National Geographic Traveller (UK) - Food
Analiese Gregory’s potato galette with truffle
preserved summer abundance and the earthy flavours of winter.
From here, it’s a 20-minute drive along winding country roads bordered by lush paddocks and towering karri trees to Pemberton. Like Manjimup, it was once heavily reliant on logging, but now tourism and agriculture are the economic mainstays. The journey between the two towns is lengthened by stops at the many honesty stalls along the way. Midway to Pemberton, Rick Scoones of Warren Grange grows heritage tomatoes, garlic and even the odd Carolina Reaper chilli, but it’s his ‘funky pumpkins’ that have made his name — he produces everything from delicata squash to marina di chioggia and warty galeux d’eysines — all of which are sold at his farm-gate stall.
Lisa Cudby uses Warren Grange ingredients at Wild at Heart, the cafe and providore she opened in Pemberton last year. Her rustic dishes draw on the best of the regional; a seasonal soup of cauliflower, apple and truffle is a hit, but it’s the mashed Prince of Orange potato, kale and courgette, paired with pork and sage sausages, that wins my heart. It also contains truffle, of course, a dash of local cream and homemade butter, says Lisa.
Her culinary journey was serendipitous. “There’s a French film, she tells me. “About a chef who cooks for the president of France. The very last line she says is, ‘I’m moving to New Zealand to grow truffles.’”
This was enough for Lisa and her husband Mick to be spurred into research. Within a week, they decided to uproot from Brisbane to chase the thought that they had “one last something” in them. That something is more than Wild at Heart — it’s also a farm just outside town, where they’re planning to ramp up vegetable production and already have an orchard of 3,000 inoculated trees, which produced their first truffles last year.
PERFECT MATCH
You won’t find a website for Batista Estate, or an email. Winemaker Bob Peruch only recently swapped his landline for a mobile. He’s happy with the slow pace of life in the Warren Valley, albeit one that revolves around his 10-acre vineyard and growing and making his own food: salami hangs in the winery shed, the hand-built pizza oven is well used.
From his kitchen table, Bob can see across the whole property, which was mostly cleared by his father, a migrant from Northern Italy, back in the 1930s. A patchwork of nationalities have arrived here over the years — among them Brits, Italians, Macedonians and Croats — and Bob has a theory that where they settled was about where they came from. Northern Italians and Macedonians were drawn to the hills and forests, while Southern Italians headed to the flatter areas. Bob talks of his father growing tobacco, and when that failed, getting into dairy, then potatoes and fruit trees.
“My father planted a vineyard in the 1950s, about two acres just for home use,” he says. And while it’s in the blood, and he’s planted over 20 vineyards, Bob is a self-taught winemaker. Some viticulturists favour a range of varietals, but he grows only pinot noir, simply because it’s what he likes. But this isn’t some backyard vanity project. Sommeliers in the know become excited by the mere mention of the name Peruch or Batista wines. Having walked the sloping vineyard and admired the winery, I sample the new vintage, which, although still young, has structure and restraint. Bob produces a bottle of homemade olive oil as a parting gift, and points to a tree weighed down with mandarins. “Take as many as you want.”
As well as grapes — and mandarins
— apples grow in abundance in this area.
Ash Lewkowski, of Southern Forest Cider Co, is a winemaker who switched to producing cider when a neighbour suggested he try his hand with their Pink Lady apples, a cultivar first bred in Manjimup in the 1970s. Applying winemaking techniques, Ash initially focused on yeast selection; champagne yeast — commonly used in Australian cider-making — is, he says “pretty benign”, so instead he used one usually reserved for pinot, bringing out the Pink Lady’s cherry and raspberry flavours. Skin contact is also key, so his crushed apples are left on skins for up to 15 hours.
“In winemaking, it’s skin contact that gives you flavour and character, but an apple has a low skin-to-flesh ratio, so getting that extra bit of flavour is pretty important,” says Ash. Like many Australian ciders, there’s an effervescence and a freshness to Ash’s drinks, as opposed to the out-and-out funk you’d get with, say, a scrumpy.
Back at Truffle Kerfuffle, as the festival is drawing to a close, Analiese Gregory stands behind a workbench in a lovingly restored apple-packing shed perched above Fonty’s Pool. The space is filled with afternoon light, a pile of Warren Grange pumpkins arranged in a stylised display. This is the Chef’s Cabin, an experience that goes beyond simply eating: as the chef cooks, we eat and learn.
The 40 or so guests hang on her every word as she rolls pasta to make truffle agnolotti, one of the taster plates from the three-course masterclass. Each is matched with a local wine. Analiese is a chef I’ve long followed, beguiled by her work at Franklin in Hobart, Tasmania’s capital. Here in the Chef’s Cabin, I get the feeling she’s putting together dishes she really loves. As we watch, she takes a mandoline to a locally grown Neptune potato and starts to build a potato galette. It’s a take on pommes sarladaises, which she picked up working at London’s The Ledbury (a restaurant Australian Truffle Traders has supplied).
Cutting slices 2mm thick, Analiese layers them in a heavy, lined dish before weighing them down and baking. Once out of the oven, the pan hits the gas burner to crisp up the bottom. There’s one last touch: taking a truffle shaver, she goes to town with a generous amount of Manjimup truffle. It’s “more fragrant and stronger” than those from other places, she tells me. And her dish is one that encapsulates what the best cooking in this part of Western Australia is so often about: humble ingredients paired with precious ones, all tied together with technique, practice and passion.