Favafest at Joe’s
Joe’s Market Garden on the Merri Creek, as many of you will know, is named after much-loved local farmer, Joe Garita.
Joe emigrated to Australia in 1937 as a twelve year old from the small village of Altomonte in Southern Italy and worked with his dad in market gardens around Melbourne.
In 1940, when Joe was 15, his dad was sent to a prison camp with 4500 other Italian “enemy aliens” for the duration of World War II.
While his dad was locked up Joe kept on farming and supported his mum.
In 1945 Joe saw an ad in the local paper for a five-acre market garden in Coburg on a bend in the Merri Creek.
With his recently released dad, he leased the garden for the princely sum of 350 pounds – it came with a one-bedroom house, two horses and a plough.
Joe was only 20 at the time – he would live on this little five acre farm, at first with his parents and then his wife, Jean, and their seven kids for the next 70 years.
One of the crops Joe’s family, and everyone for that matter in Altomonte, grew were fava also known as broad beans.
Fava grew well in the deep alluvial soil on the Merri Creek, but one of the things with fava is the larger they grow the more bitter they get, which meant people weren’t so keen on mature beans.
Wanting to sell more Joe started saving mature fava that were sweeter than the others for next year’s seed.
Over decades the fava sweetened, even when they reached maturity.
After a time Joe’s fava began selling themselves and during harvest time more and more people would eagerly appear at Joe’s fence wanting to buy five, ten sometimes twenty kilos at a time.
He would take the order, pick the beans fresh and hand over boxes generously piled high to his customers, who came back year after year to buy more.
When Joe retired and handed the lease for his garden over to CERES, one of the things he passed on was an onion bag full of his treasured broad bean seeds.
To celebrate the tradition of Joe’s fava beans and the fava’s importance to many communities, we invite you to join us at Joe’s Market Garden in Coburg for a ‘Festival of Fava’ on Saturday 26th October between 10am & 1pm.
Celebrations include the spring harvest, pick-your-own beans, farm tours, music and the wonderful Joe’s Farmgate.
Entry is free but numbers are limited so get your tickets here, where you can also book a pick-your-own fava session.
Food from the festival of lights
In a country that really knows its festivals, Diwali is the big one.
In India, for Hindu’s particularly, Diwali symbolises the spiritual “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”
Food is a huge part of this five day festival and this year CERES is holding a cooking workshop with a difference – as you will learn step-by-step techniques for each dish, from mastering spice blends to balancing flavor but you’ll also be immersed in a new culture and the history and traditions of Diwali, the Festival of Lights.
Workshop menu includes;
- Besan ki Burfi
- Palak Paneer
- Vegetable Biryani
- Daal Tadka
- Vegetable Pakora with Mint-Coriander Chutney
And as always after the cooking we sit down to enjoy the meal together.
Here’s the link to book and if it helps get you there, use this discount code INDIANFEST$10OFF
Content Creator job at Fair Food
If you follow Fair Food’s Insta or Facebook reels you’ll know Fair Food content creator Aisha Lloyd-Bonney’s charismatic hands. They’re in everything; from homemade crackers to veggie sausage rolls, surplus citrus savers to choc tahini date slices.
Thousands of people love Aisha’s work, including us, but after three and a half years of sharing stories for Fair Food, Aisha’s off up North to make a few stories of her own.
Which means Fair Food is looking for a digital content creator to work with our small marketing team.
If you love community, food, farming and falling in love with the Earth and you know your way around words, images and the digital marketing landscape then click on this link to find out more.
Applications close Oct 13th.
Have a great week
Chris
