Travel: Great Southern Cuisine, Tas

By Gordon and Pamela May

Food and wine may well be two of Tasmania’s most underrated and overlooked charms. More well known for its incredible scenery, wildlife and history, the appropriately-named Apple Isle offers travellers a smorgasbord of luscious fruits and seafood. Many goodies are free, others inexpensive, but everything has an intensely fresh flavour.

Berry heaven

Our ‘Tour de Tooth’ started with a splash – of St Matthias reisling. This Tamar Valley vineyard offered superb wines, cheeses and views. Luckily we exercised restraint there – we certainly didn’t at local farms!

Hillwood Strawberry Farm, on Tamar’s west, produces luscious berries, fruit wines, sauces and vinegars. Monumental strawberry sundaes with fresh cream were meals in themselves and so delicious we picked our own $7/kg strawberries and raspberries to take away.

Already bulging with berries, we visited nearby 100 per cent organic Bilambil Berry Farm. Co-owner Cherry suggested we try blueberries. Try them? We almost inhaled them! Punnets of delicious blueberries joined our wine, strawberries and sauces.

Further east, we saw fields of hops, the basis of Tassie beers, then began discovering unsprayed blackberries on the roadside. They became a regular dessert, following feasts of mussels or oysters collected along the coast.

At picturesque Bicheno, people watched for boats returning to the harbour. Within hours there were lobsters at every little shop and, at $18-$20 each, they sold fast.

Further south we stopped to snap Spiky Bridge – and pick blackberries. A local berrying family recommended roadside stalls selling apricots near Pontypool and salad vegetables near Triabunna. Better yet, they described where to find “the State’s best oysters”.

After buying from the stalls we headed for mollusc territory. After crossing Eaglehawk Neck to scenic Tasman Peninsula, we parked on the waterfront. Sure enough there, within easy reach, were the biggest, sweetest oysters imaginable. Heaven is exquisite oysters with salad, followed by local cheese and apricots.

At Port Arthur our attention strayed from ruins to fruit trees. We were too early for chestnuts, too late for pears, but (with a guide’s approval) sampled Port Arthur plums. We later found pear, plum and apple trees in many municipal parks. Apple trees are rarely seen in orchards nowadays. Instead, the fruit is grown on espaliers.

Munching north and west, we visited Sorell Fruit Farm. The fridge was brimful of figs, berries and campfire-smoked oysters. But at Sorell Fruit Farm temptation was strong – and we are weak. Loganberries, boysenberries, tayberries, cherries… we ‘needed’ something of everything. For research purposes, we felt obliged to also buy fruit wines and a liqueur. The Tayberry wine was a favourite drop of research!

In Hobart we grazed through Salamanca Markets, trying and buying homemade biscuits and farm fresh veggies. After touring Hobart’s 1824 Cascade Brewery, we headed south to savour cheese with a difference.

Grandview Cheeses at Peppermint Bay makes organic cheeses using milk from East Friesland sheep.

Grandview

Gourmet travellers

We then called in at the historic 1860s Salmon Ponds where most pools displayed trout! However, alongside brown, rainbow, brook and albino trout ponds, Atlantic salmon were also stocked. A restaurant tempted tastebuds with salmon and camembert pancakes, smoked salmon salads and burgers.

Nibbling north, we reached Chudleigh’s Honey Farm. We succumbed to honey ice-cream and honeyed nuts, but we were also fascinated by a glass-fronted hive showing the whole honey-making process.

Near the end of our holiday we were delighted to find that we’d lost weight on the fresh fare. But that was before our final food foray at the House of Anvers Chocolate Factory and Museum, Latrobe.

‘Factory’ is misleading. D’Anvers is in a charming 1931 California bungalow. Even more charming were tastings of orange/mint/fudge/milk/hazelnut chocolates, truffles, pralines, fudges and sauces. It wasn’t easy, but we eventually agreed the orange chocolate was tops. It was fascinating to browse the museum of chocolate history and antique tools of the trade, and learn chocolate-making techniques.

However, as we waddled onto the Spirit of Tasmania we vowed that next time we’ll do the chocolate factory first and lose weight on fruit and seafood later!

Some facts:

Hillwood Strawberry Farm, Highway A8, Hillwood, (03) 6394 8180.

Sorell Fruit Farm, 174 Pawleena Road, Sorell, (03) 6265 2744, www.sorellfruitfarm.com.

Cascade Brewery, 140 Cascade Road, Hobart, (03) 6221 8300.

Grandview Cheeses, 59 Devlyns Road, Birchs Bay, (03) 6267 4099, www.grandview.au.com.

House of Anvers Chocolate Factory and Museum, 9025 Bass Highway, Latrobe, (03) 6426 2958.

Spirit of Tasmania, 132 010, www.spiritoftasmania.com.au.

Visitor websites:

www.tamarvalley.com.au

www.discovertasmania.com.au