Brand Tasmania Newsletter, March, 2010, Issue 103

Michelin-starred Spanish master chef, Paco Roncero, and Australian culinary trend-setter, Maggie Beer, have signed up for the second Savour Tasmania event to be staged in May and June. Organisers expect to announce the recruitment of several more big names to help showcase Tasmania’s finest produce at dinners and master classes in Hobart, Launceston and Burnie.

Paco Roncero is Executive Chef of La Terraza del Casino restaurant at the Casino de Madrid Hotel and also heads up Catering El Bulli within the hotel. He is regarded as one of Spain’s top 10 chefs and a pioneer in so-called molecular cuisine. He said recently: “It is very important to continue developing new techniques.”

At a recent culinary event, Roncero and a colleague extracted the water content from manchego cheese and emulsified the residue with oil, making a smooth butter to which they added carbon dioxide and methyl cellulose. They then wrapped this mixture in bok choy leaves, placed it in molds, and smoked it over grape-vine trimmings for 24 hours. The methyl cellulose gels over the heat, reforming the mixture into a spreadable cheese but with a different texture and intensified flavor. The chefs paired this cheese with tomato, tuna-ham and warm bread.

Rocero completed his studies at Madrid’s Superior School of Hotel Management and Tourism in 1990. He took less than a decade to build a reputation as one of Madrid’s most creative chefs. In 2000, Roncero was promoted to Head Chef of the Casino de Madrid and was awarded a Michelin star in 2002. He organises annual gala dinners for the Congress Madrid Fusión and has been honoured as Chef of the Future by the International Academy of Gastronomy.

Maggie Beer was named Senior Australian of the Year at an Australia Day ceremony in Canberra in January. She grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs where her parents owned a manufacturing business. Leaving school at an early age, she worked in many different jobs before finding her niche when she and husband Colin Beer moved to the Barossa Valley in South Australia in 1973. They began farming pheasants and opened a farm shop to sell the game birds. The humble shop grew into the famed Pheasant Farm Restaurant, launching Maggie on a gastronomic career spanning more than 30 years and encompassing food production, processing, exporting, cooking, food writing and TV presentation. She features in the long-running ABC TV show, The Cook and the Chef, with Simon Bryant.

After receiving her Australia Day award she said: “If I were home, I’d probably be down at Port Parham getting blue swimmer crabs [to prepare] with our own extra virgin olive oil. Simple food – I don't mean complex food – I mean food from our seasons and our area. Everyone should know about it and feel confident to get in the kitchen and have a go.”

So Savour Tasmania promises to have something for everyone in 2010. The event made a spectacular debut in 2009 with sellout dinners featuring Brand Ambassador, Tetsuya Wakuda, Singapore’s Emmanuel Stroobant and London’s Shane Osborn and Marcus Eaves. Tetsuya’s $160-a-head six-course dinner at Cambridge’s Meadowbank Estate sold out in 36 hours. Organisers were surprised by the level of local support for all the event’s dinners, tastings and master classes.

Food and Wine Writer, Graeme Phillips, was quoted in The Mercury: “The prices may seem expensive, but compared with what you would pay to eat in the establishments of some of these chefs, they are a bargain. One of the main benefits I see from events like this is that they expose the local dining clientele to the latest trends and fashions in international food and make it easier for local chefs following international trends to be understood.”

The Premier, David Bartlett, said: “Savour Tasmania provides an ideal springboard to promote Tasmania. It not only promotes our State as a food experience destination for tourists, but creates professional development opportunities for the local hospitality industry and provides a range of activities to appeal to food-loving Tasmanians. It will again bring world-class chefs to Tasmania who will use our produce to create meals in our restaurants over four days.”

Savour Tasmania is co-ordinated by the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and the Arts. Further information: www.savourtasmania.com.au