Taking it slow at Stanley

Six courses, over four hours, with a showery autumn afternoon blowing outside.

We’re at Stanley on a lazy Sunday afternoon celebrating the season’s produce.

We were fortunate enough to have our pork on the menu at The Old Cable Station’s autumn ‘producer’s lunch’ – a slow food event that happens quarterly.

Charlotte Brown and Michael Whatley prepared a feast for almost 50 people, and this was the menu:

- Slow-roasted capsicum with ricotta cheese and vine ripened tomatoes
- Spicy Sassafras parsnip soup
- Mutton bird and duck terrine with a pepperberry and tomato marmalade
- Free-range egg fettuccine pasta ‘al funghi’
- Twice cooked crispy skinned Wessex Saddleback pork belly on parmesan risotto with chilli jam (that was us!)
- ‘Mile high’ apple pie with double cream
- And wines from Tamar vineyard Native Point.

You can already see it was about slow food…even the capsicum was slow-roasted and our pork was twice-cooked!

The slow food movement is all about food that is good, clean and fair. It’s about getting people to care about what they eat and where it comes from, and to realise that their food choices do affect other people and the environment.

Slow Food Australia has more than 40 branches, and across the world there are 100,000 members in 132 countries. At the moment they’re campaigning for cheese to be legally made from raw milk, and against urban sprawl on productive farmland.

We think our pigs fit the slow food philosophy pretty well. They’re slow growers to start with – they take almost double the time of an intensively raised pig!

But we also think we’re doing the right thing by them ethically. They can root around in the dirt, get in a mud bath, play with their piggy friends, and they’ve got sea and mountain views from their paddocks.

The slow food movement is also about preserving biodiversity, and thus our food supply. The varieties of fruit, vegetables and meat we eat have been boiled down to the ones that look good, travel well, and can sit in a supermarket cool store for months. Unfortunately taste wasn’t on the checklist during the reduction.

And it’s also about valuing the food we have, and the people who produce it. A farmer needs to be fairly rewarded for what he grows. If he’s not, animal welfare and the environment will be compromised as he tries to produce more to pay the bills.

We had a lovely lunch at Stanley, meeting people who truly value what they eat and who want to know the story behind it.

(Thank you to Kevin O'Daly for the photos ... scrumptious.)

In the cradle of change

I grew up “going out for tea” at places where menus were dominated by five dollar parmies and roasts-of-the-day.

And frankly, on the north-west coast, there wasn’t much else for a family looking to celebrate a birthday or anniversary.

Guy’s family didn’t even go out for tea – it was never going to be as good as what came out of the garden.

It’s a region of contradictions here: from our office window I can see fertile paddocks running from here to the sea that have all produced high-quality, intense-flavoured food this season.

Our neighbours have boer goats that taste better than lamb, and our other neighbour has the healthiest murray grey cattle I’ve seen.

On our road alone there are two walnut orchards, a farmer who exports onions, and even a pheasant grower.

We’re surrounded by great food, but even at the bottom of our road, where country meets town, is one of those parmy places.

It’s a strange food culture here. The meals are about quantity, not quality. Chips and salad means a mountain of chips and one slice of hard-as-rock mainland-grown tomato.

Fortunately, the choice of good restaurants on the coast is growing, especially in Burnie and Penguin.

There are a number of places going out of their way to source fine local produce to do interesting things with. We'll bring you more information about them on the blog.

A night on a mountain

Over Easter we went to Cradle Mountain Lodge to try our pork at the Highland Restaurant – where the executive chef is Simon Cordwell.

Simon has been a great supporter of us in the start-up of our business. He’s passionate about sourcing local food, and knowing the full story behind it.

The first thing he wanted to do when he found out we had pigs was to come and see the farm so he knew they were genuine free-range and being ethically farmed.

It was so heartening to know that he would actually go out of his way – all the way down from the mountain - to check us out.

So, to our meal at the Highland Restaurant: as an entree Simon braises the pork belly and serves with shitake mushrooms and Asian greens. The recipe is on Simon’s blog and involves garlic, ginger, shallots, soy sauces, star anise, and cinnamon.

We also ordered the salmon plate, which has three pieces of salmon each treated differently, including cured with citrus. They were served with a dob of freshly-grated wasabi, and it was great knowing this came from our close friend Melina Parker from Shima Wasabi.

