Since moving to the South West a certain book has increasingly been on my mind. Its manuscript, based clearly on a lifetime of thorough and enthusiastic observation by lawyer and musician Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, was rejected upon submission in 1825 so Brillat-Savarin paid for 500 copies to be printed and the rest is glorious history.
The Physiology of Taste; or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy is how the book has come to be known in English and it is the greatest food book ever written. I know it in M.F.K. Fisher’s astonishing translation of 1949, one of the great love stories in literature.
The book is a treatise on pretty much everything related not just to food and drink, but to hospitality, to providing company, to being a guest, to eating well and honouring the animals and produce that allow it.
It was Brillat-Savarin who said “The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star,” and were he able to visit the South West today he would only be more convinced for very few times in human history and perhaps never has so much agricultural and culinary wealth and expertise been so bountifully manifest in a region.
You may be more familiar with the name Brillat-Savarin from the cheese, and a wonderful cheese it is. It is indeed named after Jean-Anthelme. Any man with a cheese named after him is worth listening to.
And Gourmet Escape is on its way, of course, an event Marco Pierre White calls the greatest food event in the history of the entire universe ever, or thereabouts.
You don’t even to get all fancy. I was privileged to host one of the tour leaders from the Bunbury-Setagaya sister city students’ tour last week (a first homestay experience for the both of us: it was like being back in school and we had a blast).
I took Kobayashi-san to the football semi-final – he had never been to a game – and he had a meat pie from the stand which was apparently one of the best things he’d ever eaten in his life. He raved about it and became somewhat obsessed with comparing various meat pies throughout the week of the visit.
His souvenir shopping consisted mostly of Australian food products and he was able to get an impressive amount into his suitcase.
No doubt about it. Food is important.
I recently spent a day tailing Nationals WA leader Brendon Grylls and at one point asked him straight out where the party stood on agriculture versus mining in light of all the Lock the Gate and anti-mining activity in the region.
He said there was no doubt about it that the Nats would stand with agriculture. Labor’s Mick Murray and Sally Talbot came out with an anti-fracking campaign some time ago motivated in large part by a desire to maintain and grow the premium brandworthiness of South West produce.
As I write the National Farmers’ Federation is “breathing a sigh of relief” that the controversial Backpacker Tax will be implemented at a reduced rate of 19 per cent.
Member for Forrest Nola Marino said the change recognised the importance of keeping regional economies strong, and protected the horticultural and viticultural sectors and tourism industry. “The win on the backpacker tax is a win for South West farmers who can get their fruit off the tree, off the vine and off to market.”
I bummed around Australia for a season picking fruit when I was young and can tell some funny stories. But these days you can’t get the kids in town to do it, is what the farmers were saying about why they need the backpackers.
And I love to cook, and after a good charcoal I love to cook with gas. That has to come from somewhere and at the moment the problem is just outsourced to up north.
Finally, I’m all for the eco-premium food-bowl-to-the-world strategy but agriculture doesn’t employ many people and the trend is towards mechanisation, so we have to make more jobs somewhere.
Lots to think about in the South West.
– Jeremy Hedley
