
Sydney's Seasonal Food, a Slow Food guide.
We’ve been very happy to see our farmers’ Sydney Sustainable Markets at Taylor Square support Slow Food’s Sydney’s Seasonal Food guide, released late in 2010. ‘For the first time ever,’ says the markets’ website, ‘a resource is available to assist in answering the question: ‘What’s in season now in Sydney?’ We’d recommend the guide to anyone who’s ever asked that question.’
Slow Food Sydney’s John Newton and I compiled the guide to help Sydneysiders to re-establish connection with our food supply. It is also another means of supporting Sydney region farmers and fishermen.
If we bow to the dictates of Australia’s two major food grocery chains – which care only about price – we’ll end up bypassing smaller, local growers in favour of larger, more industrial producers and imports. Larger growers often can produce food more cheaply, but smaller growers can produce a more diverse range of crops and get them to market faster.
Local growers also look after the land around our cities and provide the attractive rural landscapes we so enjoy. Losing this connection to our food supply is dangerous to our health and our culture. Strong societies have always been built on agriculture. We cannot afford to lose ours to the tenuous promise of a more efficient ‘somewhere else’.
The guide includes lists of local, seasonally-produced food month by month and detailed comments about the availability of particular varieties.
The zone which we consider local is the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain farming region to the south-west and north-west of the city. When we can’t (find produce that’s local), then we specify New South Wales or, in some extreme cases, such as rare turkeys bred seasonally, we point the reader to a useful source, wherever it may be.
The guide also contains information about Sydney seafood and the breeding and raising of animals for meat, comprising beef, lamb, goat, pork and poultry, including game.
The guide is available for purchase at selected Sydney farmers’ markets, such as Everleigh and Taylor Square, and from retailers, including our own Granny Smith Natural Food Market. John and I also hope that chefs and independent grocers and butchers concerned about food diversity and seasonality will also stock the guide.
Buying the Guide
Sydney’s Seasonal Food – a 40-page soft cover publication – is available over the counter from Granny Smith Natural Food Market for $10.00. All proceeds aid Slow Food Sydney. You can call in and buy one from us at 6 Princes Street, Turramurra, or email or telephone Slow Food Sydney’s Syd Pemberton on 0415 737 631 and she can mail you one (with a small additional charge to cover postage). Interested re-sellers should also contact Syd to discuss wholesale purchases.