SYDNEY chef Dominic Angelucci has turned his skilful hand to the production of smart, cultured vegetables that he’s aptly labelled ‘Life in a Jar’. These foods — under three labels — are made from certified organic produce including cabbage, carrot and ginger using lacto-fermentation and are now available at Granny Smith.

Dominic says that many foods undergo lacto-fermentation, including tea, coffee and chocolate. ‘The benefits of eating these foods can be huge,’ Dominic says. ‘Eating a little with each meal may help to add probiotics and vital micro-organisms to the digestive tract, promoting healthy digestive flora throughout the intestine. This may lead to improved digestion, absorption of oher neutrients, and generally supports the immune system.’

Dominic says lactobacilli are sometimes mistaken for dairy foods. ‘This is probably because we know of them in dairy foods, such as cheeses and yoghurts. Lactos is milk sugar. Lactobacilli are bacteria, not dairy food,’ he says.

Life in a Jar’s range includes a preparation with turmeric and ginger, another with fennel, and a third with herbs. You can also use the liquid in the jars: ‘Vital nutrients in every bite,’ says Dominic.

THE first 117 kilograms of the new season’s heirloom apples were picked at Borrodell orchard at Orange on Sunday and on the fruit stand at Granny Smith yesterday morning and the great, blood-red Tydeman’s Early Worcester had — by this evening — all but sold out. Granny Smith is again delighted to confirm that ours is the only grocery in Sydney to market Borry Gartrell’s and Gaye Stuart-Nairne’s heritage fruit, and our First Bite loyalty card members enjoy a five percent price advantage on the purchase of these first of the 2013 season apples. This gives these customers ‘two bites’ at this fruit, as they also accrue points on purchase.

The range in this first picking includes some early Cox’s Orange Pippin – the world’s finest dessert apple – and Bramley’s Seedling, which is considered to be the finest English-style cooking apple. (English and French cooking apples are distinctly different, but that’s for a later post.) We also have the big, green, delicious saucing apple, Dr Hogg, the red-flushed green 1740s English Blenheim Orange, and the French-bred King of the Pippins, or Reine de Reinettes, from the 1770s. But it is a wonderfully crisp, pale green, ‘five crown’ — or pointed — apple known only as ‘Saint Willy’ that is the most intriguing. It was given to Borry as a seedling. It has grown solidly and cropped very well, and Borry says that he decided to call it Saint William as Willy seemed undignified for such a splendid fruit. It is sharp and smart to the palate as fresh fruit and we imagine that it will work magically as pie-fruit when it ages.

Borry says that the Borrodell orchard, on the northern slope of Mount Canobolas, has endured a difficult mid-summer with very high temperatures. As a result, the fruit is smaller this season but, like grapes, the trees’ thirst for water on the hottest days seems to have enhanced the apples’ flavour.

For the aficionado, here’s the detail of the first delivery:

Blenheim Orange
Origin: England, United Kingdom, c.1740
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: Red flushed green
Type: eating fresh, cooking. Cooked fruit yields a stiff puree.
Flavour: nutty, sweet

Bramley’s Seedling
Origin: Nottinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, 1837
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: light green
Type: the definitive English cooking apple – one of the world’s finest culinary apples
Flavour: sharp

Cox’s Orange Pippin
Origin: England, United Kingdom, 1825
Bred from what is believed to be Ribston Pippin
Colour: red and orange flushed
Type: eating fresh, juicing and as a dessert apple as it ages. Cox’s Orange Pippin is regarded as the world’s finest dessert apple.
Flavour: highly aromatic

Dr Hogg
Origin: Sussex, England, United Kingdom, c.1880
Bred from a sport in an estate orchard at Leonardslee and named in honour of the Scottish pomologist Dr Robert Hogg, who wrote The Hereford Pomona, a history of Herefordshire and west country apples.
Colour: light green
Type: cooking apple. Large.
Flavour: sharp

Irish Peach
Origin: Ireland, c.1820
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: rose-red flushed and smooth green
Type: eating and dessert apple. Doesn’t keep long as a fresh eating apple.
Flavour: sweet

