Dark Mofo Winter Feast favourites

ELAINE REEVES: The headliners promise much at this year’s Dark Mofo Winter Feast in Hobart

Chestnut and spring onion stir-fry. Picture: ELAINE REEVES

THE headliners promise much at this year’s Winter Feast in Hobart. Monique Fish from New Zealand will contrive a hangi — free range pork and winter veg buried in a skip. Each Friday night Vince Trim from Mona and Paula Labaki, direct from Brazil, will barbecue an entire beast from Big River Highland Beef.

Local Massimo Mele teams with Peruvian chef from Melbourne Alejandro Saravia to bring us Robbins Island Wagyu beef cooked in onions (8kg onions, 2kg beef) and Bente Grysbaek from Melbourne will nail Huon salmon to a plant to cook it over coals.

Further down the list of nearly 90 stallholders come Winter Feast newbies Deep End Farm. I wrote about David and Cassandra Rolph of Deep End Farm last October. Their plans to retire quietly on 10ha near Geeveston raising a few animals and vegetables took off into a market stall of food “grown, cooked and served by the farmer.”

Tang-Ya Yang and Sam Gardener in their kitchen. Picture: ELAINE REEVES

Their main line is bao zi — steamed buns filled with pork, beef or vegetables from the farm — from Cassandra’s home country, Taiwan. For the feast, this has been stepped up to a gua bao — a steamed wrap rather than a bun, filled with goodies including pork from their farm.

I was struck by the synchronicity between Deep End and Formosa Bites, another Tasmanian-Taiwanese combo of Sam Gardener and Tang-Ya Yang, who also grow as many of the vegetables needed for the Taiwanese street food as they can.

Did they know each other I asked David? Yes they did. Two Chinese girls who sought out Taiwanese food wherever they could introduced the couples. Sam and Tang are a generation younger than David and Cassandra, but only a year behind them on their farm-and-food venture and sought some advice.

Last week, David, Cassandra and I set off for Sam and Tang’s place on the East Coast. I was glad to travelling with someone who had been there before. Sam and Tang are off the grid, out of mobile range, and practically off the map — no number on wild Wielangata Rd marks where they live.

Tang met Sam when she was here on holiday from her job teaching scuba diving in Cairns. “He gave me half a salmon and asked me for a date,” she said. He moved to Cairns for a while, but so much loved the land and ocean here that they moved back a year ago and set up in a tiny house Sam’s father Mark had lived in while he built further down the drive.

David Rolph, left, Sam Gardener, Cassandra Rolph and Tang-Ya Yang in the garden. Picture: ELAINE REEVES

With solar panels and a battery they have enough power for lights, phone chargers and Wi-Fi, but they have to fire up the generator if they want to grind the rocoto chillies they dry about the wood stove. When it comes to preparing food for markets and Mofo, they take themselves off to a commercial kitchen in Orford.

“We want to live a lifestyle where we can work from home doing all the things we like and make a living,” Tang said.

To that end they support other small producers. Only when a local fisherman who goes out in a dingy does not have enough squid, do they buy from another local who has a crew of 10.

Sam trained in horticulture, but most of his experience was in the volcanic soil and regular rainfall of the North-West. His learning curve has been as steep as his terraced garden of sandstone-based soil cut into bush that is in drought most of the year.

Their garden provides most of the pumpkin, garlic, mizuna, cabbage and kale with tofu needed for pan-fried buns (or non-vegan with wild wallaby and veg) they will sell at the Winter Feast.

They are also doing squid barbecued on a skewer with a satay style sauce and braised pork belly with shiitake mushrooms, greens and rice.

For lunch at home though, it was wallaby and broccoli dumplings in a dough Tang had laced with pomegranate juice and chestnut and spring onion stir-fry.

I’ll certainly be lining up for more Formosa Bites at the Winter Feast.