And guts for starters: MoMa season dedicated to the good things in Tasmanian stomachs

FITTINGLY enough, art is leading the way for food at the new summer season of the markets at Mona, MoMa.

Hana Moran, left, making sauerkraut using an antique mandolin with MoMa food curator Jo Cook. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

FITTINGLY enough, art is leading the way for food at the new summer season of the markets at Mona, MoMa.

Well aware that humans are 90 per cent microbes and 10 per cent “us”, Mona first lady Kirsha Kaechele decided to dedicate the market season to the good microbes and bacteria — the majority of these tiny critters by a huge margin.

Gut, by Giulia Enders (Scribe), would be good background reading to get the most of this summer’s markets. And, of course, Mona famously has its own big gut, Cloaca, aka the poo machine.

Cloaca will be placed on a healthy diet featuring fermented foods and its output assessed both scientifically and by a more subjective sniff test.

Fermentation will also feature in the non-edibles for sale at the market — such as having your nails painted in the pattern of the cellular structure of different alcohols, as seen under the microscope and using wine to oxidise wood used in jewellery.

And food curator Jo Cook has made sure stallholders are switched on to the yeasts and bacteria that promote health and wellbeing.

Business partners Hana Moran and Joe Crack hold down about three jobs each
and together they started a small business called Drumhead, named after their favourite variety of cabbage for making sauerkraut.

They make three varieties — Classic, with just cabbage, salt and peppercorns; Spice with — juniper berries, caraway seeds, currants and peppercorns; and a “really punchy one”, says Hana, G & T (ginger and turmeric) that also has fresh carrots, curry leaves and peppercorns.

They make and store the sauerkraut at Pigeon Whole Bakery (where Hana has one of her jobs) and slice the cabbage on a mandolin, an heirloom from Pigeon Whole co-owner Emma Patey’s Polish family.

“It’s amazingly efficient,” Hana says. “I takes a whole half cabbage — nothing else works as well.”

At MoMa they will also launch their kimchi, made to a traditional Korean recipe using quarters of the traditional napa cabbage and coloured with red hot pepper flakes.

Like the sauerkraut, the kimchi will also be available from Italian Pantry, Pigeon Whole, Huon Valley Meat Co, Live Life and Huon Valley Health Foods in Huonville.

After the initial big market that was part of MoFo, Drumhead will alternate with Rough Rice at MoMa on Sundays from 11am to 4pm.

Rough Rice is Tricycle co-owner Adam James’s second outing at MoMa. He has ferments ready to go, some still bubbling away and some not started. A traditional dish from Kyoto of fermented eggplant, cucumber and shiso, for instance, is still waiting for the eggplants to ripen at George and Hilary Hartley’s farm at Saltwater River.

His six-year-old son Leo was paid in Lego to help pod 80kg of broad beans for doubanjiang, a Sichuan paste of fermented broad beans, chilli and salt.

There is also a ferment of garlic scapes, jalapeños and Vietnamese mint. Most of his food features chilli in some form, says Adam, who expects to have something new for each market appearance.

Evie Morton, from Ginger Brown in South Hobart, makes her debut as Evie and Ginger,
a business that began as an Instagram page. Evie makes treats that are free of gluten, dairy, eggs and refined sugar. Her range includes raspberry and lime mini cheesecakes, salted caramel cups and ginger and molasses cookies.

At the market on Sunday, January 31, Hobart City Farm, 24 Carrot Garden and Slow Food Hobart will be promoting growing and sharing your own food. Bring seeds, vegetables, seedlings and plants to swap, and there will also be plants for sale.

At each Mona market there will be a one-hour hands-on class in fermenting vegetables, featuring different teachers. Each participant will take home a 1 litre jar of produce and four empty 250ml jars. When the ferment is complete they will fill the 250ml jars and on the last market, on March 27, will be invited to bring them to a cocktail party at Mona where they will meet all the other
class participants and swap three of their jars.

don’t miss The MoMa Fermentation Lab costs $100. Details: MoMa Facebook, momahobart.net.au. Bookings: eventbrite.com.au