This week in The Forager: celebrating the Central Market, suburban food producers’ secrets revealed, Hill of Grace Restaurant opens at Adelaide Oval, and Kangaroo Island comes to town.

Food secrets of Glynde

Following in the footsteps of neighbouring precinct Campbelltown, the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters, has put the suburb of Glynde on the foodie map with the launch of a new publication revealing the secrets of the micro food production region.

Food Secrets of Glynde showcases the cluster of food manufacturers that for more than 40 years have provided local, interstate and overseas consumers with premium food and beverages. It tells the stories of many of the family-owned businesses that are examples of the multiculturalism and diversity of SA’s food industry.

Off the back of the success of the Flavours of Campbelltown food trail, the Glynde booklet is a guide to the factory shops in the precinct that are open to the public for tastings and sales, giving consumers the opportunity to meet the producers behind the brands.

Established in 1936 by current owner Daniel Amadio’s grandfather Giovanni, Amadio Wines is one of the businesses featured in the booklet. Giovanni originally started off making dry table wine for his family and neighbours in Felixstow; today, the company has shopfronts in China.

Hand made taralli at Avanti Pasticceria.

At Avanti Pasticceria, another of the featured businesses, David Bandini works with his sister Julie, mother Lidia and father Romano baking continental cakes, pastries, taralli and biscotti. Romano Bandini, who is originally from Parma in Italy, turns the old kneading machine by hand; the bread dough filled with fennel seeds is pressed into flat sections and hand-cut to make the home-style taralli, a traditional dry biscuit.

“They aren’t the same if you make them with a machine,” says Lidia Bandini, as she and her staff of women sit chatting and turning the small circles over and over before pressing the ends together to form the shapes ready to be baked. “I don’t know how many I’ve made in my life – there are 60 on each tray.”

Not much changes in the making of traditional pasta, either. L’Abruzzese owner Carmelo Baldino, who is typical of the kind of enthusiastic small producers encountered on the Glynde food trail,  stands proudly by a machine that was made in 1909 and is still in operation at his business, which has been producing traditional pasta since 1980. The pasta is made without any GM flour or chemical ingredients, and is hand-dried on 70-year-old wooden racks in the drying rooms.

Chef Cheong Liew is the official ambassador for the Food Secrets of Glynde initiative, and the launch will be celebrated at a free community event on Sunday at Amadio Wines from 2pm until 5pm. More information can be found here. – with Nat Rogers

Authenticity guaranteed

Visitors buying new-season’s asparagus from Renmark and Berri at the Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market this Sunday will have a written assurance that it was grown in the Riverland by the stallholder who is selling it.

In a new initiative developed by the market and supported by PIRSA, stallholders will be audited and issued with a certificate to display on their stalls, guaranteeing their authenticity as a local producer.

“We needed to cement the fact that we have rules and regulations, and we wanted to make sure that our stallholders are doing the right thing,” said market manager Trudie Michels.

“Our customers need to be able to shop confidently and know that the produce has not been brought in from Pooraka, is free from pesticides and has not been in cool storage for 12 months. Our customers need to know that it’s South Australian and made with integrity. Our customers need to be able to talk to the grower, their staff or a family member when they shop at the ASFM.”

Michels says farmers’ markets must also be able to differentiate themselves from other markets which may include bric-a-brac and craft where “the perception is not necessarily quality-oriented”.

“There have been issues with other producers and a large number of new markets starting that claim to be farmers’ markets but are not true farmers’ markets.”

To get an authenticity certificate, Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market stallholders must fill out an application form providing details of production, which are then confirmed with a site visit.

“We are just formalising the process in a system that can be used by other farmers’ markets as well,” Michels says.

“ASFM is piloting the program with eight stallholders and we hope that within five years all of the South Australian farmers’ markets will be using the system.”

More information can be found here.

Market Week

From dude food to fine food to corporate food, the second annual week-long celebration of the 145-year-old Adelaide Central Market starts next Tuesday with a giveaway of more than a tonne of Adelaide Hills Pink Lady apples and thousands of spring flowers.

