all the fun of the (tomato) festival
The Tasmanian Tomato and Garlic Festival has grown from a day out in a paddock to a gourmet event with Michelin-starred chefs. PREVIEW AND EXTENDED VERSION OF AN UPCOMING ARTICLE.
Ten years ago, my husband and I drove twenty kilometres round the corner to a local farm and set up our stall selling hot food in a field. The farm belonged to one of Tasmania’s enterprising farmers Annette Reed and the Tasmanian Tomato and Garlic Festival was her idea, designed to bring punters to the farm in Selbourne, give them a great day out and bring them tomatoes that actually tasted of, err…. tomato.
That first year we set up our stall it was a lovely day out in the paddocks for gardening enthusiasts. When Tino Carnevale judged the garlic peeling competition, which our daughter won, and then came to the stall for a pork sausage, it was a starry moment.
Since then Annette and and her husband Nevil and family have grown the festival into an institution, with 170 types of heirloom tomatoes and show and for sale, and a couple of thousand punters, die-hard vegetable gardeners, cooks and chefs, tomato enthusiasts and those in search of a rural day out from far and wide.
Over time, the people who flocked to the festival included movers and shakers in the food world, and top chefs like Michelin-starred Analiese Gregory, formerly of Franklin restaurant in Hobart. One March she persuaded a friend to drive her up from the Huon Valley, spent the day drinking mead and found a festival with all the chutzpah of the Great British Bake-Off ‘but with less Noel Fielding’.
This year Gregory is returned as guest chef and made a salad from her cookbook, Annette’s Tomato & Peaches with Honey Vinegar & Burrata Curds, inspired by the tomatoes from this very farm and named after the very same farmer, Annette. There couldn’t really be a finer tribute.
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