These two recipes won awards in the 2003 Mediterranean Tucker Festival
In October 2003, the Australian National Maritime Museum ran a contest as part of its Mediterranean Tucker Festival. The aim was to show how Mediterranean cuisines have changed the Australian diet and how Australian conditions in turn have made an impact on Mediterranean food.
The challenge was to use just three ingredients plus three more. Three foods – wheat, grapes, and olives – dominate the Mediterranean palate. Thus, the competition was to develop an Australian version of a Mediterranean recipe, using all three of the Mediterranean staples – wheat, grapes and olives – in any of their forms, plus as many as three other ingredients of choice – a total of six.
There were two categories – main courses and desserts/cakes. I entered one recipe in each. There were 250 entries from all over Australia. Entries were judged by a panel of celebrity chefs.
For the Main course I entered a Rabbit Pie – which came second in the Main courses.
For the Dessert/Cake, I entered a Wild Lime Olive Cake which came first in the Desserts/Cakes section.
And my Wild Lime Olive Cake came first overall!
Here are links to the recipes in The Foodmakers
Please try them out and enjoy
Jeremy Ryland
(Rabbit Photo by Gary Bendig, Unsplash)