It’s always difficult sharing a plate of food with Guy. He comes from a family of five children so has a survival-of-the-fittest mentality, and I’m from a family of one, which may have influenced my sharing habits.

Never-the-less I’ve found that dividing shared meals in half from the start, and then protecting my half with raised knife and fork seems to work. Just don’t let your guard down for a slurp of wine.

For main we had our pork loin with maple roasted pear, sweet potato batons and grain mustard jus. Just beautiful.

We had been so excited sitting down in the restaurant and hearing other people order our pork, and Guy just had to tell our waitress straight away we were the pig farmers.

The fellow sitting closest to us was eating the pork belly entree and Guy whispered, “should I ask him what he thinks?”.

I said he should at least wait till the poor bloke had finished eating.

Two seconds later: “should I ask him now?”.

I thought he should wait till the plate had been collected, then we might hear him make a comment to the waitress.

Guy couldn’t control himself.

Turns out the fellow’s a chef in Launceston, and really liked the pork. Guess where a box got sent out this week?

Guy and Eliza walk off the pork belly on the Marion's Lookout track.

It's amazing how these plants survive through the incredible extremes of the highlands.

The leaves of the nothofagus gunnii (Tasmania's only deciduous plant) are just starting to turn.

Is that pork on your plate really white meat?

It’s the season for eating white meat: chicken and fish have been flying off the supermarket shelves over the past couple of days. And in recent decades pork has also been marketed as the “other white meat”.

The pork industry has been promoting it as an alternative to chicken for families looking for a cheap, low-fat, and nutritious form of protein. But is pork actually a white meat and what is the difference between red and white meats?

We’ve been chewing on this a fair bit lately, as one of the biggest differences we’ve noticed about our free range Wessex saddleback pork is the colour of the meat – it’s a lot darker (and that’s apart from the extra flavour and juiciness). It’s particularly noticeable with the meat found in the legs and shoulders.

Wessex Saddleback pork shoulder cross section

So why is meat light or dark? It all comes down to two different types of muscles: slow-twitch and fast-twitch. Animals will have different coloured meat depending on what type of muscles they use and their ratio of slow to fast-twitch muscles.

The slow ones are used often, for extended activities like constant walking, standing or flying. They’re the muscles found in the shoulders of pigs or the thighs and legs of chickens. Slow-twitch muscles are slower to contract, good for endurance, and are the muscles needed to help a marathon runner go the distance.

They need a lot of fuel and they get this through the protein myoglobin, which stores large amounts of oxygen to support the long-term energy use. Myoglobin is a reddish colour, sort of like hemoglobin in blood, which is why slow-twitch muscles are dark. They’re also linked with more fat or marbling, as fat has to be kept close-by for the constant demand for fuel.

In general, the more exercise a muscle gets, and the older the animal, the greater the need for myoglobin, and so the meat’s darker. Slow-twitch muscles, or red meat, tend to hold moisture better, have more fat, and hence are more flavoursome and forgiving to cook.

Fast-twitch muscles are used for sudden bursts of quick movement – like the breast of a chicken to help it escape from a predator. They have smaller amounts of myoglobin and instead need glycogen for their energy. They’re the muscle fibre types that a sprinter develops.

Fast-twitch muscles, or white meat, tend to carry less fat and while they can be tender if cooked properly they tend to be dry and bland and lack the flavour of slow-twitch muscles.

This explains why the working joints of free range pigs are not only darker in colour but also have more flavour, because of the marbling. An intensive pig that lazes about and is processed at a much younger age will have less slow-twitch muscles and its meat won’t be as dark and when cooked it is usually dry and lacks flavour.

Over the years meat breeders have been selecting animals that grow fast, and so they’ve got more fast-twitch muscles – making the meat leaner and whiter. This is what’s happened in the pork industry, because of its desire to sell itself as the “other white meat”.

The real casualty has been the loss of breeds with a higher ratio of slow-twitch muscles. Fortunately we’ve still got some old breeds like the Wessex Saddleback that haven’t been influenced by modern genetics and the push for fast, lean growth. They have the unique property of a lot of slow-twitch muscles, marbling, and best of all, moisture and flavour.

So if you’re having white meat this Easter, you’d better stick to your fish or chicken breast, or, the loin of an intensive farmed white pig!

Compromise in the cabbage patch

One of the things we aim to promote is the fantastic lifestyle that is based on growing your own food and being self sufficient. It was one of the values that brought us together and while it is hard work, it is so rewarding to have bought out own patch of Tasmania and to be able to source virtually all of our food from our garden and farm.