King Cole
Origin: Australia, 1912
Bred from Jonathan and what is believed to be Dutch Mignonne
Colour: smooth-skinned bright red with some green
Type: dessert apple, crisp and sharp
Flavour: sweet-sharp

King David
Origin: Arkansas, United States of America, c.1890
Bred from Jonathan or Winesap and Arkansas Black
Colour: red with green striping
Type: eating, dessert, juicing and cider apple
Flavour: sweet-sharp

King of the Pippins / Reine de Reinettes
Origin: France, c.1770
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: red, russet, orange and light green striping
Type: eating and dessert apple. Keeps shape when cooked.
Flavour: sharp-sweet, juicy. Sweetens with age.

Saint Willy / Saint William
Origin: given to Borry Gartrell at Borrodell orchard, Orange, NSW, as a seedling
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: pale green with demure rose flush
Type: eating and dessert apple
Flavour: sharp, crisp

Tydeman’s Early Worcester
Origin: Kent, United Kingdom, 1945
Bred from McIntosh and Worcester Permain
Colour: red flushed dark red
Type: eating fresh
Flavour: sweet

More information
See the excellent Orangepippin website.

JERSEY and a small mix of holstein friesian cows grazing on grass pastures containing shepherd’s purse, chicory, self heal and persian clover produce the certified organic milk now stocked by Granny Smith Natural Food Market. Josef and Antonia Gretschmann emigrated to Tasmania from a Bavarian village in Germany in 1986 and afterwards bought Elgaar farm near Deloraine, in the island’s north. They soon set about changing the farm’s agricultural system to organic methods and achieved certification in 1991. The Gretschmanns and their cows have since been producing award-winning organic milk and cream and the Gretschmanns making yoghurt, butter and soft and hard cheese.

The Gretschmanns say that maintaining the ‘absolute best of ingredients’ — milk — is at the heart of their business and approach to dairying. ‘Elgaar Farm’s contented cows graze on lush organic meadows and aromatic hay free from pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilisers, supplemented with organically grown wheat and oats in the winter months,’ says Joe. ‘The high quality of the milk our cows produce is a reflection of the richness and diversity of grasses and herbs of the fields they graze.’

‘Every one of our valued cows given a name and this is very much a reflection of the way we care for them. Our herd grazes in rich pastures surrounded by trees, providing both shade from the sun and shelter from the weather. They are treated with respect and dignity, and any illness is treated with natural remedies and no antibiotics, hormones or any other artificial inputs are administered.’

Most Australian dairy cows are sold after producing milk for five years, but the Gretschmann cows yield for up to 10. On retirement the cows graze the Elgaar paddocks for the rest of their natural lives, although they still present at the dairy for the twice-daily milking routine. Antonia says that one of their cows lived to 38.

The farm and its products are certified by Tasmania Organic-Dynamic Producers (TOP), the island state’s own Australian Quarantine Inspection Service-accredited organic and biodynamic certification system. All Elgaar milk, cream and yoghurt is packaged in returnable glass bottles and jars. Each bottle and jar is returned an average of nine times.

Read more about Elgaar dairy.

GRANNY Smith is stocking Sydney’s finest fresh pasta. Our first delivery arrived on 16 November and we’re delighted that what The Sydney Morning Herald’s Helen Greenwood wrote of Pasta Emilia some years ago holds true today: ‘No longer a local secret, owner Anna Maria Eoclidi’s marvellously silken flat pasta has a truly homemade Italian quality to it, as does her finely rolled tagliatelle, using organic flour and eggs.’

The stock at Granny Smith is led by Anna Maria’s fresh pasta — linguine, fettucine, rigatoni and strozzapreti — and superbly balanced sauces, including salsa verde and pesto e pomo. It can be found in the fridge. We’ll shortly add Pasta Emilia’s ravioli, including pumpkin, crab and prawn, duck, nettle and seasonal variations.

