May 2007

This month at Zingerman's Deli, we're doing something we've never done before—we're featuring foods from Australia.

It's new. It's old. It's Australia.

There are mammals that lay eggs and flightless birds with vestigial wings. Winter is Summer and Summer is Winter. Sinks drain clockwise and the North side of the house gets all the sun. Australia is confusing. At least it was for me until I figured out that to understand Australia, I needed to realize one thing: what's new is old, and what's old is new. Confused? Here's what I mean:

Australia is home to one of the most ancient human societies. Aboriginal Australians can proudly call themselves the most sustainable culture ever to exist. They've lived off the Australian landscape for thousands of years. This continuous civilization outlasted the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Han Chinese, and British Empires. So they are old. The foods they ate are just as old yet now they are new, just hitting the culinary scene. It's a new thing to offer you wattle seeds and wild mountain pepper leaves. You might never have tasted lemon myrtle.

Wattle seeds as a spice add notes of coffee and hazelnut to savory sauces and sweet frosting. The wattle seed comes from the acacia tree and its use by humans dates back 6,000 years to a time concurrent with the building of the pyramids. We get these wattle seeds, as well as our other Australian spices, from a farm in the Outback that you'd be hard-pressed to call a farm. Wattle seeds, lemon myrtle, and mountain pepper are perfectly suited to that arid environment. Unlike so much of Australian agriculture that relies on intensive irrigation and cultivation, harvesting these spices is like walking through the bush.

Another spice is mountain pepper. This plant produces leaves and berries that can replace your old black pepper. The taste is a little more minty, and not quite as spicy. It goes great on fish or ground over our fresh goat cheese. Perk up some old recipes with a quick substitution of a new spice.

Before humans arrived in Australia, there were bees gathering pollen from trees. On the rainforest island of Tasmania, bees have carried out their daily tasks for thousands of years. This month we are offering a taste of Tasmania with honey harvested from bees that visit the rare, and uniquely Tasmanian, leatherwood tree. The trees grow to be a 100 feet tall, the best ones are 200-250 years old and it takes 75 years before they are ready to put blossoms out. This honey is citrusy, with a finish suggestive of, well, leather and wood. It would be great on toast.

These are new and exciting flavors. But I can't quite call them new—they are really old. What's new is old.

And what's old is new. Some of the best products to come out of Australia are new to the continent, yet old in food tradition. Classic Mediterranean foods, the type familiar to anyone, are tweaked with a down under twist. Wine is in the forefront. There is also olive oil. And vinegar. Pretty soon we might start seeing some cheese as well.

The olive oil Yellingbo is a perfect example. When you bring an old tradition to a new place you get some new flavors—as well as some new problems. The oil is a mixture of seven varieties of olives—from Italy, Spain and Israel—combined in a special peppery-tasting blend just for us. Instead of relying on chemicals and huge swathes of land devoted to trees, the Melzer family went for quality and with organic small production. The trees are small and spaced far apart. Each tree doesn't produce much. And when there are olives on the tree it's always a race to see if they can harvest the olives faster than the Helmeted Honeyeater can steal them. Talk about unexpected new problems. (Check out the label on the bottle of Yellingbo for more on the Helmeted Honeyeater)

You might try tasting the Joseph La Casetta Vinegar from the Grilli family. This is old school tradition, brought new to the country. This family makes vinegar just like Joe Grilli's grandfather did back in Italy. The wine is boiled down to concentrate the flavors and then aged in wooden barrels for five years. After half a decade of waiting, you get a rich, red vinegar with hints of Madeira that would go perfect over some early spring vegetables. Asparagus anyone? It's traditional, but not.

The new and old come together this month in many ways. To celebrate and to help you taste new things, we are giving you a sample of a wild Australian spice to take home when you buy the Joseph vinegar and Yellingbo olive oil together.

Another way to understand Australia is to understand that it is a country looking to find its place in the world. As a commonwealth country allied with Britain, and for so long a dependant, this country calls Queen Elizabeth II, half a world away, their head of state. They've got their Vegemite and a popular culture devoted to beer, cricket and rugby. Yet politically, Australia is finding itself more and more in tune with it's geographical Asian neighbors. The majority of tourists come from Japan. It's own citizens are far more likely to vacation in Thailand, Vietnam or Indonesia than to visit the United States or Europe. What this means for food, is that it makes perfect sense to look to Australia as an arbiter of Asian tastes. And that's why we are excited to carry Charmaine Solomon's line of curry pastes.

Charmaine Solomon is a chef whose line of cookbooks are bestsellers in Australia. She specializes in Indian and South-Asian flavors. These sauces are so good they make diaspora Indians think of home and fill a kitchen with deep aromas. Ginger and pepper, coconut and coriander—use these to spice up a chicken or slow cook some lamb.

I shouldn't write only about Australia because emerging on the scene, much like Australia, is its neighbor New Zealand, where we get out Moutere Grove olive oil. This was our first Southern Hemisphere olive oil, and for good reason. Made on the South Island, from old, old Tuscan olive varietals transplanted to this new olive oil producing nation, this olive oil packs a peppery punch. It's the most verdant color you'll ever see. Try it over vanilla gelato—I kid you not.

And speaking of old, new, and obscure, we must make a small detour into Romanian food.

Romania is home to Transylvania, where legend says Count Dracula ruled as the world's most famous vampire. Dracula is derivative of Drakul, which translates to Dragon. Count Dracula isn't the only famous dragon coming out of Transylvania. The innocuous herb tarragon can also linguistically trace its name back to the word dragon. Tarragon is a common spice in Romanian cooking, sometimes found paired with cheese. This green leaf is what you now find wrapped around our fresh creamery goat cheese, the aptly named Little Dragon. Our cheesemaker John Loomis hand-ladles the curds to preserve its delicate texture and his care shows in the taste. Fresh and satisfying, with a little herbal dragon bite.

I don't know what to expect food-wise this month. I know I'm excited. Featuring Australia is new for us. It's a new region burgeoning with new and old foods, all guaranteed new flavors. Ari is hosting a tasting to talk about his travels there. If the class fills up—and they always do—stop by the deli and pick up a copy of our newsletter where Ari writes in depth about his travels and findings. It's new. It's old. It's Australia.

Thanks for reading,

Jess Piskor
Deli Scribe and cheesemongar