“Classes, tastings, tours, entertainment and happy hours will be spread across the week ensuring visitors will have something to see or do at any time during the five-day festival,” said CEO Gavin Webster.

Daily appreciation sessions and cooking demonstrations, including the sold-out Lucia’s Cooking School and a “Dude Food” demo, are among the events.

Office workers are encouraged to “unchain” themselves from their desks and step out of the office to pick up a healthy corporate lunch box to enjoy in the Grote Street Spring Garden to the sounds of one of the State Opera of South Australia’s pop-up performances.

More information can be found here.

Fine dining at the Oval

Adelaide has a new fine diner with this week’s opening of the Hill of Grace Restaurant at Adelaide Oval.

The room is spectacular, with sweeping views of Adelaide Oval and a sumptuous fit-out. The centrepiece is a display cabinet containing every vintage of Henschke’s great red wine, the Hill of Grace, going back to the very first bottles produced by current winemaker Stephen Henschke’s dad Cyril in 1958.

Chef Dennis Leslie, formerly of the Hilton Adelaide, is going for an elegant take with a slight twist. He’s subtly incorporated a few influences from his Filipino heritage and some native Australian ingredients into a fairly traditional menu. On Monday, diners at the gala opening enjoyed a lovely oyster accompanied by citrus foam, a delicate kingfish entrée with coconut cream, and a main of beef fillet, roasted mushroom, butternut pumpkin puree, sour cherry jus, brandy-soaked prunes and blackened pearl onion. In the finger food, he gave a preview of another main from the regular menu which took our fancy – adobo pork belly, muntries, quandongs, crispy adobo and coriander.

The dessert was fun – a crunchy concoction of toasted stout sourdough with stout and sourdough ice-cream, roasted dates and pecans, Henschke Prue’s Verjus jelly, feijoa custard and marshmallow.

You sense, though, that besides the view, the wine list will be the main attraction. There are more than 160 wines on the list, headlined of course by Henschke’s wines but with plenty of other locals to choose from.

The premium end of the restaurant business is a tough one, which meant Stadium Management Authority chairman John Olsen’s welcoming comments seemed a little curious to seasoned hospitality observers. He says the restaurant is part of the stadium’s business plan and is designed to contribute to the Oval’s profits.

We hope he’s right. The restaurant’s best bet seems likely to be corporate types looking to impress clients with a uniquely Adelaide view.

The Hill of Grace Restaurant is open to the public for dinner from Tuesday to Saturday as well as for lunch on Fridays. Prices range from $85pp for a three-course Friday lunch, to $175pp for an eight-course degustation or $295pp for the eight courses with matched wines. For more details and to see the menu, go here. – David Washington

Opening … and moving

When next visiting the Central Market, check out Island Pure, Kangaroo Island’s first regional produce store. As well as Island Pure’s range of sheep-milk cheese and yoghurt, the store features more than 25 other producers from Kangaroo Island, including Fryar’s Eggs, Ferguson Australia, Kangaroo Island Abalone and Island Beehive.

Look out for weekly featured tastings, visiting producers and new product launches.

Island Pure is in Stall 16/17 at the Adelaide Central Market. More information can be found here.

Au Matin Calme, which for five years has been baking and retailing French patisserie on Hutt Street, has closed its doors and relocated its production kitchen to the new Bracegirdles premises on Cross Road.

In the meantime, owners Guillaume and Victoria are looking for a suitable retail premises in which they can reopen to the public to “let them eat cake”.

Foodie events

Mike vs Michael, a special event at the Salopian Inn this Thursday, will see Michael Armstrong, partner of chef Karena Armstrong, enter the kitchen. Apparently he’s very good – his “bread three ways” is a lot more impressive than it sounds! The dishes will be matched with wines from Mike Brown of Gemtree. More information can be found here.

Tickets have been released for the annual Vale Cru tasting event at the Victory Hotel on October 19. The Vale Cru Victory Hotel Annual Tasting is a chance to taste more than 50 different premium, small-batch wines from 15 of McLaren Vale’s boutique winemakers, meet the makers, and enjoy food and entertainment. More information can be found here.