Anna Maria was born at Castell’Arquato, between Parma and Piacenza, in Emilia Romagna. As Helen Greenwood wrote: ‘Her grandfather was a farmer, producing the staples of the region: wine, wheat, tomatoes, cheese and milk. Eoclidi remembers spending time on her father’s farm or his small vineyard. In the mid 80s, she left Italy to study dance in London, where she met Australian Simon Venning, married him, and came to Australia in 1988. She cooked a lot and did some catering. But it was only when they took their children back to Italy to give them a taste of their heritage that she thought seriously about pasta. They opened a restaurant in Castell’Arquato and a friend began supplying her with the regional specialities: anolini (small, round sun-shapes filled with parmesan), tortelli (filled with nettles), and revioli (filled with pumpkin and mostarda – mustard fruits). Eoclidi decided she wanted to recreate this pasta when she returned to Australia.’

‘To authentically reproduce the flavours she knew as a child, she turned to organic produce. ‘For two reasons,’ she sad in her lilting, accented English: ‘Taste. Vegetables and ingredients seems to lose their flavour if they are not organic. And health’.’

Pasta Emilia is not yet a certified organic maker, but Simon says that Anna Maria and he hope to achieve that following the recent relocation of their kitchen from Bronte to Surry Hills. Anna Maria uses a La Parmigiana bronze disc pasta maker, designed in 1948, to make her pasta. She learned to make and roll dough by hand at the tables of her grandmother, aunts and mother, but demand for her products led to an investment in a machine. Yet there is serendipity at its heart: the bronze die were cast near where Anna Maria was born.

GRANNY Smith is delighted that on the date of a dramatic total eclipse of the sun by the moon we should laud Holy Goat’s organic ‘la luna’ as the headline cheese of our new, fine, Australian-only cheese offering in our Turramurra store. This is a first for Granny Smith Natural Food Market and – we’re proud to claim – what we believe to be an Australian first: no other grocer supports Australian cheesemakers exclusively. It would have been relatively easy to select cheeses from France, Italy and New Zealand, but we believe that that we have a responsibility to buy quality products from local farmers, makers and suppliers and to promote the benefits of ‘buy fresh, buy local’ to our customers – many of whom share our sentiments.

The range we’ve introduced as part of our our tenth anniversary celebrations is led by Holy Goat’s ‘la luna’ and her sister cheese, ’skyla’ because they express on presentation and on the palate the skills of a new generation of Australian cheesemakers. At Sutton Grange organic farm near Castlemaine in Victoria, Carla Meurs and Ann-Marie Monda create their hand-crafted cheeses from a goat herd ranging over 82 hectares of rolling granite farmland. The goats forage on native grasses, herbs and shrubs, giving their milk flavours of great complexity and depth. Carla’s and Ann-Marie’s ‘la luna’ and ’skyla’ are made from traditional French-style soft curd in a process that uses slow lactic acid fermentation. ‘A careful combination of moulds forms a distinctive rind with defined wrinkles,’ says Sydney cheese merchant Australia on a Plate. ‘Both cheeses have an amazing depth of flavour: a creamy, full-bodied interior with a citrus tang and nutty overtones.’

Other cheeses in our introductory offering include Kris Lloyd’s Adelaide Hills’ Woodside goat milk washed rind ‘vigneron’,  fresh curd, seasonal-only ‘monet’ and ‘manon’, fresh curd ‘goat on a hot tin roof’ with pepper and chilli and Kris’s jersey cow milk brie ‘charleston’. These are accompanied by Yarra Valley goat milk white mould  ‘le jack’ and Jindi Cheese Company’s Gippsland cow milk Old Telegraph Road washed rind ‘robin hood’. Our headline blue cheese is also made from Gippsland cow milk – Berry Creek’s blue mould ‘tarwin blue’, a beautifully-balanced, straw-coloured cheese with a creamy texture and long intensity. Our cheddars include Warrnambool black waxed vintage cheddar in the sharp, English style, and Tasmania’s Ashgrove red wax. All of these cheeses can be paired with Barossa ‘bark’ and Tabletop Grapes’ naturally-dried muscatels, sunmuscats and – in time for Christmas – stunning glacé apples, pears and figs (albeit from Syria, as glacé fruits seem no longer to be produced in Australia).

Granny Smith is now also stocking exclusively Australian cream in its delicious forms: organic, fresh, double and clotted, and as mascarpone and crème fraiche.