Adelaide - a food festival for the people

When you listen to Simon Bryant and Paul Henry talking about the forthcoming Tasting Australia event in Adelaide, you know it's going to be different from what has gone before.

Simon Bryant (remember the Maggie Beer TV show The Cook and the Chef? He was the chef) and winemaker and writer Paul Henry are running this year's Tasting Australia. And they reckon it's time to get real. "It's about real food," Bryant says, "and real life, not lifestyle," Henry says. And how does that translate? Start with the four top drawcards, who they call their Real Food Heroes.

"Joel Salatin (The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer) is a farmer," Bryant says, "and we've got farmers converting to Polyface systems from broadacre monoculture. Skye Gyngell (A Year in My Kitchen) was the original kitchen gardener. James Henry (chef and owner of Bones in Paris) is the future - a chef connected to the marketplace. He's doing everything in-house with a tight team in a small restaurant. And Fergus Henderson (Nose to Tail Eating), the original understand-your-heritage chef."

Typical of the loose-as-a-goose ethos of this Tasting Australia is the way Henderson is being used. He'll be working for a day with young chef Phil Whitmarsh at the Daniel O'Connell pub.

"You can wander in and have a $5 course or five courses for $25 and Fergus will be holding court at the bar so you can have a chat with him."

The other big change at this Tasting Australia is the focus on Adelaide and South Australia. Henry says, "We're not an eastern seaboard city, we don't have a large population basis, we don't have sexy destination restaurants. What we do well is produce and producers."

That's what the programme delivers, from a sheep farm in the Flinders Ranges to cleaning, cooking and preparing yabbies in the Clare Valley. In the cooking classes, Henry says, "you learn a skill rather than how to execute a recipe. And I think that's got a far more enduring benefit".

And here's something you've never seen at a food festival: Peter Morgan-Jones will be demonstrating aged-care food. "He's one of my favourite guys," Bryant says, "a real food hero. What he's doing is more important than what the San Pellegrino No. 1 chef in the world is doing, whoever that is."

Fighting words? Good. It sounds like the kind of food festival we've been waiting for.

Tasting Australia runs from April 27 to May 4. To learn more about the program see tastingaustralia.com.au or phone South Australian Visitor Information Centre on 1300 764 227 to plan your trip.