Both Eliza and I grew up on family farms in the hinterland of north-west Tasmania and had access to the most amazing home grown produce. Our family was the classic self-sufficient smallholding: we had a massive orchard, two extensive vegetable gardens and berry patches, and we always had access to our own lamb, pork, chicken, ducks, geese, rabbits and beef.

If you were hungry, you would go and pick a fresh carrot from the garden or raid the berry patch. If you had more time there were always enough ingredients to make a big pot of soup. I didn’t realise how lucky I was to have access to a freezer full of yummy, ethically produced meat or a garden and storage shed full of home grown organic vegies.

In fact, it wasn’t until I went to high school in the big smoke of Burnie that I realised not everybody experiences this sort of lifestyle. It’s funny looking back at being tormented about coming from ‘the sticks’. I clearly remember when we had a grade eight Christmas party and we had to bring a plate of supper to share. At the time Mum had forgotten to make something, so I was forced to take a plate of carrot sticks. The town kids thought that was pretty funny. It wasn’t until I travelled that I appreciated how lucky I was to have grown up in this environment.

One of the things that happens though when two passionate gardeners ‘shack up’ is working out who is going to be responsible for looking after the vegetable garden. To avoid conflict we have decided that Eliza will be the main vegetable gardener, while I will look after the orchard and berry patch. So far that has been working well and I have learnt that it is best to stay out of the vegetable garden and that friendly advice is not always appreciated.

Eliza certainly has passion for her garden and thrives on the garden-to-plate mentality. Every time she serves a meal, it’s like we’re eating at a quality fine-dining restaurant and it goes something like this: “Tonight, dear, we have from the garden seven home-grown vegetables to accompany our free range Wessex Saddleback pork shoulder. The parsnips have been roasted with garlic, sea salt…”

I think that since her trip to Hobart and eating out her service skills and product knowledge delivery have even gone up a level. I think she was inspired by our time at Piccalilly.

To help promote the self sufficiency lifestyle, I have been part of an enthusiastic team organising the Penguin Organic and Sustainable Living Festival. It’s a grass roots event being held at the Penguin Sustainable Living Centre on Sunday, March 28.

It’ll be a great day with an impressive line-up of guest speakers including the founder of permaculture, Bill Mollison, SBS’s ‘Gourmet Farmer’ Matthew Evans, and agricultural scientist Bruce French who has put together a database of the world’s edible plants. He’s working in third world countries to encourage the locals to grow their native foods, rather than western varieties that do nothing to help their malnutrition problems.

For more information on the festival, have a look at the flier.

In the name of poo

It’s a dangerous time of year to be out at dusk.

The dung beetles are swarming.

Just as the sun sets the beetles take to the air, at break-neck speed, looking for fresh manure to munch on.

They’re after the bacteria in the poo, and they’re also looking for a place to lay their eggs.

When they’ve found a pat that’s fresh and runny, they dive into the soil and dig tunnels ruler-length deep. Then they roll up balls of poo and take them to the bottom of the tunnels where they pop in an egg – which won’t hatch for maybe three, six or even 12 months depending on the season. The larvae’s then got a ready-made meal when it hatches out.


We’re seeing a lot of over-enthusiastic dung beetles on our barbed wire at the moment. You’d think with so much air above the fences they wouldn’t put their flight paths between the wires.

There are also quite a few beetles laying on top of cow pats, toes in the air, who I think may have over-indulged.

Dung beetles play a vital role on farms in cleaning up effluent. When they drag it down into the soil they’re adding organic matter, aerating the ground, and removing the temptation for flies.

They’re also good for the health of our animals. Within manure there can be larvae of nasty parasites like roundworm. But at 30cm underground the larvae can’t survive. Dung beetles can destroy 70 per cent of roundworm larvae in manure.

The type of dung beetle we see most often is the Blue Bomber, a Spanish species introduced into Tasmania 20 years ago by our friend Graeme Stevenson. We do have native beetles, but they’ve got more of a taste for wallaby and possum poo.

Graeme now collects the beetles and sells them to farmers on the mainland. A year ago I went on a trapping expedition with him. You can hear some rather funny audio from the trip here.

Over the next few weeks I suggest wearing a helmet and safety glasses if you’re out at dusk.

It’s the time of year when “injury by dung beetle” starts appearing on hospital emergency lists.