The Australian Marine Conservation Society now offers a revised edition of the pocket-sized resource, Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide. In his foreword, AMCS patron and Miles Franklin Award-winning Australian author Tim Winton asks,

So how do we reconcile this grim news with our appetite for fresh, healthy seafood? Well, first by accepting responsibility for our part in this web of connections. This relates to us and our habits and tastes. But mostly to our expectations. Nothing can alter our expectations the way knowledge can. We need plain, well-researched and independent information upon which to make judgments as consumers. And that’s where guides like this comes in.”

Indeed, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, a 40-year-old non-profit organization, does the job of educating the public very well. Its little book costs ten Aussie dollars (more or less US $7.50), and covers the environmental and health risks associated with over sixty seafood species. Those domestic fish and shellfish are divided into three categories: “Say no” (orange roughy, broadbill swordfish, and all varieties of sea-cage aquaculture), “Think twice” (Moreton Bay bugs, which populate their namesake body of water so sparsely that they’re rarely caught there anymore), and “Better choice” (Australian native salmon as opposed to introduced Atlantic salmon, and hearty blue swimmer crab as opposed to slow-growing king crab). The guide does take a bit of a doomsday approach, providing a disheartening list of conservation problems even for greenlighted species. But both concerned locals and conscientious travelers will be relieved to find that fish & chips standards like whiting and flathead are safe to eat.

The Slow Food captial in Turin, Italy, will host two more major events in the coming months: the Salone del Gusto (the annual celebration on which Australia’s A Taste of Slow was based) and Terra Madre (a symposium uniting farmers, breeders, fishermen, and traditional food producers from 150 countries). Scores of bloggers will no doubt turn out in support, and Slow Food insiders will publish news on the Terra Madre 2006 Blog.

The history of cheese in Australia runs parallel to the history of processed food in the country. While Australians eat a lot of cheese (particular a Cheddar-style variety called Tasty Cheese), the national dairy industry produces even more cheese products for export. In fact, both Australia and New Zealand rank among the world’s top ten dairy producers, and an official report shows that more than 17,000 tonnes of Australian cheese were sent abroad in the 2005/2006 fiscal year. Just like in the United States, the dairy business here is a big-money business. That means that large-scale cheese makers rely on standardization to guarantee consistency and efficiency. Taste is decreased as a consequence. On top of that, Australia has some of the strictest food-safety regulations in the world. Pasteurization is the law of the land, meaning that all milk products must be heated to kill any traces of bacteria. Advocates of raw (that is, unpasteurized) milk argue that naturally-occurring bacteria not only impart added flavor to dairy products (which has certainly proved to be the case over several centuries in France) but also carry age-old health benefits. Inspired by the nutritional theories of Dr. Weston A. Price and taking a page from the American Real Milk project, a campaign called Real Milk Australia is gaining political momentum. But, for the moment, only a select few signature European raw-milk cheese (such as Roquefort) can be imported into Australia, and no Australian producer is permitted to sell a product made from unpasteurized milk. It turns out that there are as many factors working against Australia’s curds and whey, as there are working for them.

My latest mailer from the Cheese Club tells me that “the Australian cheese making industry is a tough one, so the birth of a new product is something to be toasted and encouraged, especially one this good.” The one it’s referring to is a handmade Camembert-style cheese made in the country town of Wangaratta by the Indigo Cheese Company. Despite all the obstacles, a country with as refined a palate as Australia is indeed be capable of producing exquisite cheeses.

Each of these Australian-native cheeses are worth the trip to the other side of the world:

Heidi Farm, Tasmania: On a pristine farm in northwest Tasmania, the Heidi Farm folks put out delicately-flavored yet hefty hard cheeses such as Gruyere, Raclette, and Tilsit.

Holy Goat Dairy, Victoria: These funky cheese makers use their expert knowledge to wrangle a herd of quadupeds and a strain of Geotrichum mold, resulting in some of the richest, most velvety goat cheese around.

Indigo Cheese Company, Victoria: French-trained cheese maker Paula Jenkin makes several varieties of earthy cheese from goat’s milk, as well as a few classic cow’s milk cheeses.

Kervella Cheese, Western Australia: These biodynamic goat’s cheeses are hand-crafted by Gabrielle Kervella, possibly the most talented and best-informed cheese maker in the country.

The star of that French set was the “miel d’acacia.” Spread on toast, stirred into tea, or simply licked off the spoon, that particular honey had an enchanting sweetness and a multilayered taste that lingered on the tongue. I had every intention of proudly placing that French honey in my kitchen cabinet when I returned to Australia. From Paris, I flew to New York with the four jars (packaged into a small straw basket with a tiny wooden honey-dipper), and then on to San Francisco. But when I touched down on my last stopover in Auckland, things changed.

At that moment, I learned that both New Zealand and Australia had thriving honey industries. Unfortunately, I was taught this lesson by a government official who was in the process of issuing me an “infringement notice” for failing to declare contraband material, namely my French honey. The Kiwis prize their honey production and export businesses so much that they do everything possible to protect their hives from disease. No foreign bee products are allowed in. I didn’t stay in New Zealand long enough to appreciate the national honey, just long enough to lament the loss of the French stuff.

When I finally settled down in Australia, I was determined to restock my four jars of honey. The Australian Honey Bee Industry Council explains that “most Australian honey comes from the native eucalypt box, gum, stringy bark and iron bark tree families” and that “Australia’s eucalypts in particular are good sources of honey and help give the honey its distinctive taste and density.” I showed up at Melbourne’s Slow Food festival last weekend, ready to attend a tasting workshop in the dedicated “honey room.” But I was thwarted again–the honey classes were so popular that they had filled up in minutes, leaving no room for me. I was wandering around without a beehive to call my own when I ran into the Tasmanian Honey Company stall. I chatted with one of the owners, who works with several unusual cool-weather rain-forest plants in Tasmania (which, like the islands in New Zealand, is geographically isolated enough to be home to several unique species). The company’s signature product is leatherwood honey (considered by the Slow Food organization to be an “endangered” food). Thick and as spreadable as butter, leatherwood honey has a strong molasses flavor. Some tasters have called it musky or even meaty. My first time out, I found it overpowering and preferred the Christmas Bush honey, another districtly Australian product with a milder but still rich and spicy taste. I bought I jar–just three more to go.

By way of introduction, I should explain that I am a supporter of the organic, sustainable, and slow food movements, but I am not yet an expert. I should also make it clear that while I live in Australia, I have only recently relocated from the United States and am not yet a permanent resident. I’ll soon be filing regular stories with Growers & Grocers about specific farming and food production issues that relate to Australia, but I’ve decided to use this first article to share my state of uncertainty about what defines these issues here on the other side of the world. As I become more familiar, I’ll share the information that I uncover with G&G readers.

Here are some of the resources that I’ll be relying on in the coming months:

Australian Community Foods
Biological Farmers of Australia
EcoDirectory
Fair Trade Associate of Australia and New Zealand
The Organics Directory

I grew into an everyday cook a couple of years ago when I lived in the historic Central American town of Antigua, Guatemala. The abundance of locally-grown avocados, chiles, mangos, pineapples, and other produce—together with my unstructured schedule as an expatriate living in Latin America—threw me into the kitchen for hours each day. And, in the absence of a phone book full of ethnic restaurants and supermarkets stocked with gourmet meals, I was determined to create for myself everything that I loved to eat. These days, I try to travel everywhere with a block of Scharffen Berger 70%-cacao chocolate, but otherwise I rely on locally-produced and freshly-grown ingredients.

My writing on travel, food, and the world at large has appeared in Travel + Leisure, Premiere, Time Out New York, and other magazines. I also chronicle my adventures as a chocolate enthusiast on my blog, Chocolate in Context.