grated parmesan.

*the type of sausage used has a bearing on the finished dish, quality fresh pork or beef sausages will work well here