Slow Food Festival (Part2)

Melbourne Slow Food Festival
Birrarung Marr,
Melbourne.

Bruny Island Cheese Company.

Next door to Get Shucked Oysters, was the Bruny Isand Cheese company. Despite having a www address on their flyer, I can't seem to find a web site.

Their flyer proclaims:

"Bruny Island Cheese Co. in owned and operated by Nick Hadow, who after almost 10 years of working with specialist cheese in many different countires around the worls, settled om Bruny Island in Souther Tasmania to start making cheese for himself.

"The cheeses I make are very much the product of my travels and traning throughout thegret cheese producing regions of France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. They are cheeses I love to make and eat. They are also uniquely Tasmanian.

I strive to be both an artisan and a traditionalist, who recognises that great cheese was made centuries before modern technology played a role and we believe passionately in the old way of making and maturing cheese. For me, cheesemaking is a pursuit of integrity, authenticity and flavour."

And you HAVE got to love a company that calls its cheeses, Tom, Lewis, Otto, Barney and Gabriel.

I tried Tom, described as " He gets along famously with everyone. Tom likes to be rubbed"

How can you NOT try a cheese like that. Tom is made in the tradition of the Tommes cheeses from Savoie in France. Aged 5 months, Tom is a hard cheese, with a good balance of nutty/sweetness. There is both a freshness and a depth to this cheese.

I also sampled the 1792. A washed rind cheese matured on Huon pine boards. The aroma was deep and "stinky", but the flavour didn't live up to the nose. I expected a slap-in-the-face BANG of stinky, cheesey goodness and while a grest cheese, was milder on the palate than I expected.

I tried their "Saint" cheese, a surface ripened, oozy cheese with a light bloom on the rind. It was light and buttery. Obviously a young-un, as there was little ooze. The flavour was delicate and the cheese quite firm. Apparently you can age it and the curd breaks down to cheesey, oozey goodness, with a more pungent flavour.



My one purchase here was a round of Otto, which wasn't available for sample as it needs to be cooked. It's a fresh soft curd cheese, with a low salt content wrapped in locally made Prosciutto.

I mean, is Nick my sole mate?? Cheese AND Proscuitto all in one!!!

He suggested the cheese be eated "by candle light, witha spoon with your lover" and it MUST have been the oyster talking, as I suggested in bed with your fingers.

Nick liked the way I thought!

The cheeses came with a "Taking Care of your Cheese" guide, which was comprehensive and invaluable. The respect for his product shines through in this guide. "Our cheeses are living, breathing things"

Anyhoo.. I bought a round of Otto, and Furry is currently champing at the bit in the kitchen, eager to try it out. And no, we're eating it with some figs from the garden, a finnen loaf from the local bakery and some home made roasted capsicum jam, ON THE COUCH.


Standy by for a report.

Slow Food Festival (part 1)

Slow Food Festival.
Birrarung Marr.

Bruny Island "Get Shucked Oyster Farm" Stall.

“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster”

(Johnathon Swift, listed as a cliché In “Polite Conversation”)

Yes, he was bold, that man, but he was also a bloody legend! If it weren't for him (or her) we'd not be able to sample these plump, lusious and, let's face it.. deeply sexual delights.

Yesterday, Furry and I trooped of to the Melbourne Slow Food Festival, and we arrived early enough that the crowds were still thin. Our first port-of -call was the Get Shucked Oyster Farm
stall from Tasmania's Bruny Island.

There was a lovely young man behing the jump shucking oysters for Africa! His knife skills rivaled Bourdain's!

Now, for those of you who are already afficionados of the raw oyster, I ask you to bear with me. For those of you who have never tasted them, here's what they are like:

Sweet salty morsels bursting with a taste of salt wind by the beach on a summer day all wrapped up in a icy cold buttery salty fleshy plump labia.

On the half shell.

With a squeeze of lemon.

There are oysters and then there are BRUNY ISLAND oysters. And like Cold Duck Spumante and Verve Cliquot. there is a vast range of difference.

THESE are the real deal, the real McCoy.

And sitting on the banks of the Yarra, listening to the sussuration of the oars of the Wesley rowers, under the shade of an iconic Plane tree, eating these delights from their shells, pressing their plump bodies against the roof of my mouth and pretty much experiencing the ultimate taste orgasm, it was all I could do not to rip my bodice asunder and allow Furry to ravish me.

Instead, I opted for hurling back into the gathering fray and try something else.