Yesterday I kissed and squeezed Guy and Mum
goodbye at Launceston airport. They argued all the way in the car, of course:
Guy teasing Mum about her driving and Mum hassling Guy about looking after my
cat while I’m away.
We drank coffees and I handed over my
camera and tried to explain how to get it to focus. We went through security
and Mum’s fake knee set the alarms off. Guy was in tears of laughter as Mum got
searched, thoroughly. “She’s lying,” he told the security staff, “She hasn’t
got a fake knee.”
And so began the first leg of my first overseas
adventure: a Churchill Fellowship that will take me to Italy, France, Spain,
and the UK for seven weeks.
My bags are underweight, my clothes are new
and clean, and my bits and pieces are organised in see-through bags.
I met my friend Bronwyn Purvis at Melbourne
airport last night. Bronwyn’s a film maker, and she’s coming on this journey to
help this farm girl get on a big plane and catch super-fast trains, and
secondly, to help me record what I see and learn. I’ve been introducing her as
‘Mount Gnomon Farm’s film maker’.
She laughed at my over-the-top packing last
night. Doesn’t everyone pack spare rubber bands, lock seal bags, glue sticks,
pegs, and scissors? And apparently I’ve packed enough drugs to open a chemist.
I put in the instruction manual for my travel socks, too.
The trip we’re going on is all about food
and farm tourism, and I’m asking the question, ‘how can Tasmanian farmers incorporate
tourism into their businesses, and offer visitors something amazing they’ll
never forget?’.
I’d love it if consumers could spend more
time on farms sniffing and scratching and seeing how their food is produced.
Tasmanian farmers grow fantastic, quality produce, but we could do so much more
with it.
So, the itinerary so far (journalists always
leave things to the last minute) starts in Italy, where we will visit balsamic
vinegar producers in Modena, go to Parma ham and Parmesan cheese factories and
suppliers, and stay at ‘agriturismos’ with organic farmers.
Then we’ll head to Roquefort in France,
where blue sheep’s cheese is matured in caves. We’re staying with sheep farmers
who supply milk for the cheese, and we’ll stay in the tiny village too, that’s
pushed up against an escarpment. Maybe a region of Tassie could do something
like this: a whole heap of farmers could supply a handful of artisans to make a
product so special it’s exported to the world.
Spain’s next, where we’ll follow the Dehasa
and acorn-crunching pigs and learn about the science and romance of Jamon. The
ham comes from Iberico pigs – big and black with huge ears and smooth hides.
The ham makers are still allowed to hang their hams in the open air, without
refrigeration – isn’t that fantastic?
At this point, Bronwyn will fly back to her
job in Sydney and I will tackle the United Kingdom on my own. I’m planning to
go to heaps of pig farms, and of course places like River Cottage and Jimmy’s
Farm. There’s a property, Helen Browning’s Organics, that offers camping with
the pigs, and even has an on-farm pub!
I’m sitting in the cactus garden at Changi
airport in Singapore, my Tasmanian feet and hands swollen already with the
heat. The sun’s just gone down, and we’re waiting for the big flight to Paris,
where we’ll catch a smaller flight to Rome.
What do you think the first meal in Rome
